Angus Tura

Paul, this is a nice idea, and quite generalisable if that's a word. Please put me down for this, Alan

Rich, That is very nice. I presume it's a 1/48 unusual thingy? Is it the heritage conversion? Alan

Good Morning. This is a real thing but never flew, and I think was never completed. Dennis tells me its OK for this GB: After taking opinion here at Britmodeller, I've bought the various RAAF interior greens. One of my local shops has stocks of the new Tamiya lacquers which I had hoped to try out but they don't have anything like XF-5 or indeed any bright green. Are these new? Or, just new in the UK? Has anyone tried them? Here are the bits and pieces: The Red-roo resin looks to be very good quality. The Academy Mustang has a few problems but it doesn't have the hideous Tamiya/Airfix canopy/windscreen sticking issues. More shortly, Alan

Thanks Wez. That was what I hoped you meant. I think its got to be a 19 squadron mustang in Peterhead for me, Alan

Wez, I am all up for this but am struggling to understand the dates. Do the rules mean: ETO: 8/4/45 to15/8/45 and PTO: 8/5/45 to 15/9/45 or is it: ETO 8/4/45 to 8/5/45 and PTO: 15/8/45 to 15/9/45 Or something other? Pardon the density. Alan

Hmm, Mr.Lemur. When I say little Turas, I mean younger Turas: these are 18 year old twins, one female. I don't think a couple of starter kits will do it. I'll try to get them to child-mind each other. To build, I'm going to pick up a Belcher Bits Polaris A1/A2. My last blitzbuild failure has now progressed to this: In the spirit of Blitzbuilds, breakfast = that pot of espresso in the background. The Polaris needs its decals and a little detail painting and to be stuck together: only a month late! However I have learnt a lot for the next try: need white primer; mask and spray the roll markings. Alan

Hi, Please add me in. Maybe a mustang. Maybe a car. Thanks, Alan

Hi. That is a great model and setting. Very, very good. Alan

Hello. This does seem a nice kit but there are a couple of issues with fit that I hope I've fixed up. There's a gap between the cockpit floor and side wall. It's hard to understand why some kits have this sort of problem: the floor has just been molded the wrong size. Anyway, the fix is quite easy with some plasticard stuck to the floor and then shaped to fit the curve of the floor: There is a more subtle problem with the wingroot: As it's molded the wing root fillet is a bit higher than the wing and so pretty easy to fill after assembling, except just in front of the flaps where the wing is higher than the wing root. I think this would be a major pain in the neck to get right after the wings are assembled to the fuselage. I've pushed the wing down with a clamp and glued it like that with a bit of sprue in between the wing surfaces. Unfortunately I didn't appreciate this until I'd started to glue the top and bottom wing surfaces together or I could have thinned down the top surface more. It would have been easier to reshape the upper wing surface then. Gluing it to the wheel well and at the trailing edge helps quite a bit with this. and now the wing root fillet is a bit higher throughout: This is at the cost of having the, already thick, trailing edge a bit thicker still. I don't want to sand the exterior surfaces at the trailing edge because of the nice detail on the flaps. I'll live with it. More shortly, Alan

Hi, So, having got this to the point above I found a big gap: I couldn't really live with this with the cockpit open, but didn't have any epoxy putty to deal with the problem. So it is now dealt with. I built up the floor to the sides and used the wings to guide a cocktail stick to shape the putty and then carved it back to fit with the fuselage : Then a couple of sausages of magic-Sculpt to the fuselage and using the cockpit floor to shape those: The clingfilm draped over the floor before taping on the fuselage stops the putty sticking together. Then plenty of carving and sanding and it's done: What a kerfuffle! Alan

Mrs.Tura too is working on 27/12/19 but I have little Turas running about the place demanding input, for god's sake! Alan

Donner und Blitzen-build! This is going to be a very delicate negotiation with the Chatelaine of Tura Towers... ...but great idea. Is next May also on, Enzo? Alan

Patrice, Thanks. I'm relieved that all that transparency-polishing hasn't gone to waste, groupbuildwise, Alan

Patrice, I wonder if you can accept this: The reason I wonder is that I started it in the Sharkmouth GB. I think it's less than 25% complete but let me know. I wanted the canopy open and have spent quite a bit of time sawing the windscreen and canopy apart and sanding the spine and quarterlight windows to let the canopy fit properly. I've also built up the canopy rails to support the canopy: The glazing still needs some polishing. Otherwise the current state of play is this, albeit I'm going to replace the exhausts, seat and pitot with some after-market: I hope you'll think this is OK, but please let me know, Thanks, Alan

Answer: No! I could not find my Tamiya white primer. The last entry was a bit of a high point in this group build for me. Sorry I forgot to put my watch in these pictures. They were taken at ~11pm. They were shortly followed by the call to go and do a bit of Leeds-fest taxi-ing. Got back to prime, albeit in Grey: This was 1am-ish. So, just before my first 12 hours was up. It was also just before the call from work! So now it is not 12-hours-to-finish time, unfortunately, but go-to-bed for-a-snooze time. I'm sorry. Yet another blitzbuild-fail for me. Are there two again next year? I hope so. I love it. The Polaris is a great little kit which I can thoroughly recommend. It is ideally suited to blitzbuilding too, I should say. See you in May, Blitzoids. Alan