Angus Tura

Pat. You mad impetuous fool... I have finished one unicraft model, their MiG Skat. I did it with its wheels up and would strongly recommend that. It solves many of the laughable flaws of unicraft kits at a stroke. Paint the cockpit; assemble; cover everything, especially wheel wells with epoxy putty; put in a warm place. Then, carve and sand approximate desired shape out of blob of resin and putty; paint; stick on transparency; insert stick underneath; enjoy approbation of fellow blitz(en)ers. The MiG Skat took me about six months...so, I don't see how you can possibly go wrong. Alan

Pappy, This is looking very nice. I've put mine in KUTA XIII. How did you get the thread moved? That is, where/how do I ask Enzo? Alan

I did not know that these were in Gulf War I. Had I known I might have been tempted in 1/72 scale. However I'm going for this: I have found a photo online (i.e. for free!) of this particular tank (Royal Scots Dragoons) to help with the weathering. Looking forward to this: strictly OOTB (honest,) so as to finish on time (really!) Alan

Please put me down for this. Alan

This has been passing me by Col. Looking good but also something like hard work. It does look a bit more bearable that the Amodel. Alan

Enzo, I've started one thing (Revell 1/72 BAe Hawk GB DNF) in KUTA XIII and had not realised that one could transfer a thread to do that until reading this thread. Could you also transfer this IS-3 from Journey's End GB into KUTA XIII?: www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235076596-is-3/ Thanks v. much, Alan

Hi. This is a DNF from the Jadar-sponsored Revell BAe Hawk T.1 GB, which finished yesterday. I'm keen to keep some momentum going. This is the link: www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235082618-blow-in-hawk-t1/ Here's the airframe stuck together The fit is pretty poor and I've put epoxy putty in the worst holes tonight: These are actually holes/slots I made myself to get rid of a step where the wings fit to the fuselage. Here are intakes before and after. Alan

Hi and sorry: a DNF. Here's the wings on. The front clamp is holding them on and the back-clamp is closing the step in the fuselage. The fin is a bit deviated to starboard. You can just about see it here. So I've splinted the fin open, blobbed in a bit of tube glue, pulled it over with tape and left it overnight, and it doesn't look too bad. Unfortunately that's as far as I've got. Not even close! Thanks very much for the groupbuild which I've really enjoyed. I hope we can do this next year, but let's pick a kit that doesn't have a terrible windshield. Alan

Thanks...I'll need about a fortnight...I'll get my coat...see you in KUTA. Alan

I'm glad you asked that question, Stu. I've wasted a lot of time on the terrible windscreen and would really appreciate an extension also. How about it, Mr.Pureness? Alan

Hi. Just a second go at fitting the new windscreen. More clingfilm, tamiya tape and Magic-sculp. I've started dealing with all the various seams with Magic-sculp and Zap-a-gap with Zip-Kicker. Manana, Alan

Another partial success, Professor Piehead. Here's the windscreen in the jig with a wedge shaped bit of plywood to do the reshaping. It's been shoved in and then held with an X-Acto clamp, 15" of hairdryer, and its about half-way there, It would need a lot of polishing as the heat clouds the "glass" but I thought one more shove and it'd be there. Unfortunately no amount of polishing would get rid of this crack: I should have thinned it out on the inside before starting this. I wish I had a bunch of other rubbish windscreens to try this out further. But I don't. So, Plan B.: Sacrifice of Italeri/Revell Hawk kit for the windscreen. It's a shame. However I was willing to part with the whole kit for £2. So, not the end of the world. It's not a million miles from the Revell one. Here it is taped on, and here it is with the gap at the front Magic-Sculped. The windscreen is protected with clingfilm. Incidentally, I've glued the fuselage up which has made me feel less bitter. I don't think that this is going to get finished on time! Alan.

Looking lovely. There is a really nice Alclad opportunity on Lightnings, being that theyre pretty shiny but the nose ring is even shinier. The wings look good. I say that because I built one of these in a club groupbuild a lot of years back, and finding a non-warped wing was not easy, to put it mildly. What squadron is it going to be? Mine was 29sq Leuchars and I think that's hard to beat. It's in the past tense because I just cannot be bothered sticking the broken u/c leg together...again... Alan

Is there any news of a/the MiG-19P/PM? Alan

...but, Do think anyone, in their right minds, will notice?

I do beg your pardon, Your Honour. I must have been momentarily distracted by a centurion Mk.5, or something. I don't know if I can be bothered altering them to be accurate! Do you think anyone will notice? Alan

Me too just now on log in. Windows Edge Alan

Later! I've made up a little jig with a bit of wood, matchsticks and epoxy resin. There are grooves cut in the wood to allow for the tabs on the windscreen and matchsticks to hold the starboard side of the windscreen still, and to hold down the windscreen. There's a fourth matchstick on the port side approximately in the right place to fit the sills of the cockpit. When the glue is dried tomorrow I'm going to make a wedge shaped bit of plywood to push out the windscreen to the matchstick on the port side. I haven't tried this with such a thick bit of transparency before. I'm hoping that I can push the wedge in a little, clamp it with a berna clamp, heat it up, cool it down, shove in the wedge a bit further, and so-on, and gradually persuade it that resistance is futile. We'll see. I do have the still unsold Old-Revell/Italeri version whose windscreen looks OK. Whether it would fit, I dunno. It has certainly slowed things down a lot. I'm working next weekend and might struggle here. Here's the fuselage ready to close up: There's quite a bit of lead shot epoxied in and a painting handle above the jet pipe. There's a bit of masking tape to protect the jet pipe from scratches. I've blanked off the weird little holes on the rear fuselage. Did any one answer the question as to what these are? It passed me by if they did. An annoying day! Angus: really a bit bitter.

"...still finish on time," he said lightly. I thought to have a pleasant day yesterday putting this together and instead got some glue on the outside of the front instrument panel shroud and had to do it again. So, today this, and this, and this, I've painted inside the intakes and between them and the fuselage before putting them on. and then, THE HORROR, THE HORROR! The same windscreen trouble as Pappy, Paulio, Little H (although Little H wisely doesn't seem too fussed,) Mr.Head and all have had. I've now got a lot more sympathy with Pappy's view that he shouldn't have to fix this in a modern kit. Just very annoying. However, having committed to this and stopped the Centurion Vietnam Build for it, I am bleeding determined to finish. More later. Alan

Thanks Mr.Olmec. You're right about the scheme being quick. I've crashed into the windscreen issue, however, and I'm well cheesed off. Angus

I pretty much agree with what Pat just said. GBs. I think the selection is pretty good: of the nine "winners" next year seven would allow air, sea, land and civilian subjects. I'd like to see fewer builds which might last for longer? I know I'm a chronic non-finisher, but I don't think I'm alone. I think seven sounds like a good number. STGBs. I think these are largely OK too. They are always going to be slanted towards aircraft I suspect. I wonder whether it would be better if all of them started six months, or some other set time, after they achieve the right number of votes. I suspect that the group of people building for one STGBs might vary quite a lot from the group building for another. In that case, multiple STGBs going on contemporaneously would not be much of a problem. I would say that I'm pretty new here and have thought that Group Builds is the most accessible bit of Britmodeller. So, to a degree anyway, I'd say it isn't very broken and doesn't need much fixing. Thanks to all those running this show, Alan

Dennis, It's a shame. However, there are many possibilities. I was planning this for the Gulf War GB: A scottish-ish Challenger 1. The builds I had thought about for the British AFV build would fit in elsewhere: Africa (Sherman Mk.2, Alamein,) and Anything but injection (Zebrano Humber A/C Mk.4, Saigon 1945). Alan

Another beaut, Patrice, Alan

That's a prettty nice result given the difficulties you describe, Mr.O. I'm sorry but, like Henry Ford, I like black. Alan

That's alright then... Hello. Progress has slowed but not stopped. Quite a bit of painting done but getting a bit sidetracked also: I hate doing the same bit of a model twice: it's such a waste of time. However, I put some decal red placards on the ejector seats. I've cut these out of a sheet of fantasy printshop red. In this photo it looks red but in reality it was a muddy sort of maroon because there's no white backing on the decals. So, I've taken them off and replaced with these cut from the spare fin-flashed on the Hannants Hawk sheet. These look much better to me, in spite of the fact that they look very much the same to the camera. The yellow stripe under the seat-cushion is strips cut from a microscale yellow stripe set. The seats just need a wash and a bit of shading and should look OK. I've certainly been in the situation before where I've practically finished something and left the ejector seats till last...and never got finished. The other hold up right now is the instrument panels. These look a lot better with a bit less magnification (honest!) I've painted the details with oils and of course they, especially white, take forever to dry. I've painted some spots on the back to test when it's dry. I painted four spots on the panel on the right. So, it hasn't dried yet. I can keep going with the missiles and undercarriage and hopefully still finish this on time. Thanks for looking, Alan