Maginot

Nice work, here. Jeeps! There's a lot of gubbins in there. No room for blokes. You must have been orf somewhere making model aeroplanes. Can't keep up with your construction rate.

Very nice work indeed. The level of detail you are achieving is motivating.

Straight-forward construction I wrote. Yet, as soon as I tackled the first sub assembly, I was filled with doubts. The instructions prompt caution in aligning the ends of the leaf springs and what are referred to as tie rods but are in fact strut rods. These provide the main mounting points for the whole front axle assembly, supporting armour plate, steering linkages (that's where the tie rod is) and wheels. They struck me as i) flimsy and ii) difficult to position so as to guarantee correct alignment of the axle assembly. So I left attaching the strut rods until I was ready to attach the axle. I needn't have worried. Although a touch fiddly, the whole front end goes together beautifully, is pretty much self-jigging, and provides a very rigid assembly to carry the front wheels and half the weight of the model. I triple bonded all attachment points using two judicious applications of ETC then medium CA applied with a toothpick to make it extra durable. Now why, I hear you ask, did this joker paint the radiator copper? Well, it's the nearest colour to brass that I had in the paint shop and I thought it was my only option. We've been in Covid hard lockdown since 6 August (10 long weeks) and I cannot just nip out to the local suppliers. In addition, I'm still semi-immobilised. And the post is getting slower and slower for parcel orders. So I made do. After I took these pics, I remembered a gold-metallic permanent marker secreted in the odds-and-ends drawer and applied it liberally over the copper. Wow! It worked a treat. The radiator now looks very brassy, but of course it's hidden under the armour. Which begs the question; "Why do we fuss so when it's going to be hidden anyway?" Dry fitting the armour plate and the diminutive ironclad takes shape. I'm afraid this fetching little kit prompts me to utter a word I don't normally like to use. Cute: charming and attractive: attractive in a pretty or endearing way... This model looks cute, as I suspect the original vehicle looked cute. The way the kit assembles is cute; it really is a nice model to put together. But I'm sure it wasn't cute negotiating sticky mud and soft sand, freezing cold winters and blazing hot sumers, stuck in this little steel box with adversaries lobbing whiz-bangs and pinging lead your way. You'd want a calm demeanour, a good brew and one of those naughty medical cases from Harrods handy at all times. Wanting to position the driver's visor open and rear doors ajar, I thought it would be fun to fabricate a crude interior. It doesn't have to be comprehensive, for little will be seen in the dark recesses of the cab, even painted white, unless someone wants to get nosy with a fibre-optic camera. Just some basic kit and something to stop you seeing straight through to the light coming in the gaps at the front. From the rear: two storage boxes come bench seats; commander's and driver's seats; transmission cover; steering wheel and column; firewall and instrument panel. Yet to be fabricated: door handles; control levers; sliding visor covers for side ports; visor opening mechanism. Fabrics used: tool boxes and seat bases from the spares box (Lucky! It's hard to have much in a spares box when you are only three kits into the modelling renaissance); tie wire; foam from a sushi pack; an O-ring; a toothpick; high-quality plastic-coated card from a discount promo included in parcels from my local model supplier flogging cheap Aussie wines. I had a lot of fun making these bits and pieces from scrap materials. It's a very satisfying process, too. At a pinch, despite using all this plastic fantastic, I might even claim a bonus in terms of the ethics of counter-consumption and sustainable practice: repurpose, recycle, reuse, reclaim, restore.

Thanks very much, @Tbolt. That's outstanding! Hmm... those twin vertical cameras are not sharing the one port. So where is the second port? Must be RHS. And that rear mounted camera is... crazy. It's a sort of semi-oblique position. Some great weathering hints. Love the shoes the pilot is wearing. Great pics.

Thanks a heap, @Tbolt Most interesting. The K-24 cameras referred to were American, manufactured by Eastman Kodak, developed from the British F24 designed in the 1920s. They were versatile cameras which use included being paired together to produce stereoscopic negatives. It seems they were mounted very closely together but aligned slightly differently to provide a lateral overlap of 10°. So I wonder if they shared the same port? From the ADF Serials site, here's a pic of a pranged A 56-5 showing part of the belly on RHS forward of the turbocharger. There is no sign of a second camera port corresponding to the other side. I think this is a K-24 camera being installed or removed from a Lancer. Looks quite spacious in there, doesn't it? Room enough for the two K-24s required for paired stereoscopic photography. Here's the single camera port LHS bottom and erroneous rear fuselage camera blisters on the Dora Wings Lancer RAAF version, taken from their Farcebook page: Solved? Well, maybe... not sure that belly port looks big enough to accommodate two K-24 lenses. Lots of further reading is required to inform my limited knowledge of the equipment and methods used in this period. I'm fascinated by photo reconnaissance (PRU) aircraft and I much prefer to model them without the nasty guns and bombs that mess up an otherwise clean airframe. But I must say that those camera blisters on the rear fuselage are weird. What an odd spot to carry cameras. The ports seem to be facing aft and it's not a good place on an airframe for weighty equipment. No wonder we Skips gave em the flick.

Thanks for posting this, @Homebee Regarding this RAAF variant... I reckon there might be something crook. The prominent blisters near the tail. Are these the camera blisters noted as being removed on the ADF Serials site? "The first quartet of RAAF P-43Ds in Australia was modified at RAAF Base Laverton by removing the camera blisters. The second RAAF quartet, all P-43Bs, arrived with the standard two lower K-24 camera fittings." The first pic on their site clearly shows shows no blister, instead an aluminium plate in the shape blanking the void. Where were the "standard two lower K-24 camera fittings"? I've just ordered the variant in ROCAF service, cos it was on special, and intend converting it into RAAF guise. Investigating this further. addendum: Investigations suggest the K-24 cameras were fitted in the rear cockpit with ports on the underside either side of the exhaust trunk just forward of the turbocharger.

Thanks @Pig of the Week. Still largely immobilised but slowly coming good. Gagging for a walk in the bush. Yes, there is some mouth watering WW1 stuff. I hope the next step is to produce some interwar armoured cars. The Skoda is a start, but a late 20s Lanchester 6x4 would be terrific. I believe my Grandad also served with Kings African Rifles, so he must have got around, too. Alas, the details are lost to time. Thanks @Das Abteilung. Your research sure has thrown up some interesting info. Greatly appreciate you sharing these insights. I'm wondering if the pic of the model tank with the period paint is a large makers model held by the Bovington Tank Museum? Is it a model Tank Mark VIII, Liberty or International? I'm quite enjoying the bedroom time, reading and modelling, though starting to climb the walls on occasion and desperate for a walk. Yes, @Model Mate. I'm taken by the way the kit is engineered. It goes together really well and looks, dare I say it... cute?

Addendum Some of the best threads I’ve read on WWBM (wonderful world of BritModeller) have significant off-topic rants and excursions, so here goes... Is it just me that's disappointed by the generally poor state of kit boxes? After all, we expect the dust jackets of new hard-cover books to be free of damage when we buy them, don't we? I hand picked the Lanchester kit from the shelf of my favourite supplier, wrapped in cellophane, apparently mint. It was the first model I had bought from a shop since my return to modelling, so perhaps I can be excused some naivety. After peeling off the cellophane, I noticed some blunt object trauma to the lid and when I opened the box, a badly creased swing-top. As few as one-in-ten of the kits I have looked over in shops or purchased online have boxes that are mint or near mint condition. The best condition box arrived beautifully packaged from one of the Japanese online emporiums. Many, perhaps the majority of boxes sitting on shelves in local suppliers are damaged, some so badly that I wouldn't bother purchasing them (without a significant sconto). Damage in the post aside, something that is not a frequent issue with parcels in my experience, there seems to be a general lack of good packaging, careful handling and appropriate storage of these delicate items in their journey from manufacturer to modeller. The most poorly packaged model yet received. Needless to say, it was not respected by the postal services and the kit box was stoved in. Would you respect this disgraceful parcel? This is how parcel should look. Mind you, the kit box within had a nasty ding in it, damaged prior to shipping. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Meanwhile, back at the bed-bench, making good progress on the Lanchester. Today I was struck by the urge to personalise the kit by doing some scratch building. I would like to leave the front visor and rear doors open, so I’m toying with the idea of fabricating a very basic interior before I put the lid on and a few petrol cans and buckets. There! I’ve written it on WWBM and so it shall come to pass. Will update you with pics soon. Cheers very much.

Yes, quite a lot of hard work to get a high-sheen finish without a trace of orange peel. This fella gets a mirror finish from techniques starting at 14:35: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxDp3EyrBtc Where on earth did you manage to get hold of some Future polish in Oz? Great looking young Murray Cod. We have some spectacular native fresh-water fish in the south-east, e.g. close relative Trout Cod. I used to go swimming with some species in places like Piccaninnie Ponds and Ewans Ponds.

0 to 18mph in one minute? Nice work with the brass. Going to look a treat when finished.

Ooh! Very tempting. But like some others, dreaming of DAP Mk.21 conversion bits in 1/32 to complete a Brit (and Skip) fighter twin trio in 1/32.

Those seats are a master class. But what a brute of a build.

Long gone are our formative years, when we bought a kit (more likely got Dad or a rellie to buy it for a special occasion) and built it immediately, rarely having another waiting in the wings. Times have changed... Stash What's that? I too have a carefully curated collection (CCC) of the highest quality (or so I'd like us to believe). Figures in 1/35 and ancillaries like float-conversion sets don't count, do they? We're talking proper kits. With a paltry number of unbuilt kits in the low twenties, I'm not sure I even qualify to come out to play with you fellas, what with your vast air fleets, crowded vehicle parks and naval flotillas spread across the horizon. Time to complete How long is a piece of string? Probably 4-5 years to complete the current unbuilt CCC. I'm very slow. Should there be an afterlife, I'll likely still be ordering and assembling summat on me cloud or cinder. What's keeping numbers low? Discipline, comrades, discipline %~)) I have specific, somewhat esoteric interests in preferred scales that are severely restricting my choices. I will confess that every now and then I stray. I'm tempted by other favourite forms and types, and will try different scales and media. So in theory, a blowout always threatens. But in the past, I've lost about half-a-dozen CCCs to fire, shifting countries and malevolent partners; in short, an unsettled life. Do I really wanna go there again? Well yes, but cautiously and modestly. I only want enough kits to i) offer mouth-watering choice and variation in my preferred genres come next build and ii) please the eye while scattered on shelves and in cabinets, where I can keep close tabs on them. I’m really into the boxes; I find the graphics pleasing and the unconstructed contents compelling. But everything in moderation, as my old Mum would say. So growth of the CCC is most likely going to be very slow, ideally maxing out at 28 unbuilt kits then slowly reducing with diligent construction. But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! Robert Burns 1785

I'm after converting a 1/48 Hart to an Osprey seaplane. Might have to get carving. Just ordered the Aeropoxy Shorts floats conversion set for a 1/48 Tiger Moth. Scuse me for reviving this ancient thread, but it's informative.

What a lovely pair of Chipmunks. Nice work. First aeroplane I (was) ever sat in; aged 5ish, Blackpool Airport (I think), circa 1960. I sort of remember a funny smell, an uncomfortable seat and strange metal bits all around the cockpit.