MajorClanger

Revell 5" Star Destroyer kit (as you can see from the markings, which are accurately measured out!) Silliness aside, this was my first experiment at DIY decals, which worked OK although the transparent area is still just about visible.

I recently got given some GM Warhammer 40K kits to build and paint. Apart from a general request on the colour scheme (black with yellow highlights, to go with the donor's other 40K models) I was given free rein to weather them to my heart's content. I don't normally do armour but it's something I want to give a try, so this was a chance to have a go on a kit where real-life accuracy wasn't so much of a concern. GM kits are certainly a bit odd if you're used to more conventional models. There's only detail where you can see it (the underside is plain and the track wheels are just moulded semicircles), and the plastic is both soft and very thick. That said it fitted together fairly well (save for some awkward joins) and was simple to assemble, and in a nice touch the kit came with multiple options as to weaponry and whether the crew were buttoned down or heads out. I was provided with the yellow paint (GM's own Citadel range) which sprays nicely but do clean your airbrush immediately - it sets like bakelite very fast. The rest is Tamiya NATO Black for the most part, with Flat Black for the underside of the turret, and a misting of NATO Black lightened with a small amount of white on top. Shell dents were made with a soldering iron, and were either highlighted with metallic paint to simulate fresh hits or rust to represent older ones. Vallejo Metal Color Gunmetal was used for (surprisingly enough!) the gun barrels. Weathering was mainly via Lifecolor dry pigments (the rust set) and liquid pigments (the detail emphasiser and rain/dust sets). Soot was added via Tamiya Smoke or Humbruol dark modelling powder. The build isn't perfect; there are several places where lots of filling and sculpting would be needed to deal with seams, so I'm just going to say that that's where they'd be on the real thing. The rear ramp folds down so I painted and weathered the interior as well. The interior, before assembly: ...and after: Top view. Certainly an interesting learning experience in terms of trying out weathering techniques. Now I'm tempted to make a suitable display base...

Pictures here - including inside Valiant XD818's crew compartment (after queuing for 75 minutes - well worth it!) https://www.flickr.com/photos/sjbradshaw/albums/72157678518697980

A couple of years ago, after I started airbrushing, I picked up a few Alclad 2 metallic paints. They took a bit of trial and error to get used to, and seemed to need careful surface preparation, but the results looked nice. However, they need good ventilation - I normally use an extractor hood, but advice is to wear a decent facemask as well. I also saw advice to be especially thorough in cleaning your airbrush after use. Then a few months ago I was at a show and saw Vallejo's Metal Colour acrylic range being demonstrated. They looked good, so I bought a couple and tried them out. Again, a bit of care is needed, but the result seemed good and they were far less smelly and cleaning my airbrush seemed a lot easier afterwards. I've since bought several more from the range but thought I'd do a test to see how they and the Alclad 2 paints compared. This is, I must emphasise, a rough and ready test. I sprayed four different primers on some gloss while board I had spare, and then sprayed a range of Vallejo Metal Color and Alclad 2 across them. The finish isn't always good - I wasn't taking my time, and I was more interested in getting good coverage than avoiding any blemishes or runs. However, the results were quite illuminating. Primers, from top to bottom: 1) Tamiya fine white primer, from spray-can. 2) Mr Surfacer 1000, from spray-can. (none - plain white paint) 3) Vallejo gloss black polyurethane primer 4) Alclad 2 gloss black base coat (Ignore the splotches to the left, that was a quick test with some AK True Metal paste) From left to right: 1) Alclad 2 Exhaust Manifold 2) Aclad 2 Magnesium 3) Alclad 2 Stainless Stee 4) Vallejo MC Exhaust Manifold 5) Vallejo MC Gunmetal 6) Vallejo MC Magnesium 7) Vallejo MC Burnt Iron 8) Vallejo MC Steel 9) Vallejo MC Silver 10) Vallejo MC Dark Aluminium 11) Vallejo MC Semi Matte Aluminium Generally (and not surprisingly) lighter and shinier shades benefit more from a dark background. Most to some extent are affected by the nature of the primer; the least affected were the darker or duller shades such as Magnesium or Exhaust Manifold. Vallejo Silver worked noticeably better on a lighter primer. Vallejo Polyurethane Black Gloss primer is noticeably much less glossy than the Alclad 2 black gloss. The latter worked perfectly well as a base for the Vallejo acrylics. The real surprise though was the difference between the two primers when Alclad Stainless Steel was sprayed on top; the Alclad 2 base resulted not only in a darker finish but one that was visibly blue-tinted. That's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you want a hot-metal effect, but it's worth noting. Alclad Stainless Steel is much brighter than Vallejo Steel (but they are aiming for rather different finishes). Alclad Magnesium is somewhat lighter than its Vallejo counterpart; to my mind the Alclad shade is more representative of real-world magnesium, but the Vallejo shade is not unrealistic and I suppose you could use them both for contrast. Slightly to my surprise, Vallejo's Dark Aluminium came out lighter than its Semi-Matte Aluminium. Overall, this has reinforced my view that Vallejo Metal Colour acrylics work very well, but it has also prompted me to hang on to my Alclad 2 paints; they may be smellier to use and require more airbrush cleaning, but their Magnesium is a bit better than the Vallejo equivalent, and the variability of the Stainless Steel depending on the base coat gives the option of achieving some interesting effects.

"On Tuesday 7 February 2017 the Royal Air Force Museum Cosford will be marking the 10th anniversary of the award-winning National Cold War Exhibition with a special event for aviation fans." "To celebrate the 10th anniversary, visitors are invited to join Museum staff and volunteers for a special event that will see a number of Cold War aircraft opened for exclusive close up access, including the Vickers Valiant B1 and the Handley Page Victor K2." "In addition to the Victor and Valiant, other Cold War aircraft and vehicles being opened to the public for the anniversary event will include the General Dynamics F-111F-CF, Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG 21PF, Hawker Hunter F.4 (nose section), Avro York C1, McDonnell Douglas Phantom FG.1 (nose section) and the Short Brothers Belfast." "This rare opportunity to see inside these aircraft is FREE of charge for visitors. ... The Museum is open from 10am until 4pm and the event will run for the entire day giving visitors up to eight hours to climb on board and peek inside some of the Museum’s iconic Cold War aircraft." Full details here.

Very nice! (Also, your post looks fine on my Mac running Safari.)

Revell's 130mm Level 3 kit of the Imperial Star Destroyer, with a slightly off-the-wall paint job. (Wikipedia: Dazzle Camouflage) Humbrol gloss white from can, then Lifecolor black airbrushed over a lot of fiddly masking, finished with light grey wash to bring out panel lines and surface shapes a bit.

And today, the first flight of Long March 5, China's new heavy booster. Which, to my considerable surprise, was being shown live on Chinese TV, which someone was streaming online. Even more surprising, there was live rocket camera footage showing events all the way up to the separation of the payload / final stage.

Another similar view.

One of my friends has asked if I'll be doing a Luftwaffe Tie Fighter next. It's a thought...

This is what happens when I have a free weekend for the first time in ages, a Revell Snowspeeder kit that I picked up for £6 with the aim of practising some airbrush and weathering techniques, and a pile of surplus decal sheets I'd recently sorted through. Decals are mainly from 1/48 Gnat and 1/72 Vulcan. Yes, you can probably nitpick the realism of this scheme or the appropriateness of the serial, but given the subject matter I think we can probably suspend our collective disbelief a little! The kit claims to be 1/52, apparently on the basis that the full-size filming prop was about 5.3m long. It may well have been, but I suspect that, like a lot of props, it wasn't really 'full size' or properly proportioned. From the crew figures, this kit is more like 1/72 or even smaller scale. As a kit it is very easy to assemble, and in fact it lends itself to doing the top, rear and underside (the latter only a single part) separately; I assembled and painted them, and only put them all together for the final stages of weathering. Finally, here she is blatting through the Mach Loop:

Fancy having your own Canberra front fuselage? Double Mamba or Gyron Junior engine? How about a Firestreak missile, or a Martin-Baker Mk 6 ejection seat? BBC: World War Two fanatic puts Worcestershire hoard up for auction Full auction details here, with searchable catalogue. Perhaps of more interest to many, the auction includes a large pile of aircraft kits as a single lot.

Some model shops in the UK have them - Ian Allen books and models in Birmingham (next to New Street station) had them in stock the other day.

I am trying to imagine the decision-making process at Dragon that led to this. Perhaps it went something like the following: BOSS: Good news! We got the Star Wars model licence. We can start planning our new range. MINION: Excellent news, boss. So what do you have in mind? B: Well, we do a lot of 1/35 scale stuff, people love nice big detailed models, so at least one must be at that scale. M: I couldn't agree more! Obviously that should be one of the smaller items, say a snow-speeder or X-wing or... B: The AT-AT! M: .... B: Our customers would love a 1/35 Imperial Walker! M: Um, boss, won't it be a bit, er, big? N: That's just the point! Now, find out how big an AT-AT is meant to be. M: [Pokes at tablet] Er, starwars.com says 22.5 metres high. B: So at 1/35 that will be...? M: [sighs] Sixty-four centimetres. B: Make it so! Ha, that's a Star Wars reference, isn't it? M: Actually, boss, that's Star *Trek*. B: Oh - hmm, how big would a 1/35 USS Enterprise be? M: [Flees]

Lot and lots of masking...

I once went to a talk on the Isaac Newton Telescope, which was moved in the early 1980s from Herstmonceaux in Sussex to a much better observing site on La Palma in the Canaries. The speaker mentioned that part of the telescope mount was in some shipping crates that a Sea Harrier had landed on, so the INT probably holds the distinction of being the only telescope that's had a jet fighter land on it.

I've finally finished mine - pictures and some comments on the kit here: RFI - Academy 1/72 F-4J "Showtime 100" To add to my comments there: The decal sheet in my box was noticeably out of registration in places. I used it anyway but I'd suggest taking a good look at the sheet if you want to build it out of the box. The decal placement picture could do with being a lot bigger! It's not at all clear which way up some of the smaller decals are meant to go because they're little more than dots on the diagram. The review in Airfix Model World suggests removing a lot of the snap-fit locater tabs. I wish I'd done this because it might have made for a more practical assembly order, e.g. putting the aft fuselage (the bare-metal area) in last. It would have been smarter to paint the horizontal stabilisers first and then fit them! Ditto the radome. The panel lines on the wings are very shallow and pretty much disappeared under primer and one layer of paint. You might as well break off the fin pitot tubes at the outset. It saves time and disappointment later. (I ended up replacing them with fine metal tube.) The wheels are snap-fit and as such only fit in one position. I found this out after filing flat patches onto them. I just cut the mounting stub off the undercarriage legs and glued the wheels in place. Re the above, I should have done a dry-fit first. However (as other reviews have noted) I'd already found that the snap-fit is quite tight and be warned that it can actually be difficult to prise the parts apart again. There were several parts I didn't end up gluing as it was pretty clear they were staying put once assembled. Those are mostly nitpicks though. This is a nice kit that builds well and the parts breakdown is very good at avoiding seams.

Having recently returned to modelling after many years my first couple of builds were of nice clean shiny display aircraft (Red Arrows Hawk and Yellowjacks Gnat). I thought it was time to get out of my comfort zone and tackle something a bit more 'operational', so picked up Academy's new 1/72 F-4J. 20151227_Acad_72_F-4J-4.jpg by Simon Bradshaw, on Flickr Build pretty much OOB, except that the loadout is amended to reflect what the aircraft was carrying on its final mission on 10th May 1972, when Cunningham and Driscoll became the US Navy's only aces of the Vietnam War. Changes from the basic kit were as follows: - 6 x iron bombs replaced with 4 x Rockeye CBU (Eduard) - No wing tanks, just pylons - 2 rather than 4 x AIM-7E Sparrow, carried in rear wells The pylon was moulded as part of the wing tank, but it was easy to use a scriber to part it free. I also added seat upper handles by using the parts left over from the Airfix Gnat after I'd used the cockpit detailing set on that. Pitot tubes are metal tubing because the original ones, moulded onto the fin, are very easily knocked off. (Ahem.) 20151227_Acad_72_F-4J-11.jpg by Simon Bradshaw, on Flickr Despite being sold as 'snap together' the kit is very detailed, with nice fine engraved lines and a comprehensive decal sheet (although the registration on mine wasn't too great). Nonetheless it was a bit of a learning curve for me in terms of trying to do a 'proper' build and both the bare metal areas and the canopy could have been a lot better. I also wish I'd had the chance to read the build article on this kit in the latest Airfix Model World as there are some very useful hints and tips there I could have done with! 20151227_Acad_72_F-4J-15.jpg by Simon Bradshaw, on Flickr This was my first attempt at pre-shading and weathering and I'm tolerably happy with the outcome. Photos seem to show that the original aircraft didn't have excessive panel delineation anyway although the wings could have come out better; the lines could probably have done with deepening a bit first. I also probably underdid the dirt on the underside, but I thought better to be cautious than go overboard. I'd certainly recommend this kit. You could put it together quickly without painting or glue and with the supplied stickers and get an OK desk model of a Phantom, but it's very amenable to traditional modelling as well. There's a minor error in the instructions but it's pretty obvious as you'll wonder why you have bits of the cockpit left over. I found a corrected version of the manual here and there don't seem to be any other errors other than that sometimes the wrong sprue is referred to (albeit with the right part number and again it's very obvious what the mistake is). The decal guide is very comprehensive but printed rather small and some of the smaller decals are little more than dots on it with not much clue as to which way up they go. Also, Academy seem less forthcoming than, say, Airfix as to information on painting detail parts and if I built this again I'd try to get hold of a decent photo-reference book. 20151227_Acad_72_F-4J-8.jpg by Simon Bradshaw, on Flickr Overall though a nice kit and despite the 'snap-together' description it's definitely a proper model kit and not a toy. I'm more than a bit tempted to get another, learn from my experience this time round, and do it as an F-4J(UK).

Yes, I found myself thinking Austin Powers too... Elon Musk was on Twitter congratulating Bezos but also pointedly noting that getting to 100km straight up is very different from getting into orbit. That being said, the Falcon 1 first stage is going nowhere near orbital velocity at separation. What's impressive is the landing accuracy. The booster came down close to, or nearly on top of, the cameras taking the landing footage.

Elon Musk may have been getting all the publicity about his attempts to land a Falcon 9 first stage (all of which have so far ended in close-but-kerboom) but that other dot-com billionaire Jeff Bezos seems to have beaten him to it in terms of soft-landing a booster that got into space: Blue Origin First Successful Landing This video released today is a mix of flight footage from yesterday and simulation, but it does show flight, separation of the capsule, parachute recovery of the capsule and vertical rocket landing of the booster itself. (Warning: very cheesy music, but I suppose if you've flown your own rocketship you get to choose the soundtrack.)

Saw it yesterday (briefly, amid the throng of admirers!) at Telford - well done!

Very nice! Although my main interest is aircraft I've been thinking about doing a ZSU-23/4 for a while, in memory of the time I spent helping arrange logistic support of the couple of examples the RAF operate up at the Spadeadam electronic warfare range. (Obtained very second hand via the former East German Army.)

I've got this in my to-build pile; not cheap, but it looks like it will make a very nice build. One thing I've noted is that if this is meant to represent 'Showtime 100' on its final mission then the weapons loadout is not quite right. There's a fair bit of discussion online regarding previous kits of this aircraft and it seems reasonably clear that the fit should be: Centreline tank No wing tanks (but pylons still fitted) 2 (not 4!) x Sparrow, in rear fuselage wells 4 x Sidewinder 2 x CBU-100 Rockeye II cluster bombs on each triple ejector rack (left and right on each rack, middle vacant). There's some debate over how many Rockeye were carried on the final mission (4 or 6). Consensus seems to be that 4 was the normal fit for carrier ops and that if 2 rather than 3 were fitted to a TER then the bottom middle slot was left vacant, both for clearance reasons and because this fitted the default sequencing of weapons release.

Thanks both - very helpful! Yellow it is then...

I'm building the Airfix 1/48 Gnat, to be painted up in the Yellowjacks scheme. I chose to build with flaps down, but the instructions are silent as to how to paint the exposed portions of the wing interior and flaps (see picture). I've searched online but haven't been able to find any good photos of Gnats showing this area. Looking at other Gnat model builds I've seen this done variously as bare metal, white/grey or the same colour as the rest of the flaps. Any suggestions as for the right colour (or colours if the wing and flap portions should be different) for Gnats in general and the Yellowjacks scheme in particular?