dromia

Exactly my point there are times when hosing it on is what is required just as there are times when building up thin coats is what is required, I have thinned MRP even further to get those very thin ghost coats. My point is that MRP is very thin to start with so limits your ability to choice how thin your paint is so less flexible than Mr Colour which is thicker to start with so has more opportunity for getting just the right ratio of paint to thinner for your needs for a particular task..

Aye this enamels smell and long drying time is another internet fallacy. Like the need for a gloss varnish for water slide transfers. The choice of thinner is the key, not all white spirit is the same. Colourcoats do an excellent odour free enamel thinner, I use nahptha for most on my thinning and works very well and is touch dry in 15 minutes and I am happy to mask and paint over in half an hour. Works with my Colourcoats, Humbrol, Xtracolour and Precision paints enamels. Dabbling with cellulose paints like MRP and Mr Colour at the moment, good paint but the thinner does stink, I have a good extraction booth and wear a particulate/vapour mask as a matter of course when working but one whiff of the cellulose thinner and I get a cough so nasty stuff but good paint, the MRP is bit on the thin side so limited to certain uses, Mr Colour is thicker, so much more versatile for thining to the consistency for the particular task. Gave up on "acrylics" (another misused and confusing internet term) I am talking the water based paints here, as a fiddle on too far, finicky, prone to tip dry, fragile, and creates a nasty dust when sprayed so although less smell a mask is still essential. Just do a search and see all the "fixes" for using water based acrylics and that tells you that they are not plain sailing.

I use the Swann Morton scalpels and blades, they are the sharpest out there and hold their edge best of the lot in my experience but in saying that any blade so finely sharp will soon loose its keenness. For run of the mill work I like the Swann Morton hobby blades not quite as sharp as the scalpel blades but they do resharpen well. There are some good handles for scalpel; blades out there now with grippier plastic handles if the more traditional metal handles are not to your ergonomics. Working with a dull blade is a false economy

The evilbay advert is a little bit disingenuous. At first glance it would seem to be £1.75 per bottle plus £1.88 postage which looks good. However upon looking at the postage details it is £1.88 postage on the first bottle then £0.63p per bottle and that is using Royal Mail 2nd class there after so the real cost per bottle is £2.38, not so good a price as it seems at first. They are gouging on the postage or lying about the real price per bottle and trying to claim it back of the postage, either way that is disreputable in my book. Sovereign for instance can send 12+ tins of enamel for £4.50 Parcel Force 48, so there is no way that 12 bottles of this stuff costs £8.81 to post! I don't buy from evilbay myself as a matter of principle and dodgy adverts like this is one of the many reasons why. Now if a reputable hobby shop stocked them that would be different and I could be tempted to try a bottle or two for detail brush painting.

I have a book Renaissance Warfare by George Gush based on a series of articles in the Airfix Magazine back in the day. The articles were written with the wargamer/modeller in mind. Reading the original articles peaked my interest in Renaissance Warfare and was/is my go to source for helping me build such miniatures.

I enjoy shooting my matchlocks, surprisingly accurate out to 80 yards or so if the ball is driven hard. The lack of useful sights is a the biggest draw back to accuracy not the firelocks themselves.

What has already being said about the melted runners, especially if there is going to be a need for re-scribing re-riveting as the melted plastic has the same properties near enough as the original plastic. You may want to look at Tamiya airbrush cleaner as it seems to have the same properties as their extra thin but is a lot cheaper and makes fine melted runners. I use clear runners for my filler as it seem the purest and for some reason doesn't get many air bubbles, it can be coloured with a few drops of cellulose based paint. The only water based filler I will use is milliput as it sticks to the surface the other I have tried like perfect? and vallheyho are no better than polyfilla in my experience, prone to coming loose and goes soft if rewetted. For bigger jobs Iike knifing putty or 3M acryl putty they are cellulose based adhere to the plastic and can be smoothed out with cellulose type thinners on a cotton bud. I won't use superglue as it just seems to go everywhere but where it is wanted and then promptly sets rock hard.

Very neat indeed. I do like these Airfix figures, made quiet a few over the years and keep coming back to them I never knew that Ted Heath used to be in the Sealed Knot.

These Tamiya extra thin work-a-rounds that we are concocting just highlight its lack of efficacy for any sort of join other than small parts that won't be touched or put under even the slightest stress.

Thank you for the replies and suggestions but all those bottled glues are just too runny for what I am seeking, just good old fashioned tube cement consistency The Tamiya regular is again too thin and just seems and expensive version of my thinned home made fillet but by doing it myself I have total control over its viscosity. As I have said I am well served with liquid cements with Slaters Mek Pak, Plastic weld and my home brew MEK and acetone and now my thinned melted runner filler in lieu of a decent tube glue. Just would like the convenience of buying a tube when needed. I would never buy Tamiya extra thin again for gluing its joins are just too fragile even for a liquid cement.

When it comes to liquid cements I find Slaters Mek Pak to be far superior to the extra thin for general use, Plastic weld when I require something more aggressive and finally my home brew 1/2 and 1/2 Methyl Ethyl Ketone and Acetone when the "nuclear" option is called for. As I have now adopted the practice of wearing a vapour and particulate full face mask when modelling and have my spray booth extractor running smells are no longer a concern for me. My rule of thumb is the more brutal the aroma the greater the efficacy.

As there seems to be no thicker brand of tube cement I have made up a batch of my own by thinning down my favourite filler, clear plastic runner off cuts melted in Tamiya airbrush cleaner, this stuff seems the same as Tamiya extra thin (which I used up for melted plastic filler when I discovered its poor sticking qualities) at a lot less cost, £7.92 for 8 7/10ths fluid oz the extra thin at £4.78 for 1 4/10ths fluid oz. Your prices may vary. The home made "tube" glue works well enough. The only down side is the surface dries of rapidly giving stringing so application in small amounts at a time is best and it does the job admirably. No doubt there are better solvents for this melted plastic glue purpose but I wanted to use what I had and did want to waste my Slaters Mek Pak on this. I have some neat MEK so may try this when I get some more decanted from the gallon container.

The Contacta is very similar to the Faller products I use, again it lacks the body that I seek in a tube glue although no doubt giving a far better bond that the Tamiya.

Thank you, Testors doesn't seem available much here in the UK. The Humbrol works but is too thin, I like a thicker glue that stays in place and is handy for holding part in place whilst drying. As I said the Tamiya product creates a very weak join in my experience, probably a trade of tween its fast drying and flash off times giving a very shallow bond that is easier separated. Looks like I will just have to make up my own,

I am a big fan of tube glue for modelling especially for structural joins finding Tamiya extra thin for instance worse than useless giving me too many sprung seams just by work handling and wee parts just falling of for no reason other than poor adhesion. Yes I am gluing plastic to plastic not plastic to paint or paint to paint I am actually pretty fastidious about getting gluing surfaces clean and well mated. I was coming to the end of my supply of Gloy tube cement so went to the nearest model shop to buy some tube cement and came away with an example of what they had, Humbrol. I must say I am a little disappointed in its viscosity, it is very runny in fact it is almost a tube version of the Faller Expert glue I use as a half way house 'tween my liquid cement of choice Slaters Mekpak and the Gloy. The Humbrol melds the joins well just 'tis too runny. Any one know a current brand of tube glue that is a bit stiffer than the Humbrol?

Thanks for the suggestions, I suspect such societies are pretty thin around where I am, anyway being asocial I far prefer remote human contact, letter and print preferred but email is fine too. I prefer to visit as few web sites as possible nowadays life is too short for frittering it away "surfing" the web.

Thank you, that title seems pretty scarce now. It is on my list and one will come along someday.

Thank you, another book, great. I have ordered copies of the two Admiralty Trawlers volumes. Thank you for the link, I try and keep my internet presence to the bare minimum nowadays so will resist the temptation to look at the site.

Oooooh! Books! I can see this wee thing could lead me on the rocky road to ruin. Jaunty little vessels aren't they. Reminds me of the image I get in my head when reading Masefield's "salt-caked smoke stacks" in Cargoes. Any information on paint schemes? Thank you for the help, looks like 'tis only you and I that seem to have have an enthusiasm for these forgotten Liliputians.

Thank you, I am coming from a near zero knowledge base when it come to naval.

I am no naval modeller although I was keen sailor in my youff but the last plastic ship kit was back in the early sixties when I was a bairn. Looking at these diminutive Eagle kits in the trove I am minded to put one of the Lilac models together, my maritime attraction always being to these unsung work horses of small ships who seemed to be steady away allowing the Fleet giants to strut their stuff. Probably due to me coming from a small Highland fishing village and having spent time fishing and sailing on water both salt and fresh Anyway consider me a tyro and has anyone any advice on references, building, detailing(?), improving, painting, these diminutive models before I have at it with my 8" bastard file and rip saw. I am minded to put her in a seascape, perhaps moored to a buoy. I am sure there are much better kits to this scale nowadays but they don't hold the nostalgia that the striking "Eagle" logo has.

My preferred primers are Stynylrez as it comes or Mr Surfacer 1500 thinned 1 to 1 with levelling thinners. Both self levelling, robust, have some micro filler qualities and sand well. I usually go for black as I like to build up my finish in thin mottled layers to give some depth to the final colour finish.

As I said in my post the difference the MAC valve makes for me is that it allows a finer spray than just reducing the pressure alone, the airbrush and paint mix will need a minimum pressure to atomise the paint and spray well, go below that and you will not get the atomisation and 'twill spit and grumble. With the MAC valve I can set my lowest working pressure on the compressor and then use the MAC valve to reduce the volume of air this gives me an atomised spray finer than the lowest pressure will, as I said I like to spray small and close up so this facility is a great asset for me. If you are more a stand back and hose it on just to get the colour down then adjusting the volume really won't give you much difference within those parameters and just using the pressure to get the optimum spray for you paint and application. I am sure that the vast majority of airbrush using modellers do very well with out an air volume control and in the majority of cases it is of no value. That is probably why most airbrushes don't have MAC valves it is not essential to getting a good spray.

Forgot to add that the Procon Boy nozzles and needles are a tad cheaper to replace than the Iwata ones, however it is unlikely that you will need to replace them due wear. User abuse is the most common fault methinks.

I use a 0.18mm nozzle in my Iwata Custom Micron and I use this brush for everything, currently doing a 1/32 project, this nozzle size has made all my other airbrushes almost redundant including my 0.2mm Efbe's and my Iwata Hi-Line HP-CH 0.3mm nozzle. I do have a 0.5mm Creos Procon Boy PS 290 for those odd occasions when I need to hose on the paint in short order. I think more people should consider the smaller nozzles as they are almost designed for our hobby and are no more difficult to use than any other airbrush in my experience spaying my chosen enamels with aplomb as well as the odd lacquers and Tamiya "acrylics". As has been said the Procon Boy airbrushes are excellent value, although not half the price of a comparable Custom Micron, my CM-B was £80 more than the Procon Boy PS-771, both have the shiny finish. The reasons I went for the Iwata was that it is a smaller airbrush sans the MAC valve so better ergonomics for me but when It comes to performance I have no doubt that the Procon Boy deloivers as well as the Iwata. For me small is beautiful when it comes to airbrush nozzle/needles.