davecov

The Hornby/Airfix brand manager Darrell Burge died suddenly on Wednesday 10th February and I imagine that the Hornby set-up is in a state of shock and flux right now. It is going to be a difficult task to reorganise things after his loss and I would imagine that some things are of a higher priority than others with the forum and the workbench blogs being quite a way down the list of things to do. Dave

Before this Heller GB, I had only ever built four Heller kits in my entire modelling career, apart from three Heller ships that I made for Airfix in 2005. This is also my first Britmodeller GB despite having been a member for almost 14 years! So far in this GB I have completed two Heller cars, a ship and a tank. I also have a plane ready for the paint shop. If real-life hadn't got in the way of things, I would probably have finished that too. This GB has been an inspiration and one of my kit purchases during it is the Heller 1/8 Citroën 15 Six Traction Avant (80799)! It had always

Very sad news indeed. I have known him since 2006 and his love of all things Airfix was well known. He was very supportive when I set up my own modelling forum at the time of the Humbrol/Airfix crash in 2006 and that quickly morphed into The Airfix Tribute Forum. Over the years he asked me to build many models for the Airfix company and I last saw him at SMW, Telford, 2019 to hand over a build he had commissioned. This picture sums up Darrell - smiling, wearing the Airfix brand, at Telford. I had written to him just the other day and assumed that he was too busy to reply imme

According to Scalemates, the Heller Golden Hind is incorrectly marked as 1/200 but is 1/96 and a reboxing of the Revell one. The Airfix kit is 1/72 scale. Dave

Hi Pat. Thanks for asking! I did make a little more progress with the front of the engine glued on and all filling and sanding is complete. I was then ready to start painting but real-life has got in the way of this build. My modelling den is a tip and I doubt if I will be back modelling again for a little while yet. Whenever that is, the Arado will be finished! Dave

Already a thread going on this. Dave

I've yet to have a rummage around but I like that you can choose any of the 12 Hornby-owned brand websites from the dropdown box at the top left. This applies to all 12 brand websites so it is much easier to go from one to another. As for the rest, it is obviously having some teething problems so I will re-visit it in a week's time. No great rush for me, especially the shop as I have a stash over 300 Airfix kits to keep me going for a while. Dave

Just a little report to let you know this build hasn't been forgotten. I was away from home for 12 days and only got back to the bench a couple of days ago. When I finally got to work on this build again, I applied some filler around gaps between the fuselage and wings and left it to dry. Last night, I started sanding the filler and the wings made a loud cracking noise and the join on the starboard side broke apart. I glued and clamped the join and I will fill and sand it again tomorrow, hopefully with no further dramas: That is all for now Dave

Final report now. Although around eighty percent of Somua S35s had no radio during WW2 and despite the fact that the particular machine portrayed in the kit didn't have one either, I decided to knock one up. I punched out some discs of plastic card and these were glued together with small spacers inbetween. I then glued them to a piece of plastic rod: As it turned out, the brass rod was too thick once painted so I replaced it with a thinner piece of rod. Matt varnish was applied where necessary and it is now finished:

My fourth contribution to this GB, the Heller 1/72 Somua S-35 Tank (79875) You can read about this build here. Dave

I have both the Airfix and MPC boxings in my stash and both are flash free but there are a few seams and ejector pin marks to sort out. As @Work In Progress says above, the mould hasn't been thrashed in the same way as the TR4A. I have just dug my Airfix Red Stripe boxing out of my stash: Some parts are loose and as I didn't want to risk losing any, I have left them in the box. The plastic is hard, white plastic whilst I can imagine the re-release being the softer grey Airfix use now. Dave

I can finally report more progress. Having repainted the yellow camouflage, I repainted the H30 Dark Green: The tracks were dry-brushed with H56 Aluminium: Exhausts and tracks were fitted. Sadly, the paint on the tracks came off in chunks as I fitted them and I had a bit of work tidying them up. I also applied the decals which were awful. The blue on some of the transfers disintegrated on touching the water: Here you can see where I painted a rough blue spot where the kit decal should have been. The hull has been weathered and given a co

MPC also boxed the Airfix kit complete with chrome wheels: Dave

Despite @JamesP imagining that I have a bottomless wallet, my days of purchasing rare Airfix cars at collector's prices is now over. Simple reason is that I have them all. However, I will do my duty and purchase a couple of the 420 re-release - it would be rude not too! Mind you, my wedding car was a Mk10 Jag so this kit does give me some unwelcome flashbacks! Dave

Flying the flag for the "floaties", I will take part and my build will be the Heller 1/400 Colossus/Arromanches aircraft carrier converted to represent HMAS Sydney. Although I do have some reference material and books, I am quite unprepared research-wise so there is the possiblility that I might not finish it in time. We will just have to see how I get along! Dave