PeterB

Rather more progress today. Both undercarriages, wings and engine nacelles completed. Before I glue the wings on I need to tidy up a few seams. Not entirely impressed with the wheels - it is good that they can be added later on but they don't appear to have the usual locating pips on the legs so fit will perhaps be less than positive. More of a problem is that although Airfix show them being added before the legs go on, the wheels are slightly weighted so to really work they need to glued on/aligned after the legs are in place together with the tail wheel otherwise the alignment of the "flat" will be down to guesswork I would have thought. The engine exhaust assembly is a bit fiddly though 3 sets seem to have worked fine - the other may need a little careful bending. As I think another modeller has found the blanking piece for the landing light cut-out in the starboard leading edge is not a very good fit and will need careful filling. Nearly ready for primer. Pete

Life continues to throw up complications so progress has been rather slow. I have competed the fuselage though I imagine a coat of primer will show up some more work to be done. I have also made a start on the undercarriage. I have only done one side so far but it went together better than I expected. One minor problem/irritation was the number of small "tabs" or whatever that Airfix now seem to be attaching to the parts on the sprue as you can see in the shot below. I suspect some have probably already fallen off but there are still seven left on the two legs. They are a bit of a pain to detach and clean up and in the case of the one at the bottom of the leg it would be easy to cut too much off as indeed I seem to recall another modeller doing a while back. These seem to be a fairly recent addition to Airfix sprues though I have seen them on one or two other fairly recent releases - I don't know if they are caused by some change in the way Airfix moulds the parts - any ideas? I am beginning to doubt I will get this completed before the deadline but we will see. Pete

Saddened to hear about that. I have only used one of David Parkin's kits though that was a big one - his Lincoln conversion and that was very good. When I opened the box I found I had two duplicate engines so I contacted him and he promptly sent a replacement for the other wing. He will undoubtedly be missed. Pete

PVA glue such as Krystal Kleer works quite well though it does tend to dry a bit "concave" at times and you have to coat it with varnish as the slightest contact with water turns it white again. Humbrol Clearfix is messy to use as it dissolves acrylic paint and decs, but dries flatter and clearer in my experience. I have never tried "Glue n Glaze" but I gather it works well too. Pete

I am not too worried about completing the NF.30 before the deadline so depending on how I feel I may have a shot at "improving" the undercarriage or even buying an AM replacement - time will tell. I have buttoned-up the fuselage and am waiting for the Milliput on the rear of the bomb bay to harden before I start cleaning it up. Pete

For a variety of reasons my last couple of months have been rather "complicated" and as a result I have neither had the time not the inclination to do any modelling. Hopefully things are now beginning to improve so I have finally made a start. Under the circumstances I will keep it simple and will build straight out of the box except of course for correcting the error with the bomb doors. As I mentioned earlier I will also be refurbishing my old Matchbox NF.30 so here it is. When I built it I was going through a phase of building wheels up, but I intend to try and add an undercarriage this time round as I have managed to find the u/c from an unbuilt Frog B.IV in one of my spares boxes. They are not included in the above pic but I also have the wheels, mudguards, doors and tailwheel. By modern standards it won't be very accurate but it will fill a gap in my collection. More as and when. Pete

Hi Thomas, As mentioned earlier on another thread, for some reason all the model paint manufacturer's takes on the gris-blues seem to be somewhat darker than colour profiles and restored/preserved planes I have seen suggest. I have no idea which is correct but I too usually end up lightening both colours a bit. Your take looks good to me. Pete

A few years ago I was painting a batch of Hurricanes, including a "IID" in desert scheme and pics showed that also had the colours reversed/transposed. I did a bit of research and came across a mention somewhere that besides the "normal" A and B "mirror" schemes there were also what was described as "C & D" schemes where the "A & B" schemes were used with reversed colours. Whether or not this is correct and how "official" these schemes were, I have no idea - they may just have been local variations I guess, but 6 Squadron RAF seem to have used reversed colours on their desert Hurricane IID. There is I suppose a sort of precedent as the Luftwaffe did the same thing officially, at least on their pre-war 3 colour upper surface schemes, and perhaps on the later 2 colour versions according to Ullman, but they seem to have used just the one pattern and then changed the colours rather than having a "mirrored" version. I seem to remember that the idea behind having different patterns/colours was to make a group of planes on the ground less easy to see from above, but I could be wrong. Pete

I had not realised that the rockets were so late in arriving on Mossies - actually one of my books says September 28th 1944 for first use but still later than the pic, so I guess it must be stubs for long range tanks as you say. Pete

Same pic. The caption says it is HR118 3-W flown by Flying Officer Noel Russell on 18/7/44 whilst escorting frigates. At the time it was said to based at Portreath in Cornwall rather than Banff, and it does appear to have no tanks/rockets/bombs under the wing, though I think I can see "stubs" where the rocket rails would probably go. Presumably it was providing air cover so would need no anti-shipping weapons. Pete

I use a re-useable gel type substance called composi-mold. Sorry Doug - we are already in danger of going off topic - ignore us! We will leave your thread in peace now. Pete

Interesting. My own experience with resin cockpits and that of several other modellers has been that some are too big so I guess either they miscalculated in the first place, or maybe allowed for shrinkage which did not happen? As to the release agent, I suspect that was down to me oiling the container and "masters" when I started casting my own parts so that I could then remove them from the moulding agent later, so I later needed to degrease the parts I cast , and got into the habit, though I seem to remember that the Millicast tanks I bought did suggest that they needed cleaning before painting due to the "release agent", but I could be wrong. They were using short run silicone moulds I believe so maybe that is different to most AM parts. Pete

Hi Doug, When I started my first GB back in 2019 I found that this forum is a bit like a modelling club - plenty of information and help available so just ask if you have a problem. As you will no doubt have noticed, some of us tend to wander off the topic a fair bit at times , again just like a club, so don't be surprised when that happens, and just ignore me us if you want. Also, for some reason, pics of pets and food tend to crop up from time to time but are not mandatory!😆 You mention not having used resin AM before, and I must admit I tend to avoid it myself, though when I have used it there have been few problems, the main one being getting them off the "sprues" and cleaning them up without breaking them as the smaller parts can be fragile, and some are not perhaps that well engineered in terms of removal. Resin cockpits, even when designed for a particular kit, often need a bit of careful surgery to make them fit as they seem to be a bit too big - perhaps they expand a bit during the drying/hardening process. One thing they all tend to need is cleaning to remove the "release agent" before painting - I put them in a jar of water to which I have added a denture cleaning tablet which I guess is a mild bleach and leave them overnight. Besides resin, I am not a great fan of PE though that is probably down to problems bending it due to my age and clumsiness. One trick I have learned is that they often benefit from annealing but don't get them too hot as they will melt - careful heating over a candle flame seems to work best, though you then have to clean off the soot. That makes things like seat belts bend a lot easier, though of course if they are of the pre-painted variety you won't be able to anneal them unless you want to then repaint them yourself. Normally I use CA for both resin and PE but sometimes white PVA glue can be used as it gives you more time to work. Anyway, good luck with the build. Cheers Pete

All the bits are on! All it now needs is a coat of varnish and it will be finished. Pete

Hi Stix, If I am still building models next year I certainly have several old kits which will qualify so count me in. Pete