PeterB

Dave, Back in the 60's Revell introduced a range of cheap kits which included a lot of interestic subjects not covered by Airfix - Bf109E, Ki43, 61, 84 for a start and also some very useful WWI subjects - MS Bullet, Nie17 and 28, Spad 13, Sopwith Triplane, Fokker DVII to name a few. I still have most of them, but regret throwing my PZL11. About the only one I never bought was the Stearman PT17 Kaydet. Later they introduced some very useful kits such as the Ki21 and 49, P1Y1 and J1N1, together with the Ju88C, all of which I built. Like you I am tempted to re-visit some of those kits but a combination of cost, lack of space and potential female dissapproval is holding me in check for the moment. It's alright for you youngsters - you might have time to finish all your stash whereas I doubt I will be that lucky. Still my mother did live to 93 so maybe there is hope. I certainly need to speed up a bit so from now on there will be more virtually OOB builds starting with the Bearcat. Pete

Hi Greg I store my military vehicles in an old bedroom chest of drawers but the "architects" plan drawers would be ideal - good idea. Unfortunately I would need a new house to put them in so I will stick with shelves in my roof with plastic sheet dustcovers for my recent planes - the old ones are in my study covered in a combination of dust and tar from my pipe which is not ideal. Pete

She shows considerable promise for the future. My son did have a go at kits, but his hand-eye coordination is terrible so he gave up and went back to computer games.

I note that there has been a rash of missing pieces lately - wheels, props etc. Unfortunately it must be contagious because having painted the wheels last night, I seem to have lost one of the nosewheels! It should turn up but if not I will try casting a resin replacement. Failing that I have some P47 wheels that look very similar and perhaps somebody will release a set for the new Revell kit. Must be a bit tidier and get rid of some of the clutter on my in my workspace. Pete

At least you only have 1 "hairy hooligan" - I have 2 and they can be a real pain at times.

Frog provide 2 versions of the Bf110G in their kit – a G4 Nightfighter and a G2 heavy fighter (Zerstorer). I decided to build a plane from 4/ZG76 shown in the Osprey Book “Luftwaffe Viermot Aces 1942-45. This aircraft is a G2/R3 which means that the normal quartette of machine guns in the top of the nose were replaced by 2 x 30mm cannon given a forward firing armament of 2 x 20mm and 2 x 30 mm. Osprey say this aircraft was based at Königsberg-Neumark in Germany early in 1944 to attack the USAF bomber formations and to supplement its normal armament it carried 4x Wfr. Gr. 21cm rocket tubes under its wings. After some early successes, they began to suffer increasingly heavy losses in the face of strong US fighter escorts. Unlike earlier versions the “G” apparently carried a third crew member to operate the radio and radar when fitted, allowing the gunner to concentrate on using his MG81Z twin machine guns to try and defend the plane. The kit is basic build builds up quite well. I have improved the cockpit and undercarriage and added the rocket tubes and new exhaust stubs. Otherwise it is pretty much OOB. When I was younger I was quite good at spinners but not now! 3 down, 3 to go in this GB. I may even manage to finish them by the end of September.

Ok, I am posting it in the gallery now so I will call this build finished.

Almost done! Just the aerial to add to the top of the canopy, the nav lights to paint and the wheel centres to gloss and it can go in the gallery. I have 2 pics of this plane, one in an Osprey book, and one in a SS Aircraft in Action one. The Osprey book shows the spinner colours as I have modelled, and the SS one shows them reversed! The blades and rear band look black but I have gone for RLM71 as was the "official" scheme. The Frog version of the MG81Z twin guns at the rear of the canopy are adequate but I had intended to replace them with the rather nice Eduard version. However the barrels were bent and when I tried to straighten them one broke off. At the start of this GB I had intended to do just 2 kits of which this was the last. Now I am doing 6, but at least 3 are finished with around 1.5 months to go. I will take a day off then make a start on the USN Bearcat. Thatnks for your interest - it has taken quite a bit longer than I initially expected, but that is not the fault of the kit - it makes up quite well I think.

Dave, If you are talking about the Mr Color paints then they have a couple of versions of both the green and the dark sea grey. The wartime ones are H73 and H75, and they also do a post war version labeleed as for Harrier,Jaguar etc. These are H330 BSC381C/641 green and H331 /638 dark sea grey - which ones did you use as there is quite a difference. I accidentally did my Javelin FAW5 in the wartime grey and it is a lot lighter as in the pic I posted about Steve's Vengeance (on his Wildccat post link I think). I left it on as it could be described as "faded". Their post war grey is a bit lighter than the Xtracrylic version, though as you can see in my pics of preserved Shacks it fades to a very "chalky" pale grey. The green usually fades to a very light yellowish green. As to the Huimbrol Authentic Colours that is what I used on my old Hornet and they are dark (though not as dark as in my pic as 40 years of pipe smoke have darkened it a bit)

Still getting the "Error 500" regularly when I "Page Back" but now a new problem seems to have arisen. I have been using Firefox as my browser for years and until yesterday I had no problems with accesing BM. Then, when I tried to respond to a post on the Frogsquad GB I couldn't - the usual large window you type your reponse in did not open - just a much smaller one with "Insert image from URL" as usual and it would not accept text. Same thing on PM's. It did start working a bit later then has stopped again. When I access the Forum via Google Chrome there is no problem so it must be something to do with Firefox. Has my installation of Firefox gone funny, or is there some sort of bug? Pete

Not quite the same thing Dave, but quite often when I try and "like" something I get a message "problem responding to that post". Sometimes it work, sometimes I have to do it again. What with that and the Error 500 bug when you try and "page back" the site is clearly having problems. Most have already been reported it seems but are clearly proving hard to fix. I think I will post the Firefox thing on the help page. Cheers Pete

Most of the time Dave, though there are times I think I need my head examining. At least I have the excuse that I am probably old enough to be going senile.

I suspect mine is not going to be pleased when the new Airfix Buccaneer kit arrives, hopefully next month - is will no doubt be in a ruddy big box like the F4K! Oh well, her wall should be finished by then so that might help a little.

Anybody having problems with the Forum? Yesterday evening I went to reply to something, and the box you type in did not open. It is still the same this morning on my normal Firefox browser, but when I use Google Chrome it works normally. Most odd!

JOhn, King Kit had one or two last time I looked - £4.99 new and £3.99 2nd hand. Postage £3.60