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Trying to sneak another one in ahead of the deadline Since @PeterB already got the camo scheme covered I’ll try and do it in one of the high speed silver race finishes as per box art First things first, cockpit innards painted, addition of the circular headrest and fuselage halves sandwiched together. Bit of a sod trying to get the cockpit frame aligned neatly as the recesses where it was meant to sit don’t give a really positive seating. Sight still to be touched up but good to get something together A bit more work on sub assemblies and then I can attach the wings and get it on the path of looking Spitfire-like A pretty painless build up to this point... until I realise that in posting off spare transparent bits to another member I’ve gone and left myself without the wingtip lights. So I’ve glued on a couple of chunks of clear sprue that I’ll have to let set till tomorrow and then file and sand to shape. Silly move that really

100% yes You’re trying to match solubilising power and evaporation rates and it is a minefield as things interact in the blend (try adding a dash of water to your whisky to see how much impact even a small change in polarity can have in changing the evaporation rate of some components of your drink (aldehydes, esters and phenols mainly) and makes others less soluble (some of the slightly longer chain esters) so that it goes cloudy (in non chill filtered malts anyway)). A tiny change in the water to ethanol ratio makes a world of difference.

Moderators! Moderators! I didn’t think smut like this was allowed on the board

Doesn't Tamiya extra thin have a lot of styrene monomer in the mix as well as faster evaporating solvent? I find even in well ventilated environment that Tamiya extra thin causes me a lot of nose and airway irritation so use Revell stuff which is mainly butyl acetate and the needle helps reduce the amount of it evaporating at a time. I suppose I could buy many industrial solvents and solvent based paint thinners as glue but I find that applicator is worth the few pennies per kit

Very nice! Having seen this and having the same kit I think I'll have to crack on with making the metallic alternative scheme

No apology needed, very interested in the discussion of the history of the kit (and tbh calling my 2 posts for a whole build a thread is giving much more credit than is due)

Just finished Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer - an interesting read, kind of a Red Storm Rising (Clancy) or Red Pheonix (Bond) of the near future

tbh I had inherited the kit and in the absence of other ideas (it is so basic and with such degraded decals didn't think selling it was realistic) so planned to chop the kit up to convert into one of the swept wing prototypes derived from the Sea Hawk. Somewhat randomly while researching something else I came across an image of his decal sheet https://www.blackbirdmodels.co.uk/colourful-sea-hawks-72-1225-p.asp and with the dark and white body and colourful orange beak think of a puffin and made me grin so out of the stash it came. It isn't quite finished as I need to find a couple of Vs and 3s for the underwing serials but I'm sure I'll eventually be able to come up with them. If another Novo (or better) kit falls into my hands in the future I could see me adding either the green or the black to the collection Thanks Charlie and very glad to add it to the GB

p.s. the Sea Hawk for good measure (decals cobbled together from spares as the kit ones had gone beyond yellow and into brown)

Since it was going quickly I’ve battered on with it today. A bit rough at the front of the glazing but I’m not going to worry about that in the slightest Some more paint gets thrown at it today A break to make some jammy dodgers Decals applied A pleasant, stress-free and unfussy way to spend a couple of days. Just like modelling used to be

Impending close of the GB?! To quote Douglas Adams “I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by” Just remembered this was still on so have pulled an old charity shop purchase from the stash If I get this done and feel extra cocky I’ve an xtrakit mk.22 knocking around as well that might make an appearance

Strolling to my local grocery (back when one could do such a thing) I spotted this Airfix kit in the window of a charity shop Very basic kit (from the panel line treatment and few parts I’m guessing this will be one of their older moulds but for £5 who’s complaining?) - squirrelled away waiting for a day when I felt like something straightforward. Faced with my stash yesterday and in the mood for a no hassle, quiet day at the bench and remembering that this GB was still on I pulled this (& a Novo Sea Hawk) out. I figured that between them they probably had fewer parts than a modern Airfix starter kit so doing them in parallel was almost like doing one kit Box innards suggest that getting two kits from the stash was a good idea. Not many parts at all Still, it looks vaguely Spitfirey and cost nowt As this is looking a lot like a bank holiday blitz build I felt I needed to include a snack picture so broke off for a few moments to bake some chocolate chip cookies Once the cookies were dealt with I had most of a plane with all the major bits stuck together When I left it yesterday evening I had gotten as far as having the underside painted and a coat of grey on the upper

Over the last couple of years more and more 3D print has been coming into the hobby and threads. Would it be an idea to include this in the Tools & tips section so that contributors who know this area can share the hows, whys etc. for other modellers rather than spread over dozens of WIP threads?

It really depends on the printer technology and the resolution. You've got various ways of 3d printing and a choice of thermosetting or thermoplastic materials - if you have a very fine resolution then the steps can be smaller than the human eye can discern but at the cost of speed.

If you want some more examples here is my other thread on some planes True about the tweaking and tinkering - pretty much the same as model making in that there are a lot of people who enjoy the add-ons and the printer equivalent of etch, scratchbuilding and aftermarket add-ons. My printer is a Creality Ender 3 Pro with no modifications at all (ok, a metal extruder when I finally wore out the original plastic one) and I’m thinking about getting an Elegoo Mars to complement it once I get some workshop space with suitable extraction

It doesn’t really suit mass production but I think it is probably going to become more and more mainstream part of the hobby. The explosion of hobbyists designing whole kits, modifications and new parts could be really positive for the hobby as a whole as a whole new toolkit for making exotic types and marks possible and flexibility around scales

Well... unsaturated oligomer and some photoinitiator

Sure, drop me a line with scale size and your address.

I didn't have anything particularly in mind - to be honest I haven't even peeked into the box properly so was mainly posting for the sake of offering the serials. If you happen to have a unit or two spare once you're done then that's a bonus

Supernumerary; chief financial officer

Feculent; to give up partway through a short period of pre-Easter abstinence

tbf I only understand 20% and that’s after a degree, PhD and much more than a decade of industrial experience

Lamination; country with a lot of sheep e.g. New Zealand, Wales

Just to note that depending on the resin this can be counterintuitive - decreasing the layer height but keeping the light intensity might mean there is a higher concentration of free radicals (the reactive growing ends of the polymer) so depending on the chemistry you might get less network formation. You’re often relying on a chain reaction of a radical reacting with an unsaturated resin and generating a fresh radical which reacts again and again until it meets another radical and they extinguish each other. A higher light intensity per unit volume might mean that extinguishing happens more frequently and makes for a weaker network. Longer exposure can also mean that each layer has little remaining unsaturation for the next later to react with so you get layer after layer of mini networks only slightly connected together that can create a lot of anisotropic material properties (e.g. different swelling when you put glue near it or weaker in one direction than the others)

Still a long way from done yet but I couldn’t resist a check to see how it’d look against the sky