mojorising

Thanks for your input and the photos Jack There does seems to be quite a bit of variation in the head-sculpt rendering between the different manufacturers for Guderian

Does anybody recognise which WWII German GeneralFeldMarschall this headsculpt is supposed to be? There are 1/6 models of Rundstedt Keitel Rommel Paulus Model Manstein I am pretty sure it is not Rommel Paulus Model from headsculpts of them that I have seen Which leaves Rundstedt Keitel Manstein It looks most like Manstein to me but Manstein did not have a moustache Keitel had a similar moustache Rundstedt had a narrow toothbrush Hitler style moustache

^Thanks It does indeed

Can anybody identify what kind of submarine this is? Thanks

That is great thank you It does indeed look like an E-50 I should have taken some better pics first I think that is the innovative infra-red night vision scope in front of the turret hatch

I have been googling around but I cannot identify this tank. Can anybody help? Also is there a way to insert an image into a post directly from hard drive? Or does it have to be uploaded to a 3rd party picture hosting site first? The only button is see is Insert image from URL

Thanks Greg

I started a thread titled:- 'Help Me Identify This Aircraft' I got some very useful replies in identifying some models. Then the thread vanished. I guess I made the thread in the wrong forum or it was a duplicate thread. Is there an existing thread where modellers can seek help in identifying aircraft? Thanks

Gosh... Thankyou for that erudite post Jamie. There is more useful info in that post than I was able to find out with half an hour on the inter-googles!

Thanks for the tip Corsair. So you actually use spray paint straight from the can? So If I get the right shade I can even avoid having to get a spray gun? Interesting. I guess paint shade mixing will be impossible without a spray gun set-up. (sorry mods - just realised i think this should be in the paint sub-forum)

The title says it all.... All the air brush threads talk about buying a compressor. Just wondering why modelling spray guns apparently do not use simple manually pumped pressure bottles to provide spray pressure since only a tiny volume of air is required to sustain the spray. I have a 5 litre sprayer for the garden with a hand pump on top. You pump air into the bottle manually and it provides sustained pressure for some time and that is spraying large volumes of glyphosate in the garden. If it was hooked up to a model spray gun surely it would provide enough air pressure to last for hours I would guess given the relatively tiny volumes of paint being sprayed compared with weedkiller in the garden.

Is there a difference between the enamel paint sold for models vs the enamel paint sold in hardware stores? I know there is a huge price difference by volume (!) but would regular hardware store enamel paint work just as well for simple colours like black/white/red

I have a acquired a few old models. Some of the paint work could do with touching up. I am not sure how to get a match on existing colours. If I need to fix something in the house I take a sample to the hardware shop and they use some kind of chromatograph to make a match but I guess that is not feasible for models. How do the folks here get a match for touching up paintwork on old models?

Thanks malpaso. I had been imagining some kind of abrasive method for slightly roughening the surface but the varnish sound like it might be a good alternative approach.

I acquired a B-17 already built. But it has a very high gloss finish which I would like to reduce. I am trying to figure out what the best tool/technique would be to slightly reduce the shininess of s gloss paint finish. I will probably leave the decal areas untouched to avoid damaging those but just looking for a recommendation for reducing the glossiness of the surface finish slightly. I do not really have a set of professional modelling tools so amateur ideas would be good!

Thankyou Bentwaters. The mystery is revealed. That also explains why each wheel is on its own separate leg which I was also curious about.

Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but not sure where it belongs. I have a 1/72 He177 already built. I cannot figure out where the main landing gear would go when it retracts - I mean in real life rather than specifically in modelling. There does not seem to be any wells where the gear would disappear into but photos of the plane flying with gear up show the wheels completely hidden/retracted somehow. No amount of googling has revealed the answer to this mystery.

^^Thanks Andy, google is indeed my friend. I found some nice elegant solutions under slatwall acrylic shoe display for shops. They even have a lip at the front of the shelf (for shoe prices) where you can stick aircraft information. Might be a possibility. ^Thanks Patrick. The Billy series does look very reasonable and easy to put together and the glass replacement shelves are not too pricy.

^Sounds interesting BK. If you have a pic of those sawn of screw shelf supports would be curious to see them. 4mm is about the shelf thickness I was aiming for. How wide and deep are those shelves? I also have an alcove in the lounge about 60cm deep by 100cm wide. It may land itself to accommodating some kind of display shelving since I can use the alcove sides (maybe lined with white melamine MDF) as naturally strong shelf side supports.

^Fair enough Has anyone got any interesting suggestions for assembling a set of transparent acrylic shelves other than adhesive angle brackets? I was hoping to go with something more original and elegant than standard heavy metal brackets which need to be fitted to the wall studs. Or any other elegant shelving solution that they think works well for displaying model aircraft?

I have been thinking about display shelving for my models. I have looked at regular shelving solutions from hardware stores but they are all overkill. The shelving is heavy and thick and designed to be strong enough for books/tools/pot plants etc. For displaying model aircraft the lack of weight should allow for thinner maybe more attractive solutions. Ideally I would like transparent shelving. Glass would be nice but it is heavy and expensive and structurally overkill again. The candidate solution I have dreamt up would be panels of rigid transparent acrylic sheet maybe just 3 or 4mm thick which could be attached to the wall (painted plasterboard) maybe using transparent acrylic angle brackets and adhesive patches. The model weight load is so small it hardly warrants metal brackets with screws through to the wall studs. Has anybody got any recommendations for display shelving for models? Do the light-weight adhesive plastic brackets described above exist already?

Thanks for the detailed explanation Graham. That makes sense and saves me a bit of youtubing to figure out the mysteries of plunge moulding.

Thanks for the tips Mike and Troy. I will keep those in mind for more complex bits. In the short term I am just looking at making a simple curved hatch for a 1/48 Meteor. I was thinking of just cutting a square piece of perspex/melamine/PETG and heating it up and bending it. It will be in the open position when I glue it to the existing canopy structure (just glued along the hinge edge) so it does not need to be an exact fit as it will be hard to notice if it is a bit wrong when it is in the open position I think.

OK, will have a look on hannants, thanks. Buying a few scrap models for spare bits is a good idea. I do have one model (1/72 FW200 Condor) which is a civilian version painted up as luftwaffe. The number of parts needed to convert to a proper luftwaffe Condor might require a proper parts supplier like hannants rather than improvisation.

Thanks for the advice BK. I am new to modelling so I did not know there was plastic sheeting for modelling but I found it now on ebay. I also found clear perspex sheeting which is probably the answer to my other thread on canopies. My models are not super-pro quality so I would be more looking at simple fabrication improvisation using plastic sheeting rather than resin parts or rubber moulding but thanks for the suggestions.