Paul821

The envelopes posted earlier contained: As this is the Christmas Blitzenbuild I thought I would do a seasonally themed build - a Boxing day hunt meet at a village inn. Please do not us this as an opportunity to debate the morals of fox-hunting but the fact is that the Boxing Day hunt does remain a major fixture in our local village. White metal and card in 1:148 scale - far from the normal BM offering. The build should be over the Friday and Saturday.

The reaction to final reveal will be interesting - I promise this is the last teaser and the major part of the proposed build arrived today. I have left the key hints uncovered this time.

Over the last few days I have been experimenting with various ways of producing a greenhouse canopy for the Shark, with little success. I then remembered that in my stash I have an Airfix Battle from the old VC collection that will not get built. As my aim is achieve something that looks like the Canadian Shark rather than 100% accuracy I think I can work with this as a starting point. Various cutting, filling and filing required.

First clue as the postie delivered this today Sorry someone seems to have put a marker pen over a potential spoiler! I have one more postal delivery to arrive, Then another teaser/clue

Very wise words. Actually sealing the edges of the tape with yellow paint worked, except.. Just a couple of issues to correct here, I think I'll scrap the black off and then repaint the yellow,

With the failure of the "anything but injection" GB to make the bun-fight cut for 2020, I have now finalised my plans for this Blitzbuild and have ordered the required kits etc.. These will definitely be "anything but injection"

Now ready for another colour (although some hold pure black is not a colour!). Masking of wings and upper fuselage complete and first step will be to seal the edges with more yellow,

Please could we have a some tactical voting here OR SOME NEW VOTES, so that this one has the required votes (3 at present) to get it over the line for 2020.

After a week away I have returned to the Yellow Peril Actually the paint looks better here than in reality, its taken 4-5 coats of Humbrol Acrylic to get to this stage, I think there are 2-3 more to go.

No picture available, but I found that very thin multiple coats of the acrylic supplied with my Lidl Gnat last year worked OK, That is without a primer as I have nowhere to use spray during old months. However I seem to recall it took 7 or 8 coats! I am repeating the technique with my Blackburn Shark TT build in the Floatplanes GB - there I am on coat 2.

For a village of under 200 people Little Maplestead in Essex must be a contender for the most interesting https://www.classicparade.com/classic-car-hire-locations/little-maplestead-essex https://www.paul-stephens.com/

Thanks for all the suggestions about the cowling and engine - the reality is neither the budget for this build or the timescale realy allow these options. Remaining on the cheap / free options, Also in the thread J-W suggested the use of packaging for building the canopy, so A few minutes work and.. The curve of the packaging seems to work - it's not perfect but with some framing (Tamiya masking tape?) I think it will meet my needs - all I need to worry bout now is the windscreen.

Thanks to @dogsbody and @PeterB for their contributions to this build. It might be becoming too much information. As I do need to proceed I have scaled the plans from https://modelist-konstruktor.org/aviation/shark-and-not-showing-teeth Which shows that the Frog kit is not far off the profile - it does show the cut required for the canonpy. The diagram also shows the difference in the cowling shape. The cowling can be left for a later date - it is time to take saw/knife to the fuselage. This may be the point of no return for this build.

Having found an interesting site: https://modelist-konstruktor.org/aviation/shark-and-not-showing-teeth this has a plan of the MkI II which seems to show that the forward cockpit was removed and the rear cockpit/gunners position was then given the canopy.Before I start surgery on mine can anyone confirm or rebut this? As to the site modelist-konstruktor.org it is rather odd and I will start a thread in chat about it.

I have three drivers for making kits. The first is that if the subject meets my main collecting criteria (as per my interests) accuracy is fairly high on the agenda. A RCAF Shark certainly does not met that criteria. The second is to improve my modelling techniques - that is where BM comes in. Even after modelling for nearly 60 years I have learnt so much from BM members. The Shark comes into this category: masking (improving), forming a canopy (first time) and decal printing (first time). The third is to enjoy the build. This is a nostalgia build taking me back to the 1960's. As a result accuracy regarding the engine is not essential. It does needs to be an improvement on At the moment I have only found one front end picture of a Shark on the internet. This does give the same sort of impression as the kit but with a little more depth and you cannot see any cylinders. Therefore my initial thoughts are to just add that impression of depth to the model. As my build will allow for the engine + cowling to be added right at the end I have some more time to research and others to offer suggestions.

So was I until (in the short time to the end of the GB) I have to solve - at least canopy engine cowling propeller the colour scheme is now the least of my worries,

As hinted at in my first post my source for the RCAF trainer Shark was In that thread @PeterB mentioned he had been sent a set of RCAF fonts,. To illustrate the enormity of BM I googled the fonts which led me to so thanks @rossm Another google search for pictures also led me back to BM great thread from last year in which @cherisy helpfully gives links back to other Shark builds sorry about the sprue shot but so many of the parts had become detached I wanted to contain them in a tray. Off to read some of the threads above to work out the differences between the marks. and what is need to construct the RCAF version.

After a short hiatus caused by having too many models on the go at one time (blame the Frog GB)I have now caught up with my backlog. I have also moved into the winter modelling quarters. I how have a self imposed rule of only I GB model at a time. This is obviously a refugee from the Frog GB Thanks to these great builds I am following two great builds As to colour schemes well those of you who followed the Frog GB may guess how my Shark is intended to come out by this clue

So that's why my GP altered my blood pressure tablets this week, for the forthcoming Airfix announcements.

As the Airfix 2020 thread has been locked..... This is a very interesting interview https://www.world-of-railways.co.uk/news/brm-meets-hornbys-chief-operations-officer-tim-mulhall/ although it is on a Railway site, Tim Mulhall is speaking about where the Hornby Group as a whole is going, and he does actually announce new Airfix products for 2020 - don't get too excited they are Quickbuild. I have placed this under Rumourmonger as it broadly (ie. what you think of Quickbuild) meets the criteria of "What kits have you heard about from the manufacturer" and I could not find a more suitable location.

Since I retired the most I have paid for a kit is £24.99 for the Airfix Phantom and that would be my limit. (actually that is not true - I did buy a Valliant for £30 in a local model shop at the time they were selling for over £90 on auction sites - I sold that at a profit, so counting it as an investment) So £60 or so for a new Vulcan would not be for me. Also the Vulcan is a Aircraft where you cannot see any of the cockpit area, therefore (for me) a detailed interior would be a waste. I do have a built Airfix built Vulcan, which I picked up only a couple of years ago for £10, and should I need another I would buy the old mould. In the same way I recently purchased a Revell Victor for under £20 from my local LMS. Looking at e-bay I seems that the going price for the Airfix Vulcan over the last few months varies from about £20 (inc p&p) with the majority just under £30. A few people seemed to have paid more than the £38.99 current list price! Having said that, if the "leak" Is correct Airfix will have a winner on their hands as there are enough of you out there who appreciate a premium product and will purchase it. I look forward to following some build threads upon its release.

For many years my "go to" book on RAF Aircraft was the Ian Allan ABC of British Aircraft and there a number of aircraft listed under "other types" not modelled (Blackburn B.20 anyone), the only notable omission to this thread seems to be the British Taylorcraft Auster of which over 1,600 were built.,

It's a good job you used the word appearance as this site points out thee are many types of brick wall bonds - that is the way the bricks are laid. http://jaharrison.me.uk/Brickwork/Bonds.html Depending on the finish you want my preference is to use one of the downloadable sheets of bricks. I find scalescenes is one of the most realistic.

The picture is of the Airfix Travelling crane first issued in 1959 and in its 60th year still a current model sold by Dapol https://www.dapol.co.uk/shop/model-accessories/self-assembly-oo-kits/c030-travelling-dock-side-crane-563 ****Edited to reflect comment made further down**** I accept that the request is for a 1/35 model and this is 1/76th but I am only pointing it out as the source of the picture and something that could be measured and scaled up.

Missed this one,. Unlike other proposed GB's I have various items in the stash that would meet the criteria for this GB, so count me in.