Mike Dean

Started: Monday 25/05/2020 06:00 Finished: Monday 25/05/2020 13:52 Total build time: 7 hours 52 minutes (less 15 minutes for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee). In summary, I thought a kit with only 36 parts, one coat of blue paint (two coats for the white) and a mist of satin varnish would be easy to do in 8 hours. It was really full on though, trying to get the small details right (the aluminium wheels and black tyres were constantly touched up), and trying to make a really good job of it. The decals behaved superbly, although the individual decals aren't numbered and there are no placement instructions as to which green stripe goes on which wing, which way up the green fuselage band goes on etc. It was trial and error until I worked them out. The time went by very quickly, which I suppose it does if your concentrating hard on something for so long. I'm glad I didn't chose anything more complex. By starting at 06:00 on the last day only gave me 18 hours, not 24. I'll start on the first day next time! The blue is matt Oxford Blue (Humbrol 104), sprayed with a satin varnish, which is much darker in real life than it looks in the pictures. I'll experiment with my crap camera to see if I can correct it later. I'm off for a snooze in the sunshine. Mike

CAN ONE OF THE MODS PLEASE DELETE THIS AS I HAVE NOW MOVED IT TO THE BLITZBUILD GALLERY WHICH IS WHERE I THOUGHT I WAS POSTING IT IN IN THE FIRST PLACE. THANKS. MIKE. Started: Monday 25/05/2020 06:00 Finished: Monday 25/05/2020 13:52 Total build time: 7 hours 52 minutes (less 15 minutes for a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee). In summary, I thought a kit with only 36 parts, one coat of blue paint (two coats for the white) and a mist of satin varnish would be easy to do in 8 hours. It was really full on though, trying to get the small details right (the aluminium wheels and black tyres were constantly touched up), and trying to make a really good job of it. The decals behaved superbly, although the individual decals aren't numbered and there are no placement instructions as to which green stripe goes on which wing, which way up the green fuselage band goes on etc. It was trial and error until I worked them out. The time went by very quickly, which I suppose it does if your concentrating hard on something for so long. I'm glad I didn't chose anything more complex. By starting at 06:00 on the last day only gave me 18 hours, not 24. I'll start on the first day next time! The blue is matt Oxford Blue (Humbrol 104), sprayed with a satin varnish, which is much darker in real life than it looks in the pictures. I'll experiment with my crap camera to see if I can correct it later. I'm off for a snooze in the sunshine. Mike

Well, it's up on paint tin chocs as the undercarriage is very flimsy and the undercarriage supports float in midair, but it's all there! Decals went on like a dream. 37 years old (kit was from 1983). 7 hours, 52 minutes! Phew.................... A late lunch is in the offing. As an aside SWMBO came into my study and asked "what are you doing"? Reply: "I'm trying to make a kit in under 8 hours". Brief pause "How long does it usually take". Stunned silence resulted in SWMBO making a quiet withdrawal.............

All the decals are on but the undercarriage is playing up. I'm going to miss 14:00, more like 15:00 now.

Breakfast was had at 09:15. Was it really three hours ago? Since then, "Deacon Blue" has been added and the whole lot sprayed with satin varnish. Still a bit tacky, but the undercarriage doors are dry so decals were applied to them. "Kid Charlemagne" the pilot is done and sunbathing outside to dry off. Ditto the canopy and prop.

SNAFU post. More updates to follow.

Andy: I wasted a full 20 minutes working out how those stupid wing radiators go in the wings. The diagram on the instructions is useless and the location tabs inside the wing are so obscure that they just don't make sense. I glued them in how I thought they should look, and they look OK! For some reason there's a machine gun in there too, which is not in the picture on the front of the box. And the instructions show a three bladed prop and the one in the kit has four. Tony: If you keep asking, I won't post anymore pictures. Sit down, eat your breakfast and be patient.

I recall you doing some rigging on your P-12E Adrian - no such problem here! We'll see. Things are moving fast, but the time flies by! Three hours in and we get to here. Out of shot is the painted undercarriage legs and doors still on the sprue. The wings are drying having just been glued. Time for a bit brekkie...........

An hour and a half gone, and building this has really got me "Reelin' In The Years". I must have been 13 the last time I made this. Internals (pah! pilots armchair) installed and painted. Engine painted black and dry brushed with aluminium for a bit of detail. Fuselage zipped up and coat of white primer on the engine. The coverage isn't great so I'm going to have to "Do It Again". Wings glued together and held with "Peg"s.

"It's "O" 600. What's the "O" stand for? Oh my god it's early." And with those words from Mister Adrian Cronauer, it's on with the Corsair Blitzbuild. Here's the kit, with my phone date/time stamp. I'm going for an 8 hour build which will include breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea breaks. ETA finishing line: 14:00. Music supplied by Steely Dan.

I did that too, and I think it was on a Sherman too. Worked a treat, and it stayed stapled for many years.

Right, Venturi tube it is. I still like the idea of a klaxon though. .

What the hell is the klaxon for (part 78)? Aoooooo-aaaaaah! I can't see it being used to warn people of their impending arrival, somehow. I need to know why there's a klaxon on a Blenheim before I go to bed tonight, or I won't sleep thinking about it. Oh, and the kits are very nice too!

Yup, Matchbox F4U-4 Corsair. One colour paint job, lots of bright decals, should be a doddle. Mike.

Hmmm, navigator, bomb aimer, forward gunner.......he's a busy chap. He looks very exposed under all that perspex too.

Sixty-year-old Duck Egg Blue from the bottle? Blimey, I can smell it from here! It's all looking tickety-boo though Tony. One thing that puzzles me, (actually there are lots of things that puzzle me, but only one about the Blenheim) is that chin turret. I seldom see any built Blenheim with that turret, and it looks like your not going with it on either of your builds. What's the deal with that? Mike.

See, I told you so! A lovely build. Mike.

That's very kind of you to say so. Matchbox kits never had much of a reputation as manufacturing good kits, but with a bit of effort and imagination, which is what you need to make any kit really, they can come out pretty half decent. The fantastic bomb load and the ladders with the Phantom just cries out to have it all laid out.

I'm glad someone picked up on the more humorous parts of my posts! I like to keep things light and informal.

Many thanks for the kind comments and encouragement throughout this build. I have only done one other built for this forum (a Matchbox Lynx) and this was most enjoyable. The anniversary of the race win was pure chance that it came up now. I've long wanted to do a diorama with the Matchbox Phantom and Wessex kits in the race winning markings, and this group build allowed me to revisit my Phantom build from 1975, and build the one I want for the diorama at the same time. Having it finished for today was the icing on the cake. It's now back to restoring a Matchbox Flower Corvette from the hull up, which I started a few weeks ago as Covid-19 anti-boredom therapy and has been sitting on my desk as the Phantom build went on around it. At one stage, the Phantom was sitting on the gun deck as the glue on the undercarriage dried. I wish I'd taken a picture. However, I did take this one a while ago after some glue fumes had got the better of me. I've been looking at your GB build. Very nice work so far. Mike.

Out of the box, and out of the top drawer too. There's something about those brashey USN colours that says to me "Who cares about toned down markings? I'm over here, come and have go if you think you're hard enough"! The big V warning signs by the intakes brightens up the whole front end too. Great photography too: I can learn a lot from the composition of your pictures. A very nice piece of nostalgia.

Matchbox Phantom F4-K (PK-404). Daily Mail Transatlantic Race Winner, 892 NAS, 11th May 1969

51 years ago today, (I missed the 50th Anniversary by one year (bummer)), Lt.Cdr. Brian Davies flew Royal Navy Phantom XT859/001/R of the newly formed 892 NAS, across the Atlantic between New York and London in a record transatlantic crossing time of 4 hours and 46 minutes. It also helped the back seater/navigator/RIO, Lt.Cdr Pete Goddard to win the 1969 Daily Mail Transatlantic Air Race (top of the Empire State Building to the top of the London Post Office Tower) in a record time of 5 hours and 11 minutes, winning the total prize money of £6000. The Royal Navy had three attempts at this between the 4th and 11th of May, this final attempt being the fastest. They flew from NAS Floyd Bennett just outside New York to the Vickers testing airfield at Wisley in Surrey. Wisley was chosen because the runway ran West-to-East (meaning they could fly straight in) and there was no problem in waiting for a landing slot on a shared runway with commercial aircraft. Upon landing at Wisley, the RIO officer leapt into a waiting RN Wessex helicopter which flew him to a specially prepared landing site a few hundred yards from the Post Office Tower, which the RIO then had to run to catch the lift to the top of the PO Tower. 892 NAS had only been active for a few months when this all took place, and frequently forgotten in the whole "the Royal Navy won the race" euphoria was the fact that it took three refuellings by RAF Victor K.2's of 55 Squadron from RAF Marham to pull the whole thing off! So, here is XT589/001/R as she would have looked 51 years ago (minus the centre-line tank). The decals are pretty much the ones that came with the kit (except 001 instead of 013 and a change of serial) so there are very few detailed markings. "Where are the pilots"? I hear you say. "And what about all the whizz-bangery that came with the Matchbox kit?" They are all here: These are all the parts included in the Matchbox kit that would have been fitted to an 892 NAS bird. The Matchbox kit also included the large reconnaissance pod that was carried on the Nos.2 & 41 Squadron RAF birds, but is not shown here. The pilots are modified figures from the ESCI NATO Pilots set. The pilot is a fair representation of the bearded Lt.Cdr Davies, but the RIO is nothing like the dark, short-in-stature Lt.Cdr Goddard. I tried shortening him, but he started looking like an oopa-loompa so I went with blond and gorgeous. He's carrying a flight bag containing the flight plans, fuel consumption tables, R/V points, diversionary airfields and the in-flight picnic. XT859 eventually ended up at 111 Squadron RAF and sadly ended up as scrap metal when the Phantoms were phased out of RAF service, and no-one went to save it. What a sad end. As for building the kit, well it's as good as it gets for me nowadays, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. It was fun to build 45 years ago (surely not), and I enjoyed doing it again - the right colour this time! Thanks to Dansk for proposing this build and good luck to all the other participants in finishing their builds. These pictures (minus the text) will also be posted in the gallery. I'm looking for the photos I took of the Ark in 1977, but no luck so far. If I find them, I'll add them here. Mike.

Six Sparrows! That's potent firepower, and no mistake. The whole she-bang is looking top notch. I'd be well chuffed with that.

On the last leg now. The big reveal will be on Monday, which will become obvious when I tell you all why! All the air-frame construction has been done, and it's sitting to one side to rest. Before the canopies went on, I took a shot of the internals, after I added a few bits of plastic for the ejector seat handles above the crew's head. Maybe a bit on the big size, but it gives the right impression. See you all again on Monday. Stay tuned!