Chewbacca

Trolley duly cut apart and remade, now ready for the spray booth. The only bit I am slightly worried about is that longitudinal rails are not quite straight on one side. I'm hoping that once the ladder is in place I can pull that back in line. Thought I'd have a look at the crew figures. I'm still not convinced that I will sue them but I'll take that decision once I've had a go at painting one or two. Any way the driver is interesting. How does anyone drive a vintage fire engine with no power steering one handed? Especially when that hand looks, with apologies for being a bit non-PC, like a stump that is missing a hook? I can rectify the stump with Milliput but I'm not sure I fancy trying to cut away that whole right arm that is attached along its full length. First pass of the Millipuit. Will shape this once it's set.

I know what you mean. The HAS 2/3s look cleaner although I would have traded the looks for the 360 degree radar!

So I presume this is based on the Matchbox/Revell post helicopter cruiser conversion. I get the Sea Dart idea - presumably replacing A & B turrets - and I assume that the Sea Wolf will replace the midships Sea Cat - but where are you planning to put Ikara? To the best of my knowledge, the only mooted medium range SAM conversion of the Tigers was the proposed replacement of Y turret with a Sea Slug but that was shelved in favour of a hangar.

After last weekend's success with the steering and then most of the week away on business, I got back into this yesterday and spent a few hours sorting out the ladder trolley. I'm not sure how I managed to do it, but just as I was going to bed last night I took anther look at the near completed item on the workbench and it struck me that if it was possible to put a piece on the wrong way around, I had done so, despite what I thought was checking and double checking the instructions. So longitudinal spars fitted facing both the wrong way and the support struts facing inboard rather than outboard (which meant that the ladder couldn't possibly fit), brackets to mount the trolley on the rear of the fire engine back to front.. The only saving grace I suppose was that the liquid poly hadn't fully set so I could cut the parts away without too much damage being caused. Today's activities will focus on cleaning that up and rebuilding it correctly, rather than getting the main components into the spray shop that need priming ready for airbrushing. I was so annoyed with myself that I realised as I removed the final piece that I hadn't taken any photos of my errors. Perhaps that was for the better!

Hadn't spotted this thread before. Excellent work and well done for spotting the issue with the fwd superstructure. I realised it with GLAMORGAN but far far too late in the build to do anything about it. I especially ;like the plasticard figures; have you documented anywhere how you did them?

Thanks, I knew I'd built one at some point in the dim and distant past in that configuration. I know you said you were doing the blue one as a HAS2, what variant are you doing with the grey? Only reason I ask is that I see you've cleaned up the 6 man seat; don't forget that was out of service by about 1990/91 having been replaced with the inflatable 4 man seat.

Thanks

Thanks

Thanks. Didn't know that

Fair comment!

And there was me thinking I had all of Airfix's 1960s ejector pins in one kit in the Dennis Fire Engine!

That's interesting. I always thought that the original 1976 moulding was based on the prototype with the 3 small cabin windows and that it was reworked to give the correct window at a later point.

Sorry to hear that.

Fascinating. I don't think I'd have the patience to do something like this. The photo above is especially interesting. I was in a shipbuilders (full size) on Tuesday and while walking around their main manufacturing shed there was one of the fitters manoeuvring an aluminium plate just like that one into position. Being very familiar with warship construction - but not merchant ship construction 9which this one was) I was curious why they used corrugated plates. Now I can see!

Very nice. May I ask where you get wooden decks and brass barrels in 1/600 scale (and indeed the 3D printed 5.25s)? I've only ever seen them for the more popular sizes.

Oh well, the urge got the better of me: Just a test fit while I work out how to modify the steering arm to fit as well It's amazing what a wet afternoon can bring out in you!

Thank you for your kind words. I think you could have a very good point there - I'll need to find Ian Inskip's book. It makes more sense as Seaslug was a fairly cumbersome missile system, designed for long range high flyer engagement not short range sea-skimmers and in the 30 seconds or so from detection to impact, with the ship manoevering, I doubt if they could have achieved 901 radar lock let alone got a missile away. Furthermore, there is a "local boy made good" report I found in the Manchester Evening News of an Able Seaman, Steve Jillings, who claims to have fired two missiles at the Exocet. There's no way that an AB would have launch authority over Seaslug but he could have been the port Seacat controller.

Sadly, whilst I like that as a marketing technique, it does rely on retailers knowing their product detail. I think the flaw in that argument is, as we all know, huge numbers of LMS in this country have closed over the past 15-20 years and therefore unless you are lucky to live close to one of the ones remaining, the most likely place for little Jonny to buy is at a mainstream store like Hobbycraft or Argos. Now I know that speaking from experience, there is not a single member of staff in my local branch of Hobbycraft that knows anything about model-making and wouldn't have the first idea of what to offer up as an alternative. That said, I do recall a conversation with a visitor at a local model show about a year or so ago when I overheard little Jonny's dad point to a model on our stand and say "look at that Spitfire". When I politely pointed out that it was a P40, I was told quite firmly by the father that it was a Spitfire... On that basis, anything with fuselage, 2 wings and a propeller finished in green/dark earth with RAF roundels is a Spitfire to some!

Outer chassis, suspension and exhaust added: Main body assembled, small amount of filler needed especially around the front plate and seat. Ready for final rubbing down and then primer Then turned my attention to the front axle and steering gear. I guess the first question I must ask is why does a single piece that is only about 45mm long need 5 ejector pins, 3 of which are in really difficult places to eradicate (highlighted in yellow)? I really want to open up the steering gear so that I can reposition the front wheels as if going around a corner as this offers much more interest. But I think I may wimp out looking at the challenge of the cuts that are needed to separate the stub axles from the uprights (black circles). As I was preparing some of the larger parts for painting I thought I would look at the bulkhead/instrument panel. I have virtually no reference material here of the real vehicle, just one grainy photo that shows the left hand extremity and shows that the brown storage box is much larger than the miniscule item on the kit part. But there is a set of good reference photos in the build thread I referenced earlier for the 1/16 version: http://www.modelcarsmag.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80618. that correlates the size of the storage box so I have to assume that the rest is accurate. Which means the speedometer is about half size (based on relative sizes of the speedometer to the length of the panel I think this should be about 5mm diameter whereas the kit version is only 2.5mm). And unfortunately just doubling the size of the speedometer would put it too close to the steering column mount. So out with an X-Acto #17 micro-chisel and remove all of the detail on the instrument panel. I will build that all back up with scrap plastic. Looking at the supports for the bell and sidelights they may go as well as I am pretty certain they are too thick; I can replace them with brass wire. I recall reading somewhere that someone else had noted there was no fuel tank in this kit and sure enough they are right. But the reference photos (both the real vehicle and the 1/16 build) show a brass tank on the driver's side between the front offside leaf spring and gear lever. This should be a simple build from some scrap sprue, plasticard strip and plastic rod. I'm not sure though whether this is a the main fuel tank or just the tank for the paraffin lights. It looks somewhat small for a vehicle of this size (and likely fuel consumption) and there appears to be fuel hoses going to the lamps. And finally, the rear of the radiator has also been built up with plasticard as the original was way too thin (but no photo I'm afraid). Unfortunately I have no reference photos of it so have no way of knowing whether the core tubes were visible or not. in the interests of simplicity I've assumed that you can't see them.

This is looking really good. Always had a soft spot for this kit having built it about half a dozen times as a teenager

I introduced my teenage daughter to Camberwick Green on YouTube a few weeks ago. She was horrified when my wife and I explained that that was cutting edge children's TV in the 60s!

That is quite strange. It looks as though it is meant to be there as some form of reinforcement plate but none of the reference photos I have of QE or the ones I can find on www show it.

Apologies if someone has already said this (I did a search and couldn't find it) but you won't find the windmill or Windy Miller in Trumpton. It was in its predecessor, Camberwick Green. I think all episodes are on You Tube

Always fancied having a go at France but never seen one at a sensible price so following this with interest. The thought I had with my Queen Elizabeth was to drill out the portholes and then put some LEDs inside to let the light show through

Ahh, proper instructions!. I learnt so much about ship, aircraft and AFV construction when I was a youngster from reading those type of instructions that told you what each part was. I seem to recall this is a great kit from when I last made it which must have been about the time of that boxing!