RobL

Yes, please do let us know, I'm in the same situation where what I want isn't available elsewhere, and it's about the same price as what you have bought.

I'm in the clinically vulnerable group, although I'm only in my early 40s. Had a text from my GP surgery on Jan 7th about them getting in the Pfizer vaccine, haven't heard anything since. Hopefully someone will pull their finger out sometime soon and start getting the rollout going quicker/better...

Ok, so I had "one of those nights" last night and felt like getting on with more of this. I started to detail and paint the base, along with undercoating (very roughly) the main roofs. I also finished off painting the outhouse (the metal banding and the handle) and also painted the weather vane (that I've not mentioned yet that I have made). I also painted the main door. The banding on the outhouse, the weather vane "struts", and the banding around the main door, were all undercoated with Vallejo Black polyurethane surface primer, and then painted with Vallejo Model Air Metallic Black (71.073). The main door received a drybrush/highlight of Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal. I also did some other little bits, such as painting the chimney pots. Believe it or not there is actually a cobblestone texture on the base... I had to cut the base down a little on the left and front, because I will be putting it into a picture frame to make a slightly nicer looking base. The tower roof was already painted and I had made a cone cap from lead sheet (I did that weeks ago) - not too happy with that though, I feel I should/could have done far better, but I'm going to leave it as is and move forwards. The weather vane is held on by a magnet, so if it gets "broken off" I can just put it back on! I hate taking photos of things like this at the stage it's at. For one thing, it's actually not far off a final reveal. Secondly (and only really a problem with this model) it's a pita to get it all in shot due to my backdrop not being tall enough (I don't have a professional stand or a place to put one or a professional area where I can take photos), anyhow here's some photos - A slight top down angle - A more head on angle, note that I have to cut the top off the weather vane in the images - I bought a set of ten barrels, they're a little undersized for my liking, but they will come in handy for scattering around the base. (There's only 9 in this photo, I missed picking up one!). Haven't finished painting them yet though. I used Citadel Agrellan Badlands on the rear/side half of the base, and gave it a wash with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. Games Workshop (i.e. Duncan "two thin coats" Rhodes) state to drybrush it with Citadel Tyrant Skull (which I don't have), and I'm led to believe that is equivalent to Citadel Screaming Skull (which I have), but I'm not sure that'll look right, slightly worried about it looking too light/bone coloured, so I may make myself a test piece and try out some other light colours for a drybrush. Still quite a bit to do, this seems to be one of those things that no matter how much I do on it, there's always more to be done...

I've been looking at buying some things from Shapeways, can I ask what it is you bought, or more to the point how much they cost in order to incur £50 in import fees? Starting to think Shapeways should be avoided, but the only other option I can see is self printing, which for me isn't really an option!

Had a Chinook go over about an hour ago, going east-ish from CM7...

Yes, the room for manoeuvre is a bit tight. The hubs can be replaced with some styrene rod though, I have plenty of it, if I end up sanding them off, a couple I think need replacing anyhow. No, it's not a WW1 tank, it's a very old Games Workshop tank that I've been modifying. Thanks though everyone, I'll bear the advice in mind. What I did earlier with the Dremel+grinding bit plus a skim with Perfect Plastic Putty has at least eliminated the obvious "gloop" "strips". It's looking a bit rough, but I can get away with that, or even sand it back I think if I need. Doesn't have to look 100% perfect and smooth, just not an obvious join like it was looking...

I just tried taking a Dremel to it with a grinding bit, on the slowest speed, and kind of smoothed out the "gloop". Made a bit of a mess of the surrounding area though, so I think I'll try skimming it with Perfect Plastic Putty and see how that goes, see if I end up with a less visible result...

Not very good one's, but here's a couple of 4 of the 8 similar joins I'm having a problem with.

Hey all This is more of a general modelling thing so I wasn't sure which sub-forum to put it in... For a while now I've had some problems when it comes to dealing with seams/joins. I tend to use "gloop", styrene sheet melted into Tamiya Extra Thin cement, to fill joins/seams. However, no matter how much I sand and polish, and no matter how smooth it feels to the touch I can still see the seam/gloop when I put some paint down. As an example I currently have a tank in progress that I have inserted pieces of styrene sheet to make it longer. Either side of the these pieces I've filled the gap using aforementioned "gloop", and it's starting to get on my nerves because despite it feeling smooth after sanding I've still got a visible join area! Anyone here any tips on how to avoid this happening or how to fix it so that I fill the seam and can't see the filler afterwards? Thanks in advance.

Italeri 1/72 Sea Harrier. Also the Xtrakit Vampire, nice little kit, apart from the decals.

Possibly a bad batch. They had massive problems when they launched them however many years ago it was - they basically replaced a batch free of charge for members of a certain private online model club I was a member of. Contact AK and see what they say. My (limited) experience, having only used their Polished Aluminium, is that they can be put down at whatever psi you like, and go down well, although you do have to avoid handling them for quite a while whilst they go off (I painted a Games Workshop model with it and rubbed through it due to handling). It was far easier to put down than Vallejo Metal Color though. Didn't have the problem you are describing.

Heard the sonic boom here in Braintree, Essex also.

I have had similar problems with Mr Flory's washes. Particularly the last bottle or two of Dark Dirt I purchased between 2019 and earlier this year. Mostly the "trick" is to have deep trenches for panel lines. I've quite often found that Flory's wash does not catch in shallow panel lines. Even when I use a semi-gloss clear coat. Flory's videos only go so far in being helpful, because he vigorously defends his products and he assumes that you have the exact same environmental conditions that he does, and that you do everything his way. I was a member of his private club, until earlier this year, and did ask questions about problems like this on the daily video shows he does, but never received a straight answer... To try to get rid of those spots use a mini cotton bud (Q tip in the US), Tamiya do some, although they are rather overpriced, or dental micro brushes - simply as they are easier to get into those areas. Water is the key here. Use HOT water, the hotter the better. Cold water will remove very little of the product. If that doesn't work, then it's quite possible you have a clear coat that hasn't gone off properly before you applied the wash and the wash has got "stuck" in the clear coat in those areas - I had that happen on an A-6 Intruder, I used Future/Klear and it didn't go off properly, as a result the wash got "stuck" in the clear coat, even though the clear coat didn't feel tacky. As a last resort, if you can get a sander in there you may be able to sand away the dirt spots - use the finest grit possible so as not to remove too much of anything else. Flory's own green/white polisher sticks are useful for this. Or, like I often do, you could leave those spots as they are, and just say that's part of the weathering, i.e. dirt build up.

Finished another one last night. Still 4 adventurers to paint and 1 still to buy... This one is a Chaos Warrior. Not sure what a Chaos Warrior is doing adventuring in a dungeon but hey ho GW made a box set expansion for a Chaos Warrior... It's a kitbash of a couple of GW parts, but mostly from a single plastic model.

If we're talking same age and ability as when Lauda and Regazzoni were racing, I think both would disagree with you. As an F1, and motorsports in general, fan/anorak, for some 30+ years I certainly disagree with you. You can put any half decent open wheel car driver, who hasn't sat around doing nothing for a couple of years, in today's F1 cars and they will do well, particularly when you put them in the top cars. The last race at Sakhir with Russell in the Mercedes proved that (same driver, better car, night and day). Even Schumacher somewhat proved that point when he came out of retirement in 2010 after 4 years away from F1. However, having watched some "recently "retired"" drivers actually do some historic racing, it's safe to say the opposite is not true - being good in modern F1 does not necessarily translate to being good in historic F1 or any other motorsport - Alonso has proven that at Indy, three times! Today's cars, which are hugely reliant on aero, are just easier to drive fast than cars of "yesteryear" that had less aero, relied more on mechanical grip, which often was lacking, were a lot less safe, and had engines/drivetrains that made cars absolute animals. The cars with a BMW engine between 1983 and 1986, including Piquet's Brabham, for example, towards the end of Lauda's career, had 1400 horsepower, give or take 50, available to them for quali, about 900 or so in the race, and drivers talked of wheelspin in 4th gear!! And that was a 1.5 litre turbo inline 4 pot, not even a turbo 6 pot hybrid like today's engines, of which only a handful just get over the 1000hp line (Mercedes reportedly get 1022hp apparently) in "party mode"! The 70s and 80s in particular are littered with examples of difficult to drive, often race/championship winning, cars that modern F1 drivers would not just simply be able to "jump into" and do as well as drivers of those eras, for one thing they're all too used to racing with modern F1 cars. I recall Hamilton, the current "GOAT", drove a historic F1 car not so long ago (although I forget which one it was) for a video piece for Sky or some other broadcaster, and stated that he was scared witless, and he wasn't even driving at race/quali pace... There's a reason modern F1 cars are mostly like watching Scalextric... Cue all the fanboys...

Going to add that I keep getting the 500 error. And by the way, I haven't ordered decals, and I don't watch Antiques Roadshow...

I don't even bother priming. It's just another layer that will potentially clog details. I just put down a black or grey undercoat using normal paint (usually Tamiya acrylic funnily enough) and go from there. Never had a problem since I stopped priming, and the paint on models looks no worse, especially as I was using Vallejo polyurethane primers. Also makes it easier to strip back...

Second for white tack. Blu tack usually leaves a mark on a wall, so I'm pretty sure it will do the same on your model.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but everything I've read indicates that no-one produces an actual A-10C in 1/72? They're all A-10A's and are missing many of the lumps/bumps (and stuff like LASTE) and the cockpit is always that of an A (i.e, no LCD screens), including Italeri's effort (which is what this kit is).

Yes, very 2001. I read the first two books some 25 or so years ago, and have seen the two films. The 2nd film creeps me out, because of the scene with Dave and his ma... Really would love to see the 3rd and 4th books made into films, but no-one seems interested in doing so. Strangely the book was written concurrently with the film and was published after the film was released! Apparently the film is actually based on earlier short stories by Clarke.

So, I had a go today at getting a process established for doing the roofs... A 50/50 mix of Apple Barrel's Too Blue and Black didn't work. It was far too dark a colour, in fact it didn't seem to matter how little black I put in, it was still darker than I wanted. So, I decided to go with pure Too Blue. I used a Citadel Large Drybrush, put a bit of paint on the end of it, then smeared it all over the roof of the woodstore and the outhouse using drybrushing motions. I did this because drybrushing it on as you would normally drybrush it on wasn't working for me, it was too dark and would have taken hours to build up the colour. I then applied a Citadel Nuln Oil wash, and then drybrushed again with the AB Too Blue. I then watered down and applied Citadel Dark Reaper and The Fang to "random" tiles to break it up a bit. Then did 2 drybrushed highlights for the edges of Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey and Citadel Fenrisian Grey. This is the result of all that - I'm quite happy with how that turned out on the roofs. No so happy with the wood on the outhouse and the woodstore, as the balsa wood doesn't give me any sort of discernable grain, and I'm not good enough to fake it either, but hey ho, they are what they are. Not sure how I'm going to apply that process to the main roof, I feel I will need to mask it off whatever I do, and I also feel I would be better applying at least the black via airbrush. I'm leaning towards also applying the first coat of Too Blue by airbrush as well, if only to save time...

I'm very close to getting this finished. Mostly only the roofs to paint and some of the small details, the base and then some tidying up with something that can't be applied until I've finished the painting. Made some more progress on this today though. Painted the timber framing with Citadel Dryad Bark, "cutting it in" against the walls was the most non-trivial painting I've ever done! I also blacked out the windows ready for a drybrush with probably Vallejo Game Color Gunmetal. There are a couple of spots I need to tidy up where I went over with the black on to the walls though... Photos - The paint on the walls is rather strange. At times it looks orange, but at other times, and to my camera, it's not so orange!?! I have purchased some paint for the roofs, just need to do a test on the woodstore/outhouse roof to see how it looks. The paint I've bought is Apple Barrel Too Blue, and Black, and I'll mix the two 50/50 as I've seen an example on the web that indicates that's what I'm looking for in terms of how I want to roofs to look. I will be staining the timber framing with Citadel Nuln Oil Shade, then giving it a dryrbush with Citadel Stormvermin Fur and Celestra Grey, but I am not confident of my pot of Nuln Oil being up to the job - I think that between today and the summer I managed to get some water in it, so I may have to order another pot in a few weeks when I put in an order for some other GW paints I need...

OK, below are some photos of painting progress so far. The walls were painted with Coat D'Arms Tanned Flesh and Bone mixed 50/50ish. Then I drybrushed over that with the Bone, and then again drybrushed over the top of that with Citadel Pallid Wych Flesh. The method I used for painting the stonework was to paint it Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey over a black undercoat. This was done with an airbrush. I then went and painted, with a hairy stick, "random" bricks with Citadel XV-88 and Celestra Grey. I then drybrushed all over with Citadel Karak Stone using a Citadel Large Drybrush. I then overcoated all the stonework in Tamiya Semi Gloss clear. Then I applied a dark clay wash made by a well known scale modeller. I'll use the same method when I paint the stone corner wall that I'll be adding to the base. The woodstore and the outhouse wood has been painted for a while, although I was looking for a more grey looking wood and I've gone a bit more towards the brown side, so I feel I need to do a light drybrush with a grey again, probably Vallejo Game Color Cold Grey. The roof on the woodstore is not finished, that's just my test work for the blue slate, none of which was satisfactory... Unfortunately the wood on the outhouse has white styrene behind it (should have use black! Doh!), and you can see it shows through. I need to somehow get in there with a brush and paint it black... Looks better on camera than I thought it would. Although with the mk1 eyeball this is best viewed from about 2ft away, because there are some not very nice bits here and there unfortunately, some of which I can disguise but some I can't unless I start again, fix them with filler and/or sanding, and repaint. The walls also look slightly more orange to the mk1 eyeball, at least under my "daylight" lighting tonight! Photos, it looks a bit wonky but that's mostly down to my camera inadvertently being at an angle and the fact it's not sitting on a flat hard surface under my black background -

It's terrible how we treat our heritage in this country!

So, been a while since I did anything on this, so I made a bit of a push to get it to the "ready to paint stage". There are some gaps, but I haves plans for sorting those out after painting. I added some details, in the form of a sign, and 3 wolf head ornaments, 1 on each corner at the front, and 1 on the front bay window. I also finished the chimney off. The witches hat tower roof is also finished, to a point, I intend to cap it with a lead cone, but I'm waiting on lead sheet to arrive before I even size that up. I tried with a paper cone the other day as a test, but didn't get good results so I'm hoping the lead works better, might have helped had I tiled a bit further up but the returns were diminishing so I gave up... Photos - Overall shot of the front - The sign, you'll have to take my word for it but the wooden bar is attached via a magnet in the wall, and the chains of the sign are attached via a magnet also, thus if it gets broken off, it won't break completely. I also realise it's hanging a bit low, but it's not big enough to hang from the bottom of the top level, so I may move it up - One of the two corner details, attached to the timber framing on the top level - A shield, it's just white tacked on as it will get painted separately - Finished chimney - I also added Soffit to either end of the Inn, to a) hide some crimes I committed when attaching the roof and b) for a slightly better look -