RobL

+1 I love the Javelin. It might not have been the greatest aircraft, and was quickly superseded, but it looks great. The only options in 1/72 are the very old Airfix/Heller kits with low detail and raised panel lines, which are like hens teeth, even rarer if you don't want the T3 variant, or the Frog/Novo/ kit and their clones, again raised panel lines and poor details, or the ZTS Plastyk/Mistercraft engraved panel lines clone of the Frog/Novo kit - I've got one, it's not inspiring me to build it...

Actually it was a real aircraft. One prototype actually flew, in December of '44 according to information out there. So think more of it as a WW2 prototype than a paper fantasy like so many of the other Wunderwaffe were. May not have been in service as the Revell box art depicts but the camo Revell depict is potentially correct for the time. Look up the Smithsonian Ho 229 (or it might be in the National Air and Space Museum) if you want to see how a later mark prototype looked - you can make out that there is at least 2 colours with the bottom being lighter than the top, ignore the swastikas though as they were apparently painted on by the US after it was captured. Be a shame to paint it as a fantasy, you wouldn't do that to prototypes that were built by the UK or US... But if you must, maybe paint it orange or yellow like test planes built by the UK or US...

Depends on the foam and what you are doing with it. You can get foamboard (also known as foamcore) easily and cheaply from eBay and most artists shops. This is one of the best/easiest materials to make your buildings out of. You can also get XPS foam (XPS = extruded polystryene, not to be confused with EPS, see below), XPS is commonly known as blue foam or pink foam, although it's now all a dark grey, made by Dow Corning as I understand it. It can be obtained, again on eBay or slightly more cheaply at the place I recently found - bluefoam.co.uk. Good for buildings, and free standing walls or exposed floors and the like, and some details can be scribed into the surface, which you can't really do with foamcore. The same XPS foam is also used for underfloor insulation boards as I understand it. You could also use stuff like Kingspan (brand name, seems to be XPS to me, but with a foil layer over it, used as wall insulation boards), it comes in 8ft by 4ft sheets. Look in your local DIY place like B&Q, Wickes etc. for those. You'll see a lot of table top gamers (like me) using foamcoare and XPS for their terrain/scenery pieces (a lot of youtubers exclusively use XPS for their buildings) - like this - If you really want to get messy you can use EPS sheet (EPS = expanded polystyrene), also known as polystyrene sheet, known to our US friends as bead foam (for obvious reasons). Personally, having used XPS now, I wouldn't go back to using bead foam. It's also available at DIY stores as 8x4 sheets. And comes as packaging for various products, or used to, usually it's white.

I'll just leave this here for you, you can make your own mind up - https://www.businessinsider.com/talking-on-a-hands-free-cellphone-is-as-bad-as-driving-drunk-2013-8?r=US&IR=T Stay safe.

Have seen this kit floating around on ebay for months now. I'd love to buy it, but I don't want the boat, and I doubt I'd be able to sell it. Wish Revell would re-pop the Sea King on it's own.

Google maps. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb. Phone call problem solved,

Thanks. To be honest, I just don't fancy going out and picking up twigs from anywhere. I'll probably just buy another of the log piles I initially bought, or just leave it as is, perhaps have the larger log pile set against one side of the woodstore's frame.

Hey all Got a bottle of Zap a Gap CA glue (see photo below). It's cap has somehow become screwed on tight. Anyone here have any ideas on how I can get it open? Thanks in advance. This is the type of bottle -

Hamleys aren't really a model shop though, they're a toy shop, that sell all sorts. They sell models, but so does my local branch of Autoparts (a automotive franchise, bit like Halfords only smaller), ditto for places like Hobbycraft. Don't know about anyone else but to me a proper model shop is one dedicated to model kits and the supplies needed to build them, everything else they sell would be a sideshow, rather than the other way around as many shops that sell model kits seem to be. Very few of that sort of shop around.

Unfortunately it's a "sign of the times" up and down the UK. There is/was a large book retailer/wholesaler in my region of the UK. They went bust no so long ago, before the pandemic. But they were dinosaurs. They didn't even have an online presence, which in today's age is just asking for failure! It's all very well supporting independent small businesses, but many of them simply don't help themselves!

I used to have trouble with paint consistency. Until I started thinning my own paints, and using a 50/50 ratio of paint/thinner as a starting point - it works on all the typical model paints I've come across (Tamiya, Gunze, Vallejo Model/Game Color, Coat D'arms, even Citadel to a point), or 60/40 ratio if I am doing any pre-shading/black basing. Doesn't work with Vallejo Model Air or other pre-thinned paints, so I have to make do with those, but most of the the Vallejo Model Air range do spray OK, if not I stick a tiny amount of water in them. If you're using pre-thinned paints like MRP the key is to lower your air pressure to as little as you're airbrush will allow (a MAC valve helps with that) and get close in to the model. Not sure about enamels as I've never used them. Dropper bottles help immensely in paint thinning - fill one up halfway with paint, top it off with thinners. As does Gunze Self Levelling Thinner (if you can find it right now). Look up Genesis Models on youtube, for an alternative homebrew thinner mix that works well with acrylics. Many thin coats is often the best way though. They dry quicker for a start. It's how many people achieve 3 days builds - I can, well 4 days is my record actually, when I'm not in a malaise.

I too suffer with what might be called modellers block, despite the fact that I have occupied the dining room table so that I don't have to keep putting stuff away all the time. Although it's less to do with the practicalities of mixing paint, and more to do with something else that I can't put my finger on. Take this week as an example. I have a plan to meet with a friend to engage in some tabletop warfare gaming. I have 5 miniatures I want to paint for that day (Saturday), however this past 5 days I've not been able to sleep overnight, and instead have been "sleeping" during the day. And despite having the idea running around in my head, I am in a "state" where I simply don't feel like painting miniatures. I frequently have similar periods where, for one "life issue" or another, and despite having "inspiration" running around in my head, I just don't feel like sitting painting miniatures or building/painting aircraft, especially happens with aircraft models when I reach the point that I've built the model. Can't work out the precise causes, so I just put things to one side in my mind until I have a "burst" of "enthusiasm".

Thanks, I don't have permission to chop stuff out of the garden. Not my garden. SWMBO would not be happy. I have noted that the big wood pile I purchased, does look a little, small, and doesn't really fill the space up all that well. Not sure if buying another of the same would work, or what else I could do to make it fill the space a bit better. The "woodshed" on Adrian Wild's original Inn seems to have the wood all piled up going into one corner on the right hand side as you're looking at the Inn from the back, and it does fill the space up quite well. I'm guessing he did it a similar way to yours.

I love this era (60s-80s) of motorsport. Watched the 1986 Australian GP when F1 put it up on their youtube channel a few months ago, great race. Just a shame more of the full length races (of any series) don't exist, aren't of good quality, or just don't get put up anywhere.

As I don't drive, thus have no access to my "local" "waste and recycling centre", I usually dump my paint/thinners waste down the drain outside the house I live in, somehow my late father put a pipe to the drain (or it just goes straight into the ground) when he built the porch for the back door. Either that or I just dump it on the concrete path/grass down the end of the garden and wait for rain to wash it away.

Depends. I've bought stuff from overseas, although not model related, only to have to pay the equivalent of the items value again in Royal Fail fees. To me it seems to be a bit of a gamble, because no-one seems to know exactly what an item will cost in customs/Royal Fail/courier charges, and you only find out when the item arrives at your house!

You get charged for customs services by Royal Fail or whoever the carrier is, for anything over the value of £15. The higher the value of the item the more you get stung. That applies to goods coming from most, if not all, countries, outside the EU, and once Brexit is done will apply to the EU also. Doesn't matter who you buy from, unless they are one of those companies that "fudge" the documentation (thus risking goods being seized), and I doubt Plaza Japan is one of those...

Won't be long before environmentalists come with their pitch forks for the modellers. If they get their way we'll end up back living in caves. Mumble, mumble, champagne environmentalists with all their devices, plastics, mumble mumble...

So, it's been a while since I did anything to this project, so I thought I'd spend some time today and move it forwards... 4 hours later and I've tiled the back roof, attached the "spine" or whatever it's called to the main roof, and tiled a little bit of the tower roof. Got bored with tiling so I gave up. There are gaps where the two smaller roofs join the main roof, but I have a plan for fixing that, involving thin lead strip. That will be done after painting is done, so that I don't have to paint the lead, and it will therefore look like lead... There are also a few gaps in the main roof around the tower, which I will deal with by using a moss technique that Black Magic Craft showed in one of his youtube videos. Photos - I purchased recently some "wood piles" and a dry stone wall - And here they are in position, but not glued down -

Ive been using postimage.org and more recently imgbb.com

Having had 2 family members who have worked in retail, specifically in high street supermarkts, one for 35+ years, I can safely say it's not just one exceptional and highly unusual case. The example today on the BBC may be of the extreme, but there is a general attitude amongst certain people in our society, and abuse of shop staff happens regularly. It was a growing problem, even before this pandemic.

The problem we have in this country is that a lot of people, don't like being told "no!", have never been told "no!", do as they want, and people simply don't challenge them. This has led to the selfish, entitled, behaviour you've described being shown in that BBC clip. As we go on it will only get worse. Back in March when all the panic buying started, there was a video on Twitter, of a guy, apparently the manager of a store of a well known supermarket, telling people they couldn't buy so many of x item. Similar behaviour (although not as extreme) was exhibited in that video by customers. Apparently the guy got fired for telling people "no!".

Airfix's 1/72 HH-3C Super Jolly Green Giant. I have one. I've read about it. Yet to build it. One day...

"Inhabitants of Peach Trees, this is Judge Dredd. In case you people have forgotten, this block operates under the same rules as the rest of the city. Ma-Ma is not the law. I am the Law!" For a while now I've wanted a Judge Dredd miniature, with him on his Lawmaster. Games Workshop/Citadel made one back in the 80s, but it was very poor. It was only last year/earlier this year that I found out that Mongoose produced such a miniature, about the same time I discovered Warlord games Judge Dredd line, which I intend to start buying into. Anyhow I managed to find a Mongoose Judge Dredd miniature set (on bike and on foot) on eBay. It came to me painted and the cone on the front of the bike appears to have been mashed, plus it was missing it's shotgun. I stripped it and repainted it. Dredd himself actually doesn't fit well on the bike. I've seen several photos, including Mongoose's promotional one's that show even they cannot get the rider to sit properly. So I did my best with that. This is the result, I'm not overly happy with a couple of aspects of it, but it is what it is and I'm never going to be a Slayer Sword winner anyway -

Couple of 28mm figures by Reaper Miniatures I painted recently, for use in Games Workshop's Warhammer Quest (1995 version). These were the two I posted about in another sub-forum here, about having shiny results with matte varnish! Thankfully I mostly sorted that. I didn't paint the eyes, I would have needed a microscopic brush and a microscope to do it! The Elf - The Wizard -