RobL

Just watching episode 1 now. I've gone into it knowing it's in the "Poldark o'clock slot", which has a very obvious demographic. And this show is clearly aimed at those who know nothing, which is 99.9% of the UK population. Quite surprised the beeb put such a show in the slot it's in though, clearly run out of period drama rubbish... Doesn't seem too bad so far though, mildly entertaining... As for AC/DC/Sabbath/"modern" music, that's my sort of music, so I like it, but I do agree it does seem at odds, particularly as there's what seems to be period music used also. Last night there was also a 3 part documentary on BBC Four, called SAS Rogue Warriors. That's also on the iplayer if you want something more informative.

Strangely a youtube channel with a couple of episodes of that series popped up in my recommendations this week, so I watched the supercharger episode, it was mostly about Britain vs Germany... Mostly remember him for Nuns on the run, Pope must die, Samuel Johnson in Blackadder II and Cracker, great actor. RIP

Ah, balls! I've used them in recent years for a number of things, like paints, glue, thinners etc. I thought they were one of the bigger online retailers in the hobby.

Hey all This is something I've been working on this past 4 weeks, on and off, more off, the weather in my part of the UK hasn't made it easy for me, however I finally felt capable of sitting down today and finishing it off... It's Karl Franz on Deathclaw, by Games Workshop (currently sold for their Age of Sigmar game as Freeguild General on Griffon and Battlemage on Griffon). For scale reference, the base it's on is 120mm long. Some closer in photos - Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

@Ngantek Like you said, it's not fair. Business often isn't fair. And sure, 1/24 kits are a niche. It's Airfix's premium range. Let's look at it like a luxury car company, let's say Ferrari. They have a number of main catalogue models which they churn out on a regular basis, but every now and then they produce a premium model with a more hefty than usual price tag, that only x amount of people will be able to get their hands on. Same with 1/24 kits. Like you said Airfix know the demand, so they only make x amount of the kits because they know that's how many they'll sell. I wasn't saying they intentionally make too few kits. They make just enough... Artificial scarcity isn't just intentionally not making enough of something, despite it's recent use in that sense. If shops/third party retailers still have some left on the shelves some time later, that's down to them overestimating their end of the demand chain and buying too many from Airfix. However, how many of those shops/third party retailers, with the 1/24 kits still available, are the big one's that everyone knows about, your Jadlam's, EModels, Hannants etc.? Very few I'd wager. You have to go hunting around quite a bit, unless of course you absolutely know "Bob's shop" in "somewheretown" still has one... Anecdotes of a few small shops/traders etc. having stock left doesn't give you much of the wider picture.

I don't imagine any one from, or related to, Airfix will give you a straight honest answer, they're not that kind of business for a start (nor are the parent company Hornby), despite Simon Kohler's PR junket of recent years... ...but here's my £0.02 on it. Airfix produce them in low numbers because they know a) they can bump up the price a lot and b) because they know they, and 3rd party retailers, won't have them sitting on the shelves gathering dust. I believe it's called artificial scarcity and plays on fear of missing out (FOMO). And of course you have your scalpers and "investors" who will hoover up as many as they can, then sell them on for their own "premium". What that all adds up to is basically if you're not there on day 1, with a bag full of cash, you don't get. And even if you are there on day 1 with a bag full of cash you still might not get because of scumbag scalpers and "investors". So, yeah, that is the way of it now.

The push rods are in the kit, Academy just left them off the instructions. 😉 🙄 I was informed of this when I was frequenting the Helicopters forum on Finescale Modeller's forums - there's a whole bunch of very knowledgable guys over there (or there were 5-10 years ago), some of which also frequent scale-rotors.com forums and arcforums.com. Couple of guys in particular, going by the names of Heavy Arty, Rotorwash, and Melguyver. Rotorwash was kind enough to send me a whole oop Esci 1/48 UH-1D kit, but that's another story... @Flat Chat Even though some of the guys may not be active on those sites anymore, it may be worth googling for info re. Hueys on those sites, I did back when I was building my Revell/Monogram 1/48 kit and the 1/35 Academy kit, back in 2016ish (something like that) and I found a mine of useful info on armaments, huey variants, and paint schemes, pertaining to Vietnam.

I'd go with the Academy UH-1C, even though it's not a B. I have built one (sadly it's now broken) and I have another waiting to replace it, best short body UH-1 kit imho. Helps if you buy the aftermarket brass bits for the ammo feeds on the M134 miniguns, think they're by Eduard (?) also better M134 barrels (I bought brass ones by RB I think), but the kit is just as good without those. Revel reboxed it in 2018 as their code 04960, and it's probably the most available version, but I also see on Scalemates that Academy reboxed their version again under number 12112 in 2020. For 1/48 you have the aforementioned Hobbyboss and Revell/monogram kits for a short body Huey, as has been said with some work the Monogram kit can turn out OK (I managed to get one to look half decent, so it's not all bad, although I didn't use the resin parts, just built it oob). Depends how/if you want to arm it though - the Monogram kit is the only of the two with weapons, and it sports quad-M60s and rocket pods. Or, again in 1/48 there are an Italeri UH-1D and a Kitty Hawk UH-1D (long body hueys) - both of which are pretty good, I've built the Italeri kit (and their UH-1N) and it's pretty good (although there's no detail on the underside), never had the Kitty Hawk offering but I've seen it built very nicely and it was designed with the help of Floyd S Werner, a well known (perhaps in the US) UH-1 modeller - he also built an example and gave the kit the thumbs up.

TLDR But that Two Ronnies sketch could be applied to many things in life, especially at the moment. Also I don't think anyone mentioned it but you forgot 1/9 for motorcycles... However, I agree there are some odd scale choices. I've got a few 1/32 cars (a Matchbox Porsche 917/10 kit, a Matchbox Surtees TS16 kit, and a badly built Airfix Porsche 917) and at 1/32, whilst they're a reasonable size to work with, they're also quite small compared to car kits in more common scales, and thus lacking in detail, I can only imagine the tiny-ness of 1/43 car kits which seem to be quite common. So, I was dismayed when I recently went looking for a The Batman Batmobile kit, not only at the cost (£50+!!! WTH) but also it's in 1/35, making it 6 inches long or less! Why? Most car kits are either 1/43 or 1/24 or thereabouts, not 1/35! The only reason I can fathom is that Bandai went with 1/35 again because they used it for their other two Batmobile offerings, because the "Tumbler" is technically an AFV, so they've stuck with it... But at least, outside of Bandai's 3 offerings, Batmobile kits have generally stuck to the common scales for car kits (1/25 or 1/43), Star Wars kits used to be all over the place, with 1/50 for TIE Fighters, 1/43 for X-Wings, 1/36 for Darth Vader's TIE, etc. etc, until Bandai came along and standardised them all at 1/72.

RIP

He was always on the TV during the 80s when I was a kid. One of that crop of TV stars from that time that were everywhere, another one of those TV/movie stars you knew of even if you hadn't watched anything with them in. I mostly recall him from having watched Dr Who and the Daleks (the late Peter Cushing and Roy Castle were in that film also, both equally talented), but I probably watched Jackanory and The Railway Children "back in the day" as well, I know I watched The Wombles also. Always entertaining. RIP.

That's good then. Forgive me for being blunt, but some of the wording you used in your initial post, I have seen crop up many times in anti-mask, anti-lockdown, basically anti-doing anything public health related if it means one has to raise a finger and do something for others, rhetoric, trying to be disguised as innocent opinion, across the internet this past couple of years. Hence my response. I think we have to be very careful in what is stated in relation to SARS-Cov-2, it's spread, the resulting disease, Covid, and the measures to mitigate it. Discussions like this are how misinformation spreads in the first place.

With all due respect @Skodadriver you seem to be repeating some nonsense (hopefully inadvertently) that has been around the internet since early in the pandemic. I would hope that this thread does not turn into one that perpetuates the spread of such nonsense, disguised as opinion or otherwise. Mask wearing is not to protect you, it's to protect other people. That's been repeated since day 0 of the pandemic and there are countless studies proving it, that are freely available to read and hosted by reputable sources, including Cambridge University. So, whilst your "friend" caught SARS-Cov-2, it wasn't ironic. However if he carried on wearing a mask he will have reduced the likelihood that he passed it on. Sadly though, if the majority are not wearing a mask at the event you are going to, you may as well be in a boat with other people, plugging a hole with your thumb, whilst others drill further holes in the boat. Sweden is an outlier in their approach, due to their population density and geography, and their approach may not have worked elsewhere. They also didn't do quite as well as the anti-lockdown, anti-any public health measures at all, crowd would like to believe. If you want an example of not taking necessary measures, Brazil took a much more ignorant approach of doing nothing at all to begin with, and fared far worse than most countries besides the US. I recall at one point it was 600k dead from Covid and 60% unemployment as a result of the disruption caused by the spread of SARS-Cov-2. Again, that's all confirmed by data freely available and hosted by reputable sources. You are right however that with an estimated 1 in 15 people in Scotland and 1 in 17 in England (don't know about Wales/NI, likely to be similar) carrying SARS-Cov-2 you don't have to be a mathematical genius...

That's why hospital admissions have been rising is it? As a person who understands the scientific information, and a former NHS worker, I am fed up with the "get on with it" ignorance in this country and all the nonsense excuses banded around by people who are clearly in denial, and only get their (mis)information from dubious social media accounts. We've now got Monkeypox being spread around like sweets at a party as well as a new variant of SARS-Cov-2 which is looking like the most problematic variant so far. Seems like we're back in the 80s when HIV/AIDS first emerged! How many viri and diseases do people want to take the risk of ending up, or putting others, in hospital with? SARS-Cov-2 being an IQ test would be funny, if it weren't for the disruption and pressure it puts on public services, and the consequent negative impact on people's lives. Sorry. /rant

Spraying Humbrol rattle can matt varnish on a 1/48 Huey. It frosted on me, so I went reading t'interwebz and came to the conclusion that the way to fix it was to put cooking oil over the model... That was back in 2015ish (maybe even as early as 2013) when I picked up scale modelling again, having only really ever built aircraft kits as a kid back in the very late 80s or very early 90s.

Have to agree. Anyone who thinks it was "just bad timing" or "believes" it was "something" and nothing to do with global warming at all are just burying their heads in the sand. Seen a lot of it across social media this week. People making excuses instead of wising up. You don't even need humans involved when it gets as hot and dry as it has been. Prolonged heat build up through exposure to the sun, extreme air temps, and then all of a sudden boom, fire! People would do well to educate themselves on autoignition, or anything about how fires break out. All the, nonsense, for want of a better word, I've seen this past week to excuse the damage the extreme heat event has done, makes me wonder what people are/were taught at school, uni etc. But I guess it's a sign of the times, that has been highlighted this past few years. Thankfully it's cooled off now in my part of the UK, north-mid Essex. And it's a bit more reasonable, at least tonight it seems to be. It was also quite reasonable on Wednesday night, I actually managed to sit at the table for 4 hours and got some figure painting done, having left the back door and windows open since about 21:00 to let some of the heat out of the house, regardless of SWMBO's irrational displeasure! Just waiting for the next extreme heat event...

What they said. The average bike is going to be about 59.8mm, or 2.35 inches, in wheelbase at 1/24 scale. That's about the size of three 1 pence coins.

Yeah, probably. They do seem quite wealthy people up there. I was wondering if like when you visit Southwold, you might be required to provide proof of income/second home ownership. 😀

We had a fire nearby this past couple of days, at a recycling centre, that may or may not have been down to the weather, although more than likely as it deals with clothing. Dry clothes + extreme heat = tinderbox. Luckily the smoke was blown in the other direction to where I live, I imagine others caught it though. Norfolk Fire service according to my "local news" on the TV were called out to 100 or more fires today. Such events will only become more frequent. For me it would be Stornoway or Lerwick. They never seem to get above 20, Lerwick seems to usually be about 15 this time of year. Don't know what the requirements for moving to the Outer Hebrides/Shetlands are though...

I'm also sleeping in it, but due to insomnia... I think the only thing that's "saving" me is the Daewoo 5000 BTU "portable"* air conditioner I've got parked right beside my bed. Last night I actually had to periodically turn it off because it was getting too chilly. Although earlier, about 18:00 it was more like sitting next to someone breathing on you than any sort of useful air cooling. Just doesn't work well in temps above 25/30 degree celcius it seems. I went down to the kitchen/dining room earlier, at about 21:30 and it felt reasonable, but then after 5 minutes the heat/humidity started getting to me, luckily I only went downstairs to make a sandwich. Tomorrow is going to be even worse, because the heat won't dissipate overnight, starting temp tomorrow is likely to be 20+c! Going to be very expensive to "get used to it"... *Daewoo call it portable (as do most manufacturers of similar air con units) but even though it's on wheels it's a =>14kg lump that is only portable on level ground and I can't get it down, or up, the stairs in the house now, so it's stuck upstairs. Takes a fitter stronger person than I to make it portable...

Try Rapid. They do A3 HIPS sheets, although they measure in mm not paper sizes - https://www.rapidonline.com/Plastic-sheets

My £0.02 Don't let the energy companies put your direct debit up. Pay for what you use, when you've used it, not what they are speculating you will use. I had our electricity DD go up by 100%, despite the current tariff only being 50% higher.

My £0.02. Call me a young person, but if Hornby/Airfix went online only, I don't think I'd notice any difference. And I'm not sure it'd make any difference to their "presence" either. My local high street, 1.6 miles away, has had no proper hobby/models shops for 20+ years, if it really had any before that. There was a one-man-band railway model shop tucked away at the far reaches of the town centre, but that closed more than 20 years ago, and you wouldn't have really known it was there anyway. There is an automotive shop that as a sideline in recent years, alongside air rifles, stocks a handful of Revell and Games Workshop kits/paints. But that's it, and if they don't have what I want, I have to order online anyway, so rather pointless going to the shop. In fact I don't think there's a high street retailer anywhere in 20 miles (roughly a 1hr round trip by car) that's any better. Used to have a Beatties of London in one of the nearest "larger towns", 16 miles away, but that also closed some 20+ years ago. But then I live in mid-north Essex, UK, and much like many parts of the country all we have on our high street is estate agents, tanning salons, hair dressers, nail bars, coffee shops, mobile phone shops, general chain stores, supermarkets, etc. you get the picture, nothing useful for our demographic... Maybe it's also another example of the "north-south divide" as I read/hear a lot of people from places up north in the UK say they've got model shops nearby and such shops do seem a bit more prevalent the further north you go. Things are moving online only though, with high streets being repurposed into playgrounds, literally in some areas, for the very affluent and young.

Pfft. £5.99 for a box of 45 1/76 figures?! Count yourself lucky. In 1992 Games Workshop boxes of 10 of their basic Space Marine squad figures were £12.99. Today they're £32.50. According to the BoE's inflation calculator they should only cost £23.16 as of 2021?! So they're about 40% above inflation!?! My income since 1992 certainly hasn't inflated that much, nor I believe has most people's. Problem is that there are still too many people who will think nothing of paying over inflated prices, and so the gouging continues in many many hobbies regardless of the actual cost of production.

Yup. I suffer with very bad insomnia anyway, but in this weather it's even worse. The cavity wall and loft insulation we have doesn't help in the summer, but moreso, it doesn't help that SWMBO, i.e. my 65yr old mother whom I live with, insists on keeping the downstairs area of the house completely closed up, day and night. She's either afraid of something coming into the house (who knows what, the usual answer given is "insects"?!), or simply no longer comprehends, if she ever did, how heat rises from the ground up, especially during the latter part of the day, and keeping doors/windows downstairs closed just funnels the heat upwards! She'd rather push up the electric bill and push hot air around with useless 20+ year old ceiling fans. It's irrational at best and all I get is an argument and poor excuses if I try to open the house up. Sorry. /rant