RobL

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

Metal and now, sadly, OOP. I managed to grab a single squad of them just before they were discontinued.

Hey all Wasn't entirely sure which sub-forum to post this in, as it's an AFV and some figures, but it's also sci-fi?? I've been doing some more painting recently, and finished off a Warhammer 40k Steel Legion Infantry Squad and their APC. These are "28mm heroic scale". The bases the figures are on are 25mm at their widest. I actually started the squad at the end of May, with a plasma gunner conversion Group shot - More images of the APC - More images of the troopers (not including the aforementioned plasma gunner) - Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

My compressor is a similar one. An AS186, sold by KMS. They're all pretty much the same, sold by many Chinese based companies and people they've sold them to under different branding. Mine gets hot also, after about the same time as yours, although it doesn't cut out completely. So I make a point of leaving it until it's cooled off and come back to what I'm doing later. Especially in the hot humid weather we're getting at the moment in my part of the UK. That's despite it having a 3L tank attached, which gets emptied every now and then to make sure there's no water in there rusting it away. I've seen other discussions here, and across the interwebz, about these type of compressors and the general consensus is that it's normal behaviour. As you're pumping air around though my basic knowledge tells me that anything doing so will get hot after a while of constant heavy use without some form of cooling. Personally I've thought about rigging a cooling system up, a fan or two (I've seen some 186-type compressors that have a PC style fan built in already), but I'm not confident of taking the ends off the compressor housing...

Trying not to be political, but there seems to be an unsavoury rather loud and visible minority within our society that in recent years feel they've been given carte blanche, by certain leaders actions, to do as they please. IMO That's why we're seeing rises of instances of such disgusting behaviour such as shooting up an animal rescue centre.

The motorsport world will be less without Alain, always hear him mentioned by guys like Martin Haven during LM24 commentary. RIP

Well this is a bit of a rant I guess... For a while now I've been coming across several unsavoury aspects in a couple of the hobbies I engage in. I currently have two main hobbies, video gaming, in particular sim racing, and miniature figure painting (which I also supplemented with scale modelling up until a few years ago). Taking sim racing as an example. In recent years, in particular with the rise of online e-sports series, there seems to have been a rise in the attitude that if you're not running a powerful computer and don't use an expensive wheel and pedal set you have no business partaking in the hobby. There seems to be an expectation that you have a certain above average level of equipment and money to throw around, regardless of your ability to be competent at the game. Using miniature figure painting as an example, there's a collecting element to it. Many older figures go for stupid prices on popular auction sites, much like OOP scale model kits. It's perhaps not quite as bad as some other hobbies though. Recently I came across a youtuber who was discussing what Lego kits people should be "investing" in. The comments section was full of people talking about how one should determine what kits will be valuable and go out and hoover them all up, sit on them, wait for Lego to retire them, then flip them for significant profits. New miniature figure box set releases by a certain company suffer from that same mentality, with scalpers hoovering up releases, which the company make limited on purpose to increase FOMO. I once had a guy on another forum try to tell me that you should be expected to have £200+ per month to dump on new products or you can forget about being in the hobby!?! I find it rather vulgar, objectionable, and disgraceful. I was taught as a kid, as I'm sure many of us were, that we share our toys with each other. Somewhere along the line, between childhood and kidulthood that message seems to have been lost on a lot of people it would seem - I don't recall the message being "go and hoover all the toys up so that no-one else has any, then expect significant remuneration from people who would like to play with those toys". I also thought that in today's society that we are all supposed to be about inclusion, and yet there seems to be a lot of gatekeeping, instituted by selfish moderately wealthy people, and their hangers on, against the less wealthy, when it comes to certain hobbies that until recently were relatively inexpensive to partake in. Of course it's pointless trying to explain the reprehensible nature of said people's mentality, because inevitably they are blinkered and refuse to understand and comprehend. Thank you in advance for indulging me in my rant, feel free to discuss, although I don't feel I have anything further to add.

I will echo what @JamesP and @Noel Smith have said. I bought a set and those PCB drill bits are fragile. Any slight sideways pressure and you'll end up breaking them. If you want, you can get a 12v multi-tool, a chuck, and a speed controller and use that. I converted an old Rotacraft multitool and it works a charm for when I can't/don't want to use a pin vice -

Not a huge fan of videos like this, despite following Adam Savage who's built swords, but there's a whole cosplay and re-enactment industry out there, particularly in the US, where making such items is an everyday occurrence. So I wouldn't worry about explaining the "gist" of the video, there's no reason why anyone shouldn't make a medieval axe if they can do so, despite all the acrimony from certain sectors of society.

I was debating with myself whether or not to start a thread for this, as I have done in past years. I know many would prefer to use the catch-all date of 11/11 for remembrance (because that's nice, easy and convenient), but I feel that important dates, such a 6/6/44 get lost, overlooked, etc. with just 1 catch-all day per year. Specific events should be remembered on their specific dates, if only so people can learn from the past...

Strangely I've never watched any of Ray Liotta's movie or TV credits. I did play GTA Vice City, though, where he voiced the main character. He's one of those actors you know of, even if you've not seen his work. RIP

Hey all Another Games Workshop figure I finished recently, this one I started and completed on Saturday/Sunday. He's a bit of a conversion, because the figure is metal and had a different weapon, the plasma gun he's holding is plastic and from a recent Games Workshop release. You can't buy this guy as he is and GW have recently discontinued the last of their original metal trooper models for the Steel Legion... I've been having some camera/lighting problems recently, so these are the best I could do in terms of photos... The base he's on is 25mm in diameter at the bottom. Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

Hey all I realised I haven't shared this here (have I?), I finished this on March 20th, having stripped him due to a prior failed attempt at painting him in 2019. It's a Games Workshop Librarian in Terminator Armour. I built him to go with my Deathwing Terminators, which are built (but not yet painted) ready for use in a GW game called Space Hulk. The base he's on is 32mm in diameter at the bottom. Thanks for looking, C&C welcome.

From what you've written it sounds like you're allowing too much paint to go down at once, and you're still using too high a PSI. I found when I was using Vallejo Metal Color, and did a Mig-21 using their Duraluminium (not the first or only model I've used it on), that I had to dial my PSI right back to about 10 on the regulator, and put down a light dusting of paint first, then gradually build it up in layers. You can't do one coat and done with it, and you can't blast it on at 20psi like you might other paints, is what I learnt. It can be a pita but once you get your eye in you can get a good solid coat in a couple of layers. And as stated by Ratch use a gloss black primer, Vallejo do their own for Metal Color, unless you want a somewhat less than shiny finish. You also won't need to wash and sand it. Because Vallejo Metal Color is so thin, it's more like using MRP lacquer paints, where I found the best technique was to get in close, extremely low PSI, i.e. 10 or below and put as little down as possible and go along and paint areas, rather than trying for an overall blast. This is how the Mig-21 turned out -

Hey all Came across this on Tested's youtube channel the other day. Wish I had £374.99+ ($450+ US) just to pull apart a toy, damage it, then put it back together with lighting!!

I wouldn't use fibre optic strands, they are easily broken and can be quite inflexible in tight spaces. I found that out when I wired up the nose lights in my Bandai 1/144 Millennium Falcon. There's a much better more modern way of doing it. Button battery as Black Knight said, or coin cell, a 3.5v CR2032 is ideal, they're about 1" round, you'll need the appropriate battery holder. Then get some pre-wired LEDs. SMD LEDs are what you are looking for, I've used 0805 SMD LEDs in the past. If you get them with magnet, litz or enamelled copper wire, the wires are far thinner, and far more flexible, than fibre optics, almost like string. You can either solder, use wire glue, or even just twist wires together to make a join. Personally, even though I know how to solder (badly), I'd go down the wire glue route for ease of use. You can even get conductive paint, for if you can't get a wire through, around or between parts... If you want a flashing set, get either flashing LEDs (which will all flash at the same time), or wire your SMD LEDs to an Arduino Nano board and look for code to program it with (it's quite simple). You can even go as far as putting in a remote to turn your LEDs/Arduino on/off, but I tried that on a project and found it drained the battery, because it still draws power from the battery, even though it turns the LEDs off... Plenty of micro switches on places like ebay - just put one between the live lead and the live (+ side) connection on the battery, if the battery holder hasn't got a switch already. There's a guy in Belgium who makes ready to install sets, if you don't want to "do it yourself", mostly for 1/32 scale though and I don't think they run off batteries - https://www.magicscalemodeling.com/ I did the eyes on this with SMD LEDs (it's only 7" tall), each eye is an SMD LED (less than 1mm round), the wires go into the body cavity where the battery holder is (there's also a micro switch hidden under the hatch in the top) -

Hey all I feel I should know this... Back when I was doing scale modelling, up to the start of 2020, I was a member of a certain pay forum run by a well known guy with a youtube channel (not Genesis models, the other one), and I recall on some of his more recent videos at that time, he was advertising Gunze Rapid Thinners. The selling point was that Gunze's Self Levelling Thinners apparently has a habit of turning gloss paint less glossy. Whilst their Rapid Thinners doesn't have that effect. So, I'm wondering if anyone here has an experience of thinners, of any sort, turning gloss paint less glossy? And what thinners people use with gloss paints, particularly Tamiya or Gunze acrylic gloss paints? Thanks in advance, any advice on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, I came across your build today, you did a very good job of it. 👍 Having built a 1/32 Porsche 917/10 by Matchbox I know that was somewhat tricky in places to secure pieces so I'm prepared for that on the Surtees TS16.

Hey all For some reason this past couple of years I've on and off had an urge to build an F1 car kit, particularly when I watch, as I have been this weekend, events like the Monaco Historic Grand Prix, (although I don't have much of a budget so MFH kits are out of the question)... So, for my not too distant 45th I've decided to bite the bullet and service that F1 car urge. As a result I've just bought a Matchbox 1/32 Surtees TS16 kit. As I already have two of Matchbox's Porsche 917/10 kit (and I built, not very well, one of them), I am aware of the quality of Matchbox 1/32 car kits. Whilst I could just build the Surtees out of the box I'd like to do a little bit of "super-detailing", if it's even needed. So, I'm wondering what details, that can be seen, where there is no bodywork, need adding, providing they can be done with simple materials like styrene/metal rod or pre-made parts (if any exist in such a scale)? I'm also wondering what pitfalls in the build to look out for? Some things I've identified already - I'm guessing that stripping the chromed parts, with bleach (?) or IPA, and repainting them in something like AK Interactive Xtreme metal polished aluminium (or other metals, for the brake discs, for example) would be a good idea right off the bat? I know some ignition wire leads would be something relatively easy to add, so they're already on the to do list. I'll use 26 gauge wire (0.41mm diameter) for those, as from my basic googling it seems that would be an appropriate size. Seat belts, unless pre-made, would be a stretch for me, so I'll leave those out. My google searches haven't led to many up-close reference photos, but there's a couple of metal fins on the front wing ends that are seen in almost all photos of the car that I've come across, but aren't on the model kit, so I'll add those, 20thou (maybe 10thou) styrene sheet will make that a relatively easy task. There is a grill on either side, presumably radiator grills, that I am thinking could be replaced by mesh, because they don't look all that well moulded, but I don't know what size/type of mesh to use to make it look right, or where to source it from? That's all I can think of at the moment. Having come across scans of the kit's instructions, and looked at some photos of the car in period, it would seem that Matchbox got all the tubular framework and other details into the kit, where stuff is visible outside the bodywork at least, and only minor things are needed, like those mentioned above, and drilling out the exhausts, for a little bit of easy to add basic extra detail. Any info/advice on this would be greatly appreciated though? Thanks in advance.

Not particularly hidden but I live not far from Weathersfield airfield. Which is soon to be lost to a double prison development, probably housing, and the small museum that sprang up a few years ago is being evicted. I'm also not far away from a war memorial near Bradwell power station, that many probably aren't aware of.

Yeah I've had that happen with the seal in Tamiya Extra Thin and Quick Set Extra Thin bottles. Having been a member of a certain person's pay site forum I gather it's a common thing with those bottles. Not wanting to turn this thread into a bad mouthing of people's products, but UMP Dark Dirt wash totally didn't work for me. As much as I begrudge stating it, there's a better alternative out there.