RobL

Tis the season to watch Star Wars.... Star Wars Andor is quite alright.

I use Swantex plastic shot glasses, pack of 40 from Tesco. Cheap, reusable, and recyclable.

Love watching Adam Savage, ever since I came across Mythbusters. There's something entertaining yet also a little educational about him. I've not yet watched this vid, but it's on my watch later list. He also recently went to Prop Store and viewed an Ambassador class starship from The Next Generation - it was amazing how simplistic and rough the details were. That vids also on the Tested YouTube channel btw.

Saw this reported on the BBC - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-63612409 "It was not immediately clear how many people were in the two aircraft, but two victims have been named." "The number of casualties are not yet confirmed, he said, but added that nobody on the ground had been reported injured." "The B-17 usually has a crew of about four to five people, while the P-63 has a single pilot, said Hank Coates, from the Commemorative Air Force which organised the event - but he could not confirm any fatalities."

RIP It's individual stories like this that tend to get lost in the mist of time, thanks for sharing Selwyn.

I have to admit that armistice day has crept up on me this year, I've been supervising my 65yr old mother following a heart attack and subsequent double bypass, and I myself have been somewhat unwell since the last 30+C heatwave in August. All that is of course nothing compared to the hell our armed forces went through during both world wars and subsequent conflicts. So, please give 2 minutes at 11:00 today, or whatever the observation is on Remembrance Sunday (this Sunday).

RIP

RIP

Sadly that attention doesn't extend to one scene in the final episode. All I'll say is that even with all the resources globally, or even cgi, it would seem they took the Patton/Battle of the Bulge route... Good series though, if not a bit light on the exact details (I'm sure the docu stated the Benghazi raid was a monumental balls up?!), and a little box ticky (i.e. token French spy). I'm rarely enthused by the output of the BBC, or the rest of our terrestrial channels (ITV, 4, 5, etc.) but I'm actually hoping there's more to come, as there's more to tell of the WW2 days of the SAS, particularly the events around D-Day.

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.