Brigbeale

Will do. Thanks

Thanks for the laugh and support. That cheered me up a bit. Regarding the Phantom, as I remember it took me 4 evenings’ work to apply them. The restored Frog Sea Vixen is now sat next to the Phantom in the cabinet and looks a bit naked without all of the marking/warning stencils the Phantom has.

Just browsing EBay as everybody else in this ward is sleeping - apart from the noisy sod they moved in next to me about an hour ago and almost had a shock. This was listed I thought the wife was selling off my collection in my absence - fortunately it’s too different from mine

Thank you Adrian.

Thanks for the messages of support wan well wishing. It’s greatly appreciated. The gall bladder pain paled into insignificance when the put the drain in - I won’t forget that in a hurry.

I can’t believe somebody put up a laugh icon in my last post. When the drain was put in, it was the most pain I had endured, even with anaesthetic. I purposely haven’t looked to see who it was as I don’t want to fall out, but whoever it was, could you please change/remove it as I find it insensitive. I might have missed something in the intention, due to the meds, and I apologise if it causes offence.

I’m afraid it’s going to be even longer before I can return to the Shackleton. What I thought was just a bad nuisance pain has taken a turn for the worse which has seen me admitted to hospital for a suspected burst gallbladder. This came as a hell of a shock as I’ve never had any serious illness in my life. I will return to modelling as soon as I’m back home and up to it.

Sorry I’ve not been posting the past few nights - I’ve not been well. I had a bout of being sick followed by a bad pain in the side of my chest (I think I’ve pulled a muscle). The tablets I’m taking to alleviate the pain leaves me feeling woozy. Until this clears, I’m afraid I won’t be doing any modelling.

The engines and propellers were assembled last night. All rotate freely. The red was touched up on the one spinner where it rubbed off in places. Then the whole Shackleton was given 3 light coats of Humbrol Gloss Cote via my airbrush. A couple of areas have come out overly glossy. I’ll have to get some satin Cote to tone it down a bit. With the exhausts, it occurred to my that although the colour was acceptable (to me anyway), there was too little detail with the exhaust manifold and pipe all the same colour. So I decided to paint the top and front portion of the manifold in IJN Grey

An update on last night’s activities - not a great deal to write about but enough for the Shackleton to take a bit more shape. The exhausts were painted with a mix of Gun Metal/Dark Earth. Hmmm. It doesn’t look quite right so I’ll search for the proper colour for used exhausts and repaint them. The propeller blades were set into their spinners and overspray paint cleaned off the shafts. The red acrylic paint is easily damaged so will need touching up before clear coating for decals. The vertical stabilisers were added to the tail wings and braced with Revell square paint pots o

This evening’s modelling saw me masking off the refitted windows, bomb aimer’s window and the underwing lights. I also rechecked the masking tape to make sure it was secure. All of the parts to be painted Grey were gathered and fitted on cocktail sticks/cotton tip buds. I’ve given the Shackleton two coats of the aforementioned Tamiya XF-77 IJN Grey to simulate the EDSG which I assume is the right colour - which I found on another thread on Britmodeller from an internet search. In some photos I’ve seen they look more of a blue grey colour. The masking tape was removed and didn’t peel any

It would be good training for keyhole surgery. The affected windows didn’t have any masking tape on them - I’m thinking of using the masking solution on the refitted windows. The tape is - unfortunately - the last of a roll of household tape. Both the local model shop and Hobbycraft were out of masking tape. I’m hoping this will be ok though as it sticks when pressed down, but give it 10 minutes and it’s pulling away from the painted surface. I took a cautious look under one bit of tape and there wasn’t a spot of white paint on the underside. It was de-tacked a bit first by sticking

Success!! As the clear tail cone hasn’t been fitted yet, I figured if I made a long tool with something tacky on the end, I could possibly refit the windows in their respective holes from the inside. I had some stiff wire in my shed from a couple of collapsible fabric shopping baskets - which were less hassle to use one the wires had been removed. I straightened one, bent the end over and added a kink to the end. A blob of white tac was squished onto the end and a small hump made. The windows were then placed in the white tac and then the window and its fitment rod was

As Baldrick would say.... Whether it works ........

There’s not a great deal of change from the last post on the Shackleton. When I peeled the masking tape from the fuselage, it removed the dried Mr Hobby Neo masking solution, so the side window had to be re-masked with tape - which was fine until 3 of them disappeared inside while I was rubbing the tape to distinguish the edges - obviously not enough cement - Oh well, I’ll have to do liquid windows once it’s painted. I then started masking the white roof on the fuselage up leaving the faintest of white showing for an intentional overlap of the grey and white paints to ensure c