Enzo the Magnificent

This will be interesting. Would yellow car paint from a rattle can be useful? I would spray a coat of matt lacquer over the top to give it a bit of texture for the brush-painted teak colours.

Components for the tender. I believe the tender body and chassis components were from two different releases of the Hornby A3. The wheels are from a Hornby Mallard. Most of the previous components (with the exception of the two keeper plates) are taken from the spares box. The items shown below (coupling rods, connecting rods, cylinders and drain cocks) were bought especially for this build. The tender will need a fair bit of work. Mallard did use corridor tenders but not on the day in question. The corridor connector will need to be removed and the rear bulkhead and decking replaced. I've considered making this a multi-sensory model by sticking a piece of aniseed in the bodyshell so it smells like Mallard after the speed run. The Wikipedia article will explain why.

Here is my first build for this GB. It is LNER A4 No 4468 Mallard. On 3 July 1938, this engine set a world speed record for steam locomotives of 126 mph. This record still stands. Wikipedia has a very informative article on the loco and the record setting run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNER_Class_A4_4468_Mallard There are white metal kits of the Gresley A4 available but I'm not going to use one. I have numerous A4 components in the spares box which I will chuck together to produce a static display model. I intend to represent Mallard as it looked during the speed run. The first component is a Hornby bodyshell. This is of Mallard in British Railway colours and so will need some modification. The good thing is that it already has the double chimney. The first batch of A4s were built with single chimneys which caused the exhaust to hug the top of the casing, obscurng the view from the cab. The commemorative plaques were fitted in 1948 and so will need to be removed. The valances covering the valve gear and cylinders were removed durng the second world war to ease maintenance. These will have to be added. Components for the chassis. The driving wheels are from a Gresley A3 but were identical to the A4 wheels. I believe the chassis block is also from an A3.

I've said it before and I'll say it again... spreadsheet!

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I'm with you on this. Hopefully we'll get it before The Few GB later this year so I can build a Belgian aircraft. But it's not like I don't have other options in The Stash.

He's right, yannow!

Point of order, Mr Chairman. I appear to be in the membership list twice: once with the UK and again with Latvia. Not complaining though.

This is gonna be good!

Construction of the gear bay proceeded as normal. I removed the wing leading edge extensions and will refit them when the wing is fitted to the fuselage. I then assembled the wing. The unaffected upper surface part sorted out the remaining warpage. With all the marlarkey, the warped wingtip had actually shrunk a couple of millimetres so this will need to be sorted out with some plastic card slivers and filler. I'm fairly confident about the repair now. However my concern is that the repair may show up under the NMF scheme. In my experience NMF schemes always show up any imperfections. If that is so, I may paint this model as a P-51 which had a painted camouflage scheme. Time will tell.

So, I got cracking this morning. Right out of the gate there was a major (and I mean major) problem. I had two of these kits in The Stash. I took the above photos of one kit a couple of weeks ago and then put it back in The Stash. I put the other kit on The Ledge ready for use in this GB. I never thought to open it and look at the parts. This morning I got a shock. The wing undersurface part was warped. Badly warped! I have never seen warpage so bad in a plastic kit. Not even in a resin kit, where one expects a certain amount of warpage. The port wingtip was deflected upwards by the width of my thumb! I was so shocked that I didn't even take a photo of it. I cannot really send the kit back to the seller as the kit has been in The Stash for ages. I could have used the other kit for this build, but I didn't fancy having an imperfect kit in The Stash which would then likely never get built. I decided I would attempt to fix it so I set to without taking any pictures. However, to give you a flavour of how badly warped the part was, here is one of the metal elevators which was right next to the wingtip on the sprue. Luckily, I believe my chosen subject probably had the fabric covered elevators. I think at some point the sprue may have been placed very close to a heat source. Given that there are no issues with the other sprues in the box, this must have been before it was packed. I just had the misfortune of getting an imperfect kit that was missed by Quality Control. I attempted to flatten the warped wing by heating it gently in hot water and bending it back into shape. Sadly the wing fillet was too far gone to be fixed properly, as you can see. But... I have a cunning plan.

Let's look at the sprues. Typical modern Eduard fare here with nice surface detail but tiny (and I mean tiny) locating pins on the fuselage halves. I think this kit covers pretty much every detail variation of the filleted fin aircraft. There are two fin fillets to represent aircraft built with the fillet and aircraft with a retrofitted fillet. There are three types of panels on the lower nose. There are two different types of elevators - canvas covered and metal covered. There are three different types of prop. There is even an alternative seat for the New Zealand aircraft! Two different types of instrument panel (with options for using decals or PE). Three different canopies. So... nice.

Well... everyone knew what I meant...

Is it wise to start another project? Especially considering that I haven't finished any of the five that I have in progress... Well, it may not be wise, but I'm doing it anyway! This is the Heller F-84G kit. I have fond memories of this kit from back in the day. The kit was first issued in 1978. This boxing is from the following year. The kit is typical Heller fare from that time: sparse cockpit and gear bays with raised panel lines. It's a nice simple kit and I am really looking forward to building it. As it's a French kit, it seems only fair to build it as a French aircraft - the box art scheme in fact. Mind you, the decals are pretty ropey but I have a cunning plan.

The bogies were attached and the whole chassis painted. I used Lifecolor UA-7018 Revenge Black. The cabs were sprayed with Lifecolor UA-036. I added some ballast to ensure that the model sits well on the track. I then removed most of the details from the bodyshell ends, including the buffer shanks. I have drilled some 0.3mm holes to accept the handrails.

Yeah... it looks nothing like RLM 02. My preferred choice for RLM 02 is Lifecolor UA-071.

What you need is a spreadsheet. Mine is called Gideon. She allows me to keep track of pretty much everything in my life. I have 15 concurrent builds with another three to start on Saturday.

Excellent choice! I'm building the same kit in Texas ANG colours.

Four more sleeps and then we start!

I'd love to. But will he listen?!?!?!

I understand not everyone wants to be as unhinged as I...

Awwwww... But I am really rather envious of those kits.