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Sorry to be pedantic, but which brand? There are many variations and each one has its quirks Cheers Colin

What paint are you using? Sanding may work, but sanded areas will probably end up with a flat finish and look grey instead of metallic. Paint type may help others identify the root problem. Cheers Colin

A very impressive way of getting around the nose weight problem! Cheers Colin

Milliput is great, but be aware that if rescribing is required it has a tendency to crumble at the edges of the scribe. And yes, ironically, the precision design of the Airfix new tool (and some other companies) can make part fit a challenge - there is very little tolerance. The slightest misalignment or surplus paint/glue at step 1 can lead to problems at step 17. I find one of the biggest risks is being overly aggressive when clamping of parts as this can cause minor, often undetectable changes to the profile. Remember that polystyrene glue melts plastic, so squeezing two drying parts together too tightly can change the profile from the design. Cheers Colin

Maybe the catapult should be re-assessed - a solution to all the fuss over new runways at Heathrow & Gatwick. Revive the central London scheme! https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/14/london-kings-cross-airport-outlandish-plans-almost-got-built Cheers Colin

My experience of this stuff is that it is extremely fragile, and certainly won't tolerate masking - or for that matter handling. I'm told the Super Metallics are better in this respect, but I haven't tried them. I use Extreme Metal AK, which is supposed to withstand masking but I have to say my experience with Tamiya tape has been a bit hit and miss. I now mask metallics with Parafilm, which works fine with the AK stuff, but I suspect that standard Mr color metallics would still suffer with that. Yes, a clear coat of some kind might solve the problem but IMHO any clear coat takes away from that metallic look. I did see a YouTube video comparing the effect of various clear coats on a metallic finish, and in this test Future came out as having the least impact. But of course any clear coat will result in a uniform high gloss finish which I don't think is appropriate (except perhaps for highly polished aluminum). I think a key part of a metal finish is the variation in the amount of shine. Cheers Colin

Lead flashing is readily available from builder's suppliers like Wickes. I bought a roll of 6" flashing there about 8 years ago (it now costs about £42) and am still only half way through it. It saves huntinf for weifgts to use My mistake - but when I looked locally a couple of years ago, all I could find were substitute materials and it was no longer available. Clearly I was misinformed or misunderstood ... perhaps it was a short term Covid related supply issue. Cheers Colin

I think the key words in this section are 'as required' - I would interpret this as meaning if you need anti-glare panels, this is what you should do. But if you don't (as in the case of an OD aircraft), ignore this. Cheers Colin

Been there, done that - and worse ... when a young lad I secured fishing weights into the nose of a 737 with a generous amount of polystyrene cement. Not pretty, As mentioned earlier, I find the adhesive on my preferred golf handle lead tape good enough. If not, PVA does the trick. Cheers Colin

Hmm - every time I think I'll cancel my Apple TV account, they come up with something new to keep me hooked. I'm no Apple fan, but of all the streaming services I've tried Apple seems to have the best quality to dross ratio. Cheers Colin

Have a look at https://www.amazon.co.uk/lead-tape/s?k=lead+tape. The stuff I have (can't remember which brand) is self adhesive, which can be handy. But the adhesive is easily removed if you want it plain. Back in the day I had some lead flashing, but these days it doesn't appear to be available (without stealing it off church roofs!). Cheers Colin

I suppose manufacturer's could address the problem by providing alternate metal parts for the nose gear, and if necessary other components of the forward fuselage ... but I'm not sure people would be happy with the increase in price. I think there's always a way to get round the problem. I use the lead tape intended for weighting golf clubs or tennis rackets. This stuff is easy to work and you can fashion your own replacement parts (e.g. nose gear doors or bay interiors) with it. Yes, but unless you have access to depleted uranium, finding space for it is a bit challenging! But having a weight guide is certainly useful as long as people are aware that 'where' is just as important as 'how much'. Testing using methods suggested above is always essential. Cheers Colin

For mine I pretty much filled the radio compartment (there's little scope for adding weight further forward). I added a 'curtain' behind the little window for that compartment so you can't see the weight. There's nothing to look at in there anyway. I think I remember adding a little weight behind the engines as well, just to be safe. I certainly overdid it a bit (been caught out be skimping before!) Anyway she nose sits quite happily and the gear seems to have had no problem with the extra weight. Cheers Colin

I don't think there is anything which will remove lacquer without removing the polish. In any case it is quite likely the lacquer will already have eaten into the polish. Mr Color Levelling Thinner is my go to paint remover, and will not damage the plastic or fog clear parts. But it will remove your polish. Just be very careful not to get any on paint you want to keep. Whatever you do, I think you will need to re-polish the canopy. Cheers Colin

For me 'constant scale' is really important - my models are all displayed together, so mixing scales would look odd to my eyes. I have been tempted on occasion to do something in 1/32 or even 1/24 so I could go all out on the cockpit and engine details - but I don't have anywhere to put it. My interest is exclusively WWII, so I know what my most space demanding kits will be (Me 323 and BV-222) and have sized my display case accordingly. Cheers Colin

Yes, the Italeri kit. I don't remember any real issues with construction but they were probably overshadowed by the challenge of freehand airbrushing the mult-colour mottle scheme! With clever engineering biplane kits needn't be so challenging as Airfix demonstrated with their new tool Swordfish. But I have a couple of Special Hobby kits in the stash (Vildebeest and Goblin) which I look at from time to time, shudder, and return to the stash! I know I can build them, but I'm going need to be in the right fram of mind to take them on. BTW I favour real wire for rigging, attached with PVA. I find this a good balance between realism and practicality as you can make multiple attempts at attaching the wires without risking marking up the painted model. To my eyes at least, the distinction between round, braided or profiled wires is just not worth worrying about in 1/72nd. Cheers Colin

I think the inherent difficulties of assembling biplanes (or triplanes!) coupled with the challenge of rigging puts many people off. They're never going to be a quick build, and sales novices are always going to be small. I'm a 1/72nd WWII guy, but that includes many stick 'n' string types - I must admit I always take a deep breath before tackling them! Cheers Colin

A compass cutter is good, but only down to a radius of about 1cm - for smaller stuff I use a punch set. I should add I've tried neither on decals which can be quite delicate. Instead I use Tamiya tape and create masks for painting Cheers Colin

There's no doubt there are more 1/72nd kits than 1/48th (there's a huge legacy of kits, many of which get re-released over and over again in various guises), in fact I'm surprised there is not a bigger discrepancy. What would be more interesting is a comparison of new (or new tool) kits released in the last 5 - 10 years. I think this would show a different picture, in that there is a general industry wide shift to 1/48th. I suspect this is more the case with main stream manufacturers as physically larger kits are more of a problem for the smaller one man and his dog operations. Cheers Colin

... don't forget the Airfix Walrus! I find it strange they did the new tool Walrus in 1/48th but the Swordfish in 1/72. Seems to me that any modeller interested in either of these would be likely to buy the other if it was in the same scale. I noted the other day that aside from Airfix, my LMS had gone almost exclusively 1/48 - for example, they only had 1/48 kits from Dora Wings. It would seem the even if companies produce 1/72 kits shops may be preferring to stock 1/48. Are there better margins on 1/48? We need a modelling homologation - all kits must be produced in 1/72 before you're allowed to produce them in any other scale. 🙂 Cheers Colin

I think you've got a couple of problems here - 1, the paint is being laid on much too thick (as evidenced where it has chipped away). Using similar thinning ratios to you, I use 12 -15psi which gives you more control. If you're not getting the coverage you need, let the paint dry and then give it a another coat. Multi thin coats with drying in between is much better than a thick coat. Thick coats also take much longer to fully cure (harden). 2 - dust. Part of your problem seems to be dust on the model either before spraying or landing on paint after spraying. I use an anti-static brush on my models before painting. Also if you use the thin coats method I suggested, the paint will dry much faster giving less chance for dust to land on your model while the paint is still wet. Dust can be a real problem - maybe there's something you can do to reduce dust in your painting environment. Ideally you want to paint away from where you might be creating debris (e.g. sanding). I also run my extractor ahead of painting and give the spray booth a dust to try and remove any particles before I start spraying. Finally, I spray a dry blast of air across the model before releasing the paint. If you do get dust specks, try lightly sanding them out - if the dust is post paint, this should work, though obviously not if the paint has landed on dust already there. Cheers Colin

I suspect this isn't really a scanner, but is in fact a digital camera designed for one purpose. And nothing wrong with that - it may be a better solution than the DSLR plus adapter for your purposes. As in most things, 'the best is the enemy of good enough', and the price for each step of quality improvement increase exponentially. For me some of the slides I have are of historical value and I want to extract maximum quality and detail to preserve as an archived .tif file, hence I have always gone the high quality scan route. But aside from being expensive, it is time consuming. The doesn't really say much about how well it resolves detail. The content of the file could be a blurry mush! If possible it would be helpful if you could post an example from this scanner ... I may be interested in one for some of my less important slides as the volume I still have to scan is pretty intimidating! Cheers Colin

I think you need to give some thought as to how you want to do this. Slide scanning is a pretty slow and tedious process. I would say 3 minutes per slide is a good estimate, but will of course vary on a) your system and b) the resolution and quality you want to achieve. Copying via a DSLR is going to be quicker (once you've got everything set up). If you are dealing with thousands of slides, then there is an argument for investing in a decent flat bed scanner (I use the Epson Perfection V750 Pro) which can batch scan 20 slides at a time. If its a few hundred, this might be overkill, and a DSLR configuration might be the better option. Going the latter route, you can be sucked in to some very high end equipment (esp lighting sources), so you need to decide what your expectations are. Unless your slides are something like Kodachrome 25, perfectly exposed and pin sharp, a 10mp camera is going to be able to capture pretty much all the detail available, so a 2nd hand older model Canon or Nikon will do the job using a standard 50mm lens with a slide copying attachment. The most important thing about lighting is that it must be even. A lightbox will do the job or shooting against the sky (an even overcast is best). Any issues with color balance you can deal with in Photoshop after scanning, but uneven lighting is hard to correct. One downside of shooting with a DSLR is that there will be no dust removal function as is present in many scanners, so depending on how fussy you are, time saved using a DSLR may be lost when it comes to cleaning up the scan. Note that auto dust removal does not work as well (or with some scanners is impossible) on Kodachrome slides (because of their particular dye construction). Cheers Colin

I do use that too when I need something really runny - but I found the stuff to be useless when mixed with talc as a filler - set instantly. Can over no explanation for our different experience with Gorilla. My current bottle is now around 3 months old. Cheers Colin

That's what I do - when starting a new colour, I'll mix up a Tamiya jar's worth of paint thinned to my liking. I've found solvent based acrylics and lacquers seem to have a good shelf life (thinned with Mr Color Levelling thinner), but enamels are a bit hit and miss - some turn to gloop in a short time. Can't see any pattern to it, but this has happened with Xtracolor, Colourcoats and Humbrol (thinned with Colourcoats thinner). Overall I'd say Humbrol have the worst keeping properties, Xtracolour the best. Cheers Colin