General Buck Turgidson

Don’t feel bad Jens - I have boxes and boxes of stalled projects going back to about 1983. Someday, eh…. Please do try and finish that M557 though. Your take on the old 7th Army “MASSTER” scheme is simply brilliant. I have never seen one so well executed. PS Apologies all for not posting in a long, long time but between married life, my business, my wife’s business, and Satan’s own dog I just haven’t found the heart to do a blasted thing other than to admire my references and daydream when I can find the time.

Morning all, Not much to post today over the second cuppa. Made preliminary templates for the spar and the fore/aft bulkheads and started on “de-lining” the wings. Closer inspection of my earlier work reveals the need for a magnifier of some sort or at least a trip to the optometrist. Age. On reflection - I agree with you keefr22 - that was my original preference as well. So be it – both pods and crate it is! What is modelling if not a little bit of an art? Wheels up? Most definitely for this one – I want to do the lines and crate detail justice and avoid bogging myself down with a mass of JMN/God & I type detail in the wheel bays, flap recesses, and (especially) the cockpit. Come to think of it, your observation would make a good theme for a series of builds – “The Cold War in the Shadow of the Sun” – as it were…. France: ?? PRC: Tu-4, ?? UK: Canberra, Valiant, Victor, etc. US: B-29/50, B-45, B-47, B-52, etc USSR: Il-28, Tu-4/16/95, etc. Other countries? Cheers!

Lunch time at this end and not that much to report… First off, cheers to Greg! So THAT is how you do it. Nice-nice, good-good! Still waiting for the Humbrol Liquid Poly that I slathered on the cut edges of the bay (to stabilize flaking / tearing) to fully cure and the plastic to harden off. Word of advice - I suspect that the plastic Revell uses these days is 100% pure recycled dross – it is soapy-soft and flaky (like a good butter pastry) all at the same time - so use care in major surgery. I do so miss virgin styrene. Shaved off all the raised “detail” on the fuselage with Swann-Morton’s finest No.11 and ministered to the scrapes with more Liquid Poly. Will lightly sand the fuselage and clean up the bay area tomorrow - I think. I like to avoid too much sanding at this stage to preserve contours – there is still much butchery ahead. Good news: Love-Dove will be coming home Sunday(?) with ALL of my tool kit and plastic card and stock (and our digital camera) so it was in her honour that I raised the knife and sacrificed the nose probe and airbrake strakes - and it was good! Bad news: I fear that I have painted myself into a corner with this build already. Part of the appeal of doing XL193 (decals aside) was the fact that she often flew with sampling pods (buckets, growths?) on the wing tanks. BUT how likely is it that she would have carried both sampling pods AND the camera crate (the focus of this build)? I mean, logically, that which you sample you cannot photograph and visa versa. Right? So, to maintain visual interest, I am debating if I should leave the wing tanks off all together (while retaining tank, crate, and photoflash in the bay) to depict a high altitude night time photoreconnaissance sortie – not uncommon with SR.2s. Your thoughts please! For disposal: Free to a good home - a single, irreducible package containing Revell decals for Maid Marian XH672 plus ALL K.2 specific decals, undercarriage parts, and hose reel unit bits. First come, first served. PM me.Re: Will do Keef! I will have it up in a day or two. Hi-ho, hi-ho - back down the shaft I go… Till later… Edit: Bits are spoken for..

Fellow is over engineering things a bit I say while ignoring the basics. He glues port and starboard fuselage section halves together first and then the resulting fore and aft sections together making his life harder then strictly necessary while still leaving himself a nasty, possibly stepped, seam to deal with. No thanks. When confronted with multi-part fuselage "halves" linear assembly is 99.99% of the time the best answer IMHO Edit -Dave, I can feel my mind going. Dave?

And your avatar is giving me nightmares

Let us not be too hard shall we? At least Hu30 is the best, most authentic match for Soviet Armour Green. Why? Just like the real thing, no two batches are alike. How much more realistic can you get? PS I am serious. Really I am...

TWO! I built half of one - and felt I had accomplished something. I had the old underscale (1/100 was it?) Contrail 1st issue vac. Silly me I traded it for a Matchbox Bucc plus aftermarket. I'd hate to see what they go for today..

Old school canopy masking circa 1980... 3M Brand Frosted Scotch Mending Tape Cheap. Effective. Pre-cut on your mat and wear a little of the tack off by handling and that is it. Don't use with a "hot" paint mix. This was my first mask when I was just a wee one.... Reason for edit: Can you post with a sausage in one had and a beer in another? Didn't think so...

Hello all, A quick lunchtime update – popped up to the surface from deep in the shaft yesterday and did a little butchery. State of play as of yesterday evening: Bay doors removed –she is well and truly eviscerated right now. Crew door and portholes (to be re-done later) placed in. Air brake housing and cockpit attached to fuselage halves as are nose gear doors. More later as I organise my disjoint thoughts… Cheers!

Cheers! Just what the Good Doctor Merkwürdigeliebe ordered. The good news, as far as modelling and general essence denial goes, is that my darling Darling Miss May is away visiting family for the next week. The possible good news is that she will be able to identify and locate my collection of plastic card and stock and bring it back with her. The very real and deep fears presently haunting me and which I prefer to leave unspoken centre around memories of her last expedition to my stored stash whence she successfully recovered my ABs only to pack them directly - and mixed up thoroughly - with several pairs of my heavy country brogues!

Purity of essence? That part I’ve got down cold. It is the denial that I have to work on. Nah. Maybe in the next life? PM re Victors etc whenever you like. Remember we are all in this together – some just more so than others…

Hello General! Thank you very much for your kind offer of help. Being a stubborn old git I am committed to the DIY approach re the intakes – famous last words I know. I do wonder if one of us was kidnapped at birth by (PC tongue biting here)? Your suggested plan of attack matches mine almost exactly. However I have been debating drawing in all panel lines in 0.5 soft lead only re-scribing access panels and the like. What are your thoughts on a mixed approach? Cheers!

Hello all! As the title suggests here is the place you will be able to find my perhaps glacial at times progress towards depicting one of the last SR.2 XL193 in service towards the end of her career resplendent in a high low-viz, high gloss finish. The objective of the exercise as already mentioned elsewhere is to do the most with the least – a not unimportant consideration in these times. Britmodeller seems to be very much a place that encourages up-hill both-ways, old-school, fundamentalist modellers such as myself so it is with considerable pride that I hope to display my efforts here. I have not started a serious project since c.2004 and the last time I completed one was almost too long ago to remember. It is without exaggeration when I write that if it were not for all of you on this site I would never have re-entered the hobby. A humble thank-you to you all! I had originally planned on doing the absolute last of type, XH674 but the fact that the Revell re-pop of the Matchbox K.2 only includes camouflaged markings for XL163 my decision was already made for me. Doing XL163 XL193 has its charms though as she was one of only two SR.2s that were fitted with the iconic sampling protrusions(?) on the wing tanks – the other being XL161. Moreover XL163 XL193 was also not fitted with the ECM “warts” on her behind saving me a little scratch-building in that department. Over the last several days cruising the net when I should have been working (luckily, I am self-employed and as such went (too?) easy on myself) trying to reconstruct missing references and uncover new information I have amassed quite a bit of interesting photos and facts on SR.2s and No.543 Squadron. If there is interest in my sharing this information with others who are interested in Victor SR.2s, please let me know and I shall do a formal, fully attributed write-up and post that here as well. Finally, there is a sad coda to the SR.2 story making this something of a humble tribute build. Please click on these links: http://www.e-goat.co.uk/forums/archive/ind...hp/t-14238.html http://www.pprune.org/military-aircrew/319...n-concerns.html The knife hits the plastic next week. Watch this space. Cheers! Edited due to my mind slipping ever so slowly...

Hello Steve! Please! That would be very greatly appreciated to say the least! PM inbound to you. OK, that is one problem solved. Re intake blanks – good solution – except then you are wheels down meaning you now have to address those hideous off-centre hubs. When I did my K.2 with the DB intakes years ago I cannibalized the wheels off of an Airfix Vulcan. The newer David Parks David J Parkins set has etch for the hubs IIRC. I decided to stick to re-doing the intakes as being my preferred solution. Rebuilding 10 V-Bomber wheel hubs from scratch (or resorting to casting) is just not on at the moment. My projects tend to die in the bays…. Cheers! Edited due to a chronic caffeine / alcohol imbalance. Donations of Guinness and Jamaica Blue mountain may be sent to….

Running dog lackey of decadent and corrupt bourgeois imperialist aggressors! Said with love of course…