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…

Hello all! First off apologies for the long winded post but I hope that you will forgive me. Sorry for the delay in getting back to you Rolf. Smashing stuff I say! The finish is top-flight as is the crane - just as a SR.2 should look IMO. Any chance of sharing pics or wisdom you might have re the cradle itself. Re the SR.2 camera cradle trolley, look here towards the bottom of the page – http://airrecce.co.uk/postww2/ac/Victor/victor.html The trolley seems like a simple enough affair to build if one had a better sense of detail, size etc. This thread has brought together a couple of thoughts that have been brewing in my mind. The present financial unpleasantness is a very real factor in most all of our lives. Looking at the DJ Parks site I do so wish I could order another of the Victor B.2/SR.2/K.2 sets but I simply cannot afford to do so -yet I am chomping at the bit to get on with it. So… My fiancée is back home for a week and is planning to go out to our storage unit – I have asked her to find room among her shoes etc to at least bring back my collection of plastic card and stock along with hopefully a few tools. Keep your fingers crossed! To ask her to rummage through my references looking for books and drawings is to risk more than just foxed pages I fear. The victim of my ministrations will be a Revell re-pop of the Matchbox K.2 for which I paid the princely sum of 10€ constructed as one of the three SR.2 s of Wyton’s Victor flight (serial?) circa 1976 “essentially” OOB to see how close I can get to a proper, full-up build on a tight temporal and financial budget. My only cheat will be doing it wheels up to avoid getting bogged down in bays, flaps, and deployed airbrakes etc which has been the ruin of many of my projects. I hope that this build will serve as a dry-run for a later masterwork done with the bay open, etc, etc. My limitations – or challenges if you will – are as follows. No after market decals, resin, etch, or white metal - only what is in the box plus card, scrap, sprue, and the miniscule contents of my latest spares box. A very limited arsenal of tools will be deployed - no punch and die set or micro-drills for example. No proper AB due to the lack of a compressor – el cheepo Revell spray gun and tinned air it is. Paints will be Humbrol and/or Revell enamels. Rattle cans will be used to the fullest extent possible. The only thing I fear is the lack of drawings. I absolutely must re-scribe the beast but re-buying rather dear reference material is totally out of the question. The nice fellows at airwar.ru to the rescue? The main innovation I have planned will be the separation of the intakes from the wing proper so that I may replicate the DB conversion in putty and card before reinstalling them – vivisection to the extreme. The objective will be doing the most with the least - your thoughts chaps? If any of you have a genuine interest in interactively tagging along with me on such a primitive, primal, old-school, modelling project please let me know and give me two or three weeks to get organized at this end.

Hello Ian! Very good to know that I can drop my fear of marring the finish even worse - many thanks for sharing. The next time I fu - oops - give myself an additional challange I'll try your method. Cheers!

Hear, Hear! Apologies for making what I am sure is a controversial point but what, exactly are the advantages of acrylics if one has to thin them with cellulose (a much more frightening substance than plain old white spirit and hardly eco-friendly) and all that entails to have them reach the same level of performance while airbrushing as enamels do? That they dry faster, ok but what else? And still they are a pain to brush with. Serious question – can a single acrylic on the market today be spayed on cleaned, un-primed plastic and stick without resorting cellulose or other “hot-mixers”? The funny thing is that I couldn’t shift Polly-S from un-primed plastic even with their very own stripper! Yes, yes I know what you are thinking but 30+ years in the Modelling Mine Shaft does funny things to a man even with that 10 to one ratio thing….

You are a braver man than I. I would be quite scared to spray anything cellulose based without doing a test first on a similarly finished surface. Sounds very good to me - saves me a very delicate step - but I have to ask do you ever have trouble with the top coat above the area in question peeling, crazing, etc due to solvent being introduced under it?

Russia used 1 or 2 as transports even after the war. Re-engined and "re-nosed" IIRC. I almost want to say someone did a decal sheet for one not too long ago - or is that my creeping senility?

Andy, Low-viz, hard edged, and shiny as hell she is going to be – I love a little creative juxtaposition in my builds! Sampling pods? But of course… I have not got a specific airframe in mind. All my refs and most of my tools and paint are in storage at the moment so I am reduced to impotently fondling a Revell re-pop of the K.2 for at least a few months more. I am actually thinking of doing mine wheels up to show off the camera/sensor fit off but how to display it? Hmmm? Julien, The K.2 set is your starting point. You will still need to do a few mods such as the ECM lumps and bumps, “carrot” correction, and wingtip re-extension on your own. As mentioned up-thread, all you really need for a solid baseline are the B/SR/K.2 intakes. The rest can be scratched or ignored. The B/K.1 set is of no use to you.

That is an understatement. Looking forward to seeing your SR.2 build – I’ve always been a big believer in letting you V-Force boys lead the way in… Personally, I am hoping to do my SR.2 as one of the few kept in service until ’76 or so to pay attention to French. Last of type always appeals to me. Re the acetate windscreen – brilliant stuff! I have always settled for sanding and polishing the kit part down to a smooth surface.

Now that is what I call innovation. I wish I had the kit (and brilliance) to try something like that! Re the panel lines – try an old No.11 with a very slightly broken tip used in the reverse if that makes any sense. Drag it along the intended panel line towards yourself at an ever so slight angle. With practice you should be able to remove a fine curl of plastic and leave behind a neatly finished panel line. I hope this helps!

Don't forget that the Italeri JAS 39A was/is also boxed by Airfix and possibly Revell. Remember to glue the upper wings to the fuselage first and then install the lower wing from below. Otherwise you may well have a very nasty wing-root gap. Ask me how I know..

Easy as 1, 2, 3…. Arthur Bentley: http://www.albentley-drawings.com/handley_page.htm DJ Parks: http://www.djparkins.clara.net/fltpath/fp7...postwar_raf.htm Warpaint No.36 - Handley Page Victor The Flight Path intake set is a must as are the drawings. There are some very good threads out there on the usual sites on doing straight B.2 Victors. Never have seen a SR.2 built though I too have planned for such a poject for years now. Let me know if you would like me to share my thoughts.