pigsty

Well, I did. Excellent show as ever, good mix of clubs and traders, with some handy tag-team work between the days to increase the variety. Alas, also as ever, fairly grim catering, although the free tea at setting-up time was very welcome. Much more comfortable temperature, too. Special thanks from IPMS Kent for allowing us a couple of extra tables just for the asking. If we could have the same spot again next year, that would be even better. Already looking forward to it!

It’s the First World War, and Queen Mary is visiting the troops at a field hospital behind the lines. She sits down next to one soldier lying on a bed with his foot heavily bandaged and up on a hoist. “And why are you in here, my man?” she asks. “Trench foot, ma’am,” he replies. “I say, that sounds dreadful. What treatment are they giving you?” “Wire brush an’ Dettol, ma’am.” “And what is your dearest wish?” “To return to the front and carry on serving my country, ma’am.” “Jolly good.” She comes to the next bed, where a soldier is lying down on his front. “And why are you in here, my man?” she asks. “Haemorrhoids, ma’am,” he replies. “Oh, how perfectly awful. What treatment are they giving you?” “Wire brush an’ Dettol, ma’am.” “And what is your dearest wish?” “To return to the front and carry on serving my country, ma’am.” “Jolly good.” She comes to the next bed, where a soldier has both legs covered in dressings. “And why are you in here, my man?” she asks. “Gangrene, ma’am,” he replies. “Oh, you poor man. What treatment are they giving you?” “Wire brush an’ Dettol, ma’am.” “And what is your dearest wish?” “To return to the front and carry on serving my country, ma’am.” “Jolly good.” She comes to the next bed, where a soldier is sitting up with his jaw tightly bandaged. “And why are you in here, my man?” she asks. “Dreadful toothache, ma’am,” he replies. “Oh, bad luck - but I do know the treatment for that. So tell me, what is your dearest wish?” “To get to the wire brush an’ Dettol before them other buggers!”

Not yet. Last year they first solicited interest at the Southdowns show in May, so perhaps about then. But they were making noises about a regular event.

Certain current events, as a game of battleships: “B1.” “Miss.” “OK. B1.” “Miss.” “Oh, yes, silly of me. Er … B1.” “Miss! Again!” “Right, sorry, of course. OK then, B1.” “Miss! You do know you’re supposed to try something different?” “Yes, that’s right, I’d forgotten. In that case … B1.” “Oh for - !”

Yes indeed, although the fairings were new each time to allow for the different fuselage profiles. Hence Tom's 1/32 Shackleton will use an Avenger radome if he decides to finish it as an AEW.Mk.2.

Well, I think I've answered my own question. The locating pins in the inner faces are too big, but the solution is to use a few turns of a 1mm drill to enlarge the holes in the outer faces. You just have to be careful not to go right through the track pads. Fit can still be a little sloppy, but it’s much better - the tracks should hold together well enough until I can get a bit of glue at them. This shouldn’t be necessary with tracks whose instructions say don’t use glue. Compared with, say, AFV Club tracks, it all seems over-complicated, and the level of detail isn’t noticeably greater. Oh well, only four more sets to go, plus the 60% of this set I still have to assemble.

Umm … they're Martian creatures who can travel between planets and vapourise people with heat rays. Why would they build fighting machines with button-back leather seats and aspidistras in pots?

Well, it's not azure, but if I found an olive that colour, I'd spit it out.

Can anyone offer any advice on how to stick Meng tracks together? I’m building an Italeri 1/35 Leopard 1A2 and its tracks are awful: under-detailed, covered in pin marks, and so stiff that they try to adopt a perfect circle after you’ve fitted them. So I looked for better ones and found that Meng did independent links, as provided in some of their Leopard 1 kits. With five Italeri Leopards in the stash, I thought hurray, and bought five boxes of Meng. They’re unbearable. I can’t get the inner and outer faces of the track shoes to connect. No matter what I do, there’s always a gap, and it’s usually at an angle. Fiddling with this and that suggests that the problem is the pins on the inner faces - they must be too big for the holes on the outer faces. If so, it looks as though I’m going to have to sand down 680 little tiny pins, or drill out 680 little tiny shallow holes. I’m really hoping there’s another way to sort this out, or I've wasted thirty-five quid and I'll still have to use the Italeri cack. So … HELP! please!

Apart from a "limited number of the public" admitted on the Friday, it does look from the website as though there will be no general public at the show in 2020. It doesn't say why. Does anyone know? (And by that I don't mean "does anyone want to guess?")

Blimey! Humbrol 66 and Humbrol 120 are a long way apart. I posted the same question on Armorama and was directed to Humbrol 86, light olive, which was (i) between those other two, (ii) like some images I've seen on-line, and above all (iii) in my tool box. With the usual weathering it won't look much like 86 any more, but I'm happy with the results so far; I'm finding it a very blue shade of green, so in weathering it I'm adding brown and a yellower green. And I'm using 120 just for the dry-brushing! There will be pictures eventually, to make all this clear.

I never found Jurassic Park very convincing. It was a real by-the-numbers pot-boiler and you could tell their hearts weren't in it. That scene where they diagnosed a Triceratops by poking around in a pile of dung - I thought, they're just going through the motions.

Reissue? Remaster? Remake?

Thank you all. Beats me – seven months or so from start to finish, though that included a few weeks off. That’s the pre-painted Eduard etch, over the kit’s seats. Two feet long! or 60cm in new money, and about 40cm across. It has to live in a box that’s too big to put away anywhere and I had to buy a bigger car so I could take it to shows. (Not the only reason, of course, but isn’t it strange how many Skoda Octavia estates you see at shows?) Everything silvered. I tried extra setting solution and there aren’t big enough bubbles to use a pin on. I’m taking it as a learning experience about making the surface properly smooth.

Here we have the classic 1/32 F-15E Eagle from Tamiya. It’s a large, impressive kit, cunningly engineered. The main drawback for most people is the old-fashioned choice of weapons: you use either a forest of cluster bombs, or a few huge laser-guided bombs, or you pay more for the fearsome GBU-28 version. For more modern stores you need to shell out more again. The choice of decals is also limited, though since every F-15E looks much the same, maybe that’s not too bad. Fortunately, four blue GBU-10s is a valid early load, and it looks impressive, so I was happy enough with that. Unfortunately, my problems didn’t stop there. The cockpit is far better than the rudimentary job in Tamiya’s F-14, but the seats are basic - most importantly, especially in this scale, they have no belts. I added Eduard pre-painted PE: the seats are still reasonably accurate, so adding detail was better than using resin ones. That the belts hang badly is all my fault. Still up the pointy end, the kit is engineered for an open canopy, but I prefer everything shut. Plus there’s no sill detail or canopy latches, which would have added more expense. That’s when I discovered that the glass is the right size but the little skirt round the edge is much too narrow, so I had to add fine plastic and sand it nearly transparent to take out the step. Further back, I’m not totally happy with how the intakes have lined up, but it’s been ages since I peered down them and I suggest you avoid it too. The wing roots were awful. Both met up with the fuselage at front and back, but both had marked dips mid-chord, leaving very pronounced steps. I’m sure I tightened up all the screws properly so I can’t explain this. Packing and filler have disguised the problem but not removed it - in the wrong light a curious crescent is still visible on each side. The kit comes with a single fuel tank that’s far too small. My chum Abul let me have two from Revell F-4 kits - the Tamiya tank will actually fit inside one of them - and is happy to use mine on one of his Phantoms. Very nice chap. Other problems (probably) weren’t Tamiya’s fault. For instance, I ran out of gunship gray on a Sunday afternoon, so that was a week lost. Mind you, I’m baffled that Tamiya produce a really good gunship gray, but only in a spray can. To touch up the usual little spots I had to find an alternative - which is when I discovered that no other company makes the same shade of gunship gray. Some are miles off. Luckily all those spots are underneath, so they rarely see the light of day. The decals all silvered despite a smooth paint finish, a coat of Klear, and Mr Softer. Me, Tamiya - who can say? The bare metal around the engines is Plastikote silver. It’s brilliant paint - one coat, no primer if you like, and a nice gleam without buffing. But it marks very easily, so if you’re using it, beware of fingerprints. Having said all that, there are good points too. The model is amazingly robust thanks to being screwed together as well as glued - although some screws take a lot of effort to drive home and tend to warp the plastic around them. The undercarriage is much more solid than white metal. Surface detail is just lovely. And I think the most effective part of the entire kit is the exhausts. So I plan to display it back-to-front at shows. And now, some pictures.