pigsty

That does look handy, but I wouldn’t buy a special modelling version. You can get the same thing from an art shop for much less: a basic dip-pen holder and a packet of maybe 20 fine nibs will last a lifetime. Dip-pens have their pros and cons. Pro: you can get very fine nibs, and they’re easy to use. Con: you have to keep refilling them, and the ink runs out unpredictably; after time, the ink will dry in the nib and need scrubbing out. I’ve found another sort of pen that seems to work quite well. The Pilot unipin comes in dark grey and sepia (the grey is lighter than a typical pencil) and has a 0.1mm nib. It fits into almost any panel line. The one drawback is that the ink isn’t waterproof, so (for example) you couldn’t put a coat of Klear over it. You can find waterproof ink for dip-pens.

Crikey, that was quick! What is this “build … schedule” thing you speak about?

All these chess gags … ‘king hell.

If that’s the case you should have a word with your seller, because models and bits for models aren’t supposed to be liable for duty, only VAT.

Well, they tried, but with little success. Seversky’s output pre-war was pretty much all military. The first serious attempt at civilian stuff was to convert the XF-12 Rainbow into an airliner. It had been ordered as a prototype long-range reconnaissance platform; when the USAF ordered the RB-50 instead, that put the mockers on any chance of an airliner derivative. The Seabee came not long after but was always economically marginal, and overall made a loss. It wasn’t helped by Republic buying a company just to make its engine. In 1963 they tried hovercraft, with a licence agreement for the Vickers VA-3. But there were no orders and they gave up on that. Republic had some success with spaceflight, but pretty minor. Alas, six vertical fins for the Space Shuttle was never going to be the start of a long-term business. It was much the same with tin-bashing for, eg, the Boeing SST. When Fairchild took them over, that was when they had their nearest brush with the airliner market. Fairchild had built the Fokker F27 under licence and developed it into the FH-227. Republic had sketched out something similar a few years earlier, the RC-4; presumably Fairchild cornered that particular market. Republic tried to develop the abortive US/FRG VG fighter into a business jet and a feeder-liner; again, nothing. Then they designed the SF-340 with SAAB, but manufacturing problems meant their end of the programme fell apart and SAAB carried on without them. And that was it. The company (well, Fairchild’s Republic Division) closed in 1988 and is now a housing estate. I got all this from The Thunder Factory, which was published a couple of years later. It’s a fascinating and slightly depressing read. The overall impression is of a company that wasn’t terribly well run and relied far too much on military work, until it was too late. An interesting factor is that Grumman was a brisk walk away, and US pork-barrel politics meant that if one firm got a contract, the other couldn’t, so as to spread out the work across the country.

If you look here, https://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234986655-f-5e-hasegawa-132/&tab=comments#comment-2066375, my dry-brushing technique is explained a few posts below the photos.

Talking of which, when Apple computers first went on the market they had to pay Apple Corps (the Beatles mob) to be allowed to use the name. So I’m not sure being in a greatly different field of commerce is all that great a protection.

A couple of things still baffle me about this. What is being licensed? Is it the design or just the name? From the small print on boxes, it seems both - and the name includes “P-51”. I can understand that North American owned the design of the P-51 (though I still have trouble with Boeing claiming credit for it) but the designation came from the Department of Defense and the name, as Rolls-Royce as pointed out, came from the Ministry of Defence. For Boeing to be charging fees, they must have somehow got those rights transferred to them too. The US DoD doing it wouldn’t surprise me at all, but how did they get “Mustang”? I ponder this because, as someone else has mentioned it, merely not using the name Harley-Davidson for a motorbike wouldn’t be enough. It’s a bit hard to conceive of a model company managing to use the design but having trouble with the name. The other thing is, will this ever end? We’ve just done the 75th anniversary of VE Day. Copyright in intellectual property generally expires after 70 years or so, and the P-51 dates back to 1940. But then, in the US they periodically pass a new Mickey Mouse Protection Act, with the apparent aim of extending copyright perpetually and eventually destroying the concept of public domain. Good old capitalism, eh?

Is nice work. I have one of these in the stash - Italeri kit, Mouse House resin, but no markings. Where did you get yours?

Believe it or not, confetti. You can buy shiny stuff that has a prismatic coating and, cut up small, apparently looks quite convincing. I’ve not tried it myself, but there are people on Armorama and Track-Link who say good things about it. As an alternative, especially if you aren’t comfortable with plastic being used for confetti, is clear ink. The most common colours that show up on that coating are black, purple and vermilion. Black would be easy; if you want the others, layers over fine-grained silver would probably work. Choose your ink carefully, though. Some of it doesn’t accept a second coat very happily. I’ve found that with Winsor & Newton, and I normally swear by that stuff.

I’ll second that. This has reminded me how attractive the Andover could be in service colours, especially the E.Mk.3. I see the transport versions are sitting at all sorts of angles, some of them low enough at the rear to look like they could use some paper afterwards. Did they have adjustable undercarriage, or is it just a matter of how they’re balanced?

Sorry, all, I just can’t keep up with how to link to pictures. Should all be fixed now.

Here’s Monogram’s old B-25J Mitchell, finished as a PBJ-1J of VMB-413 in the south-west Pacific, early 1944. It’s a typical scheme; I’ve no actual photographic backing for it. Of the Monogram kits I’ve made recently, this one had the fewest fit problems, and it still has the level of detail that they’re renowned for. Nice. The worst part was where the nacelles met the wings, which is always a low point for them, as for a few others. One other bit of dodgy engineering is where the wings meet the fuselage: there’s a small gutter all the way round. I could have filled it, but on the real thing there are small fairings as well - and, handily, they’re not the usual tight curve, more like narrow flat plates. So I’ve added that in thin card to mask the gutters. Probably much too prominent, but at least it covers the gaps. The integral spars have done the usual good job - nice firm fit, with just about the right dihedral. On balance I think this kit compares well with the Accurate Miniatures one, though I’ve not actually built that. The AM kit has engraved panel lines (I did my own) and more three-dimensional internals. But the fabric effect on its control surfaces looks rum against Monogram’s; and they don’t do a J model, which I prefer for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on. But the main factor is, I didn’t know about the AM kit when I bought mine; and I’m stubborn. So, I kept the Monogram kit and spent a lot on additional parts. Most of it was wasted. The wheels are from True Details and, like most of theirs, are nice but saggy. The radar pod is from Obscureco, attached to the kit’s nose parts. It came as a one-piece replacement nose but that was no use: the lower half was too tapered at the sides and the top didn’t match well either. It would have made for an impossible filling job, so I removed the pod to attach it to the kit’s glazed parts. It’s solid, unlike the rest, so I had to carve out a concave profile to fit. Then it turns out the pod is too short and doesn’t have a completely straight top in profile - the rear end dips to meet the glazing. The result is, to get it to sit level, you need to mount it too far back and too far up. I suppose I could have carried on trying to rectify the problems, but it would have ended up 90% filler, and life’s too short. My explanation: this is a field-modified PBJ. The pod was usually on the nose on the earlier PBJ-1D (moved there from the ventral turret mount) but it was on the starboard wingtip when PBJ-1Js were delivered. USMC maintenance crews often moved it back to the nose to reduce the amount of wiring, and that’s what’s happened to this one. They would probably have used the same installation as the earlier ones, but in this case the local modification has produced a shorter, higher pod. Honest, guv. I bought a nice set of Quickboost gun packs for the fuselage sides - and used only the barrels. The kit parts curve round the bottom corners of the fuselage; Quickboost’s don’t. This is not really terribly impressive. It doesn’t help that some of the barrels wouldn’t go in straight. All the other guns are from Quickboost, and it’s hard to see that every one of them is slightly bent. It’s Master all the way for me, from now on. Their brass stuff is matchless. I also bought a lovely set of Verlinden engines - which turned out to be grossly overscale. To get them to fit would have meant removing all the cylinder heads. (It’s a double set, so I have to hope they’ll fit better in an AMT A-20.) Even the ignition harness was too big to use on the kit engines, so I’ve just used them as they came. They’ll do - better than most from Monogram. I have drilled out the exhaust stubs a bit, though. Quickboost offer replacement cowlings but after my experience with their A-26 items, and those gun packs, I thought better of it. I’ve made a couple of other small enhancements. The landing lights are Little-lenses under the kit’s clear covers. I don’t know what I’d do without them. While the kit has a fairly good set of rear guns, it has nowhere for the gunner to sit, so I stuck a bit of flat card on a bit of rod and dropped it in there. Also some rudimentary ammunition tracks, which run along just below the window sills. You’ll just have to believe me when I say they’re in there. Top tip from tomprobert of this parish: cable ties look a lot like ammunition tracks if you paint them right, and you can get about five feet for a pound. There’s a lot of weight forward in this model. One small benefit of the PBJ-1J is that many had their nose glazing painted over, so you can be as sloppy as you like inside and it leaves plenty of room for lead. And it’s better looking than the PBJ-1H. Paint is Halfords White Primer, and three flavours of Colourcoats for the blues. The Intermediate Blue is exemplary stuff; the darker blues went on nicely but were translucent, so I needed a lot more coats. Decals are very, very sparse, in line with the real thing: white numerals from Fantasy Printshop, roundels from tomprobert again after the old kit decals fell apart, and a few filler cap markings from the kit. Weathering: the panel lines are drawn in with a fine grey technical pen, which is less stark than my usual dark pencil. The rest is good ol’ chalk pastels, as ever.

Nice. What ever is that eight-wheeled thing just above the Puma? I’m not at all familiar with it. The colours look French but the hull is almost a Luchs.