CliffB

Just catching up with this one Ray (this GB is far too popular ). You've chosen a really interesting subject and it's good to see it coming together so well. I can't wait for the PE! Cheers

I love it Pat and that canopy's turned out just fine .

Definitely one to watch

Nice one Ray. Congratulations!

Thanks for the clarification Tony. I've therefore taken the liberty of changing my title back to how it was. Keep up the good work - it's proving to be a great GB! Cheers

I'm really enjoying your Matchbox ship builds Dan. I'm a recent convert too, having built my first in last year's Matchbox GB. A tip I was given at the time was to drill out the portholes. This sounds onerous, but was actually quite easy and satisfying to do. The portholes are quite a visible feature in real life and drilling out gives you neat dark holes. Once they're drilled, just leave them alone - no need to paint the inside edges or to glaze . This approach would also allow you to sand off those raised rims (should you wish to). Here's my Kelly (masquerading as Kimberley), complete with drilled out portholes. Cheers

This is looking very impressive. I'm sure that if I was building this, it would be heading for Pisa by now!

A nice start and like others, evoking memories for me of the old Airfix kit (plus a 1/100 version from Heller that I've only recently let go). I'm looking forward to seeing this develop

Thanks guys My printer won't print white either - it's just a basic ink-jet. The white letters that I used for the DANGER sign were individual items from an aftermarket sheet of white letters. Since posting though, I've had another idea and have tried printing my DANGER artwork on to clear decal paper. It's worked OK, so it looks like my white decal paper is indeed faulty. These new DANGER signs are approximately 75% of the size of the one I put together using the individual letters and hence are more accurate. Also much quicker to do. The only down side is that they could be mistaken for DANCER warning signs! Of course, the white letters are not actually printed white - they are clear and you're just seeing through to the white backing paper. So if applied straight on to the model, the decals would have body-coloured letters. To overcome this, I'll apply a rectangle of white decal sheet first and then lay the DANGER sign on top. I'll make the white rectangle slightly oversized, as the DANGER sign actually has a white border. I hope that makes sense! Cheers

Take your pick - blue or green! The blue is Xtracolour X013 RAF Blue/Grey (hence the deep gloss), while the green is Tamiya XF-62 Olive Drab. I've given the latter a quick coat of Klear, just to seal the surface, and I'll give it a couple more before decaling. On the subject of which, I've found some suitable roundels in my stash but all the other decals I'm having cobble together myself. Most, I've been able to create and print off OK (including a nice 846 NAS 'George and the Dragon' badge for the HC). However, I had problems printing red onto white decal paper for the warning signs. I think it's a problem with the paper. So instead I've been adding 1mm letters to some red stripes on an unrelated aftermarket sheet. It's the word DANGER that I've added in this photo. The super-macro shows that I've managed to damage the 'E' with my cocktail stick, but thankfully this isn't noticeable at 1:1 . It took me about an hour to do this one, with many wasted letters (thankfully I have plenty on the decal sheet), but I think it will be worth the effort to complete the remaining three. There should be an arrow included too, but I'll be giving that a miss. Cheers

I've started to paint now . My preferred colour for painting glazing in 1/200 is a glossy dark grey, so I've started with this and then masked off the windows. I've done the flat panes OK, but the curved windows proved to be too difficult for me in this scale. So I've decided to leave these for now and brush paint them when everything else is finished. That should be OK. Cheers

Oops, what a pity about the canopy. Would displaying the canopy open help? It would certainly give a better view of the gorgeous cockpit.

Phew, what a relief.

I seem to have found a way to turn six small blades into a tail rotor. Just a dry, proof of concept, run at the moment. I'll paint the rotors individually (those pesky stripes), before fixing them to the hubs. Cheers

Nice choice