Flying Badger

The SNEB pods had a walk-on role in Sully's recent youtube build of the Kinetic 1/48 Harrier GR 3. Really generous and appreciated praise for them. See Sully's stunning build video here: FB

Ooo! That's a good idea. I have a vague memory of one in my stash.... although I'd lay good odds on it being said PM abomination! (Memory of it being a thin yellow box which screams 1990s PM). Dare I venture into the stash? Just how horrific is it Steve?

.... and weirder still, I'm not making any of that up! 😆

Currywurst and Berlin doesn't surprise me that much... Volkswagen, Germany's big sausage manufacturer, is a household name after all, and Currywurst are their longest and biggest selling product (VW official part number 199 398 500 A) since they started making them back in 1973. In fact VW are so good at producing sausages that VW had their own display of currywurst in the museum (although I had heard that the museum had closed in 2018). They even export their sausages around the world (except USA where they're only allowed to sell their less popular products like cars).

Absolutely. Great show with some stunning models on display. Agree about the lighting though could be a touch brighter so displays full glory can be seen in more detail... although lower light hidding my errors may explain why the competition judges inexplicably awarded me two silvers and a bronze compared to some of the stunning work that others entered.😉 My little girl is still clutching her gold with a big grin as we get the train home and I'm hugely appreciate of everyone at the show indulging and encouraging an enthusiastic 5 yr old who wanted to copy Daddy and enter a model! :-)

Is there a concessionary entry? My daughter (5 yrs old) and son (3 yrs) want to come with Daddy! My daughter wanted to enter one of her models (airfix /lego quickbuild) but we did it together so it's not solely her work as per regs. :-(

Of course not and useful too as it shows more detail on how the pitots are attached to the starboard gear struts. I was torn by which to build and that Navy one was certainly a consideration. From what I can tell the navy used them more pre-war with experimenting with rotorcraft on ships. The ones I have seen references for the inside of have a different colour scheme and retain the maroon / red colour of the doped canvas walls with a much paler green/turqoise-ish-blue colour to the framing etc. rather than the standard RAF interior green that was slapped on the RAF ones. My current guess is that it is the Royal Navy colour "Sky Blue" (which is a bit lighter than the RAF "Sky" colour we all know from the bottom of spitfires etc.). Be aware the kit painting guidance is not exactly great. for instance it tells you to paint K4232 you pictured above in white rather than Alu-silver! I'd recommend defining your own colours based on sound references. Another issue is that they are unusual and fairly rare now and therefore the museum ones are all in beautifully restored and cared for condition and haven't flown since they last were painted etc. So the exhaust manifolds on all of them are all shiny black metal (rather than rusty exhaust colour) and the engines are usually spotless - rather than covered in grime. I've done mine on the assumption that in service of either the RN or the RAF on a ship or coastal base they'd have been cared for but certainly not spotless - much weathering to be done on mine shortly.

Some small progress.... Fiddly bugger of an engine. Also I noticed that now that I have painted and assembled them I missed the sprue attachments on a few parts somehow. Sigh. I'll try to rectify those without messing up the rest of the engine. Some work on the cockpit especially the very fiddly PE seat belts: (ignore the colour - it looks fine in real life but I grabbed a quick photo with my phone rather than setting the shot up properly and sorting the white balance). The panels are the last big thing still to add before I can add the tubing to the right side and insert it into the fuselage. I have them painted but need to add the decal gauges More soon, FB

I love the weird and unusual subjects. Great progress James so far, I shall be following with interest.

😳 nope no idea what you mean... 🤣 It does at least make things interesting as people come up with unusual stuff you may not have come across before or interesting info. That and it inspires me to build something a bit different or outside my normal habits (my Avro 671 Rota mk 1 (Cierva c.c.30) is doing that. Only my 2nd ever whirlybird). 🙂

Hi Martian, What size is the text at the scale you're working at? I have a laser cutter at work and I'm not afraid to unleash it on unsuspecting pieces of masking tape! 😉 Basically if the text is large enough an option could be for me to laser cut the text out of a piece of decent quality masking tape. You then stick another piece (or even dedicated transfer frisk/transfer film) on top and transfer the laser cut mask to your model. Peel the transfer tape/film off to leave behind the laser cut mask and then spray paint the serials onto the hull thus negating the need to make white decals. Alternatively I have a laser printer at work that prints white and might be convinced to print some white onto laser printer decal film - one minor issue being that it's old and won't run on anything newer than Windows 7 and my work refuse to support anything other than windows 10 and 11 🤬 If I can beat them into submission and get the blasted thing working then that could be another option. Either way a set of artwork (prefereably a vector graphics format like .ai, .svg, .eps or .dxf or .dwg) would be needed. If you can make such thats fab, if not and you know the font and font size I can easily knock something up in adobe Illustrator in less than a minute or so. FB

Time to correct the squiffy landing gear (see post above for picture) that came in the box. First off I removed the squiffy strut and then used a lighter to carefully warm the distorted other struts that were saveable and gently straitened them out. Just one spot where I miss-judged the time in the lighter (its very very easy to mess this technique up and turn parts into bubbling messy blobs - that and the plastic contracts along lengths when heated too much as well). Fortunately it's only a tiny spot and some filler will take care of it at the end. To replace the squiffy strut I decided I needed something a tad more robust than the waffer thin bit of plastic so I'm scratch building it from brass. First I got a piece of brass rod about the right size and filed a flat on one side: Then flipped it over and filed another one but at a slight angle until I got a roughly aerofoil profile piece of brass.... Cut two pieces to identical length with my tiny cutting guide: Filed a bevel on one end of each and then hit them with a polishing stick before CA glueing them in place of the squiffy plastic strut: Much better but even though it's straight I'm not sure I trust the other side hence the second piece of brass. Repeat the process for that side aaaannd.... Finally a clean up of all the sprue gates and mould seam lines etc and they're ready for paint: Fairly happy with that as a fixed part. I'll hit that brass with some Mr.Metal Primer-R so the paint will stick to it well and it can go into the pile of parts for the spray booth. FB

Hello to you in ACT from the other side of the planet! Great work so far. Enjoying following along, the engine looks great and I like the subtle stuff getting the realism of white to not being perfect white.

Looking fantastic and the windscreen turned out great. Looking forward to following your progress. The heated enclosure is an essential in my experience. Temperature is such a huge factor in the rate of reactions of the chemistry of the resin that a small variation will impact the exposure time needed. Having fixed (or reduced) the temperature variation makes it all so much easier to work out and control what is going on.

I also considered being cheeky and submitting a Chinese Xi'an H6K jet powered bomber (which first flew in 1959) to the allied section. How would that qualify? Well it's a twin jet and because technically China and Japan have never agreed to any peace treaty to end the 2nd World War: When Japan signed the surrender on USS Missouri on 2nd September 1945 The Republic of China represented at that event was losing the Chinese Civil war badly, they could only really represent a tiny part of Chinese territory by that point and only a few months later retreated to Taiwan. The PRC is not the ROC and they were not party to the surrender, but had been part of the war with Japan as the Communists and the Nationalists joined together in 1936 to resist the Japanese. Thus the ROC in Taiwan is at peace with Japan.... but the PRC of mainland China is technically not! 😉 On this basis I guess I could also submit a Japanese Mitsubishi F-15J that the JASDF use as interceptors and in 2016 had to scramble them 199 times to respond to PLAAF H6K aircraft encroaching on Japanese airspace. But claiming a jet that entered service in 1981 was a WW2 aircraft is a tad more than just cheeky even for me! 🤣. However, then I re-read the rules and you've dastardly pre-empted someone trying such silliness and specified 1939 to 1945.... whilst those are the dates everyone uses for the second world war they're not strictly or technically the actual dates because of the China (PRC)-Japan issue above and also that Japan and Russia never agreed a treaty to end the conflict until a Joint Declaration in 1956.... but that's splitting hairs! Also technically in Asia the second sino-Japanese war is considered part of the 2nd world war but it kicked off much earlier than Germany's invasion of Poland in 1939. Exactly when you count the start of that conflict is debatable... 1937 (battle at Marco Polo Bridge)? or even 1931 (when Japan's false flag incidents gave them an excuse to invade Manchuria)? FB