[New Airbrush - £130 Budget]

The H&S brushes are the ones that immediately come to mind if you want a dual needle setup.

 

Like the Evolution 2 in 1 - that can be bought for around your budget.

 

 

[Amazon Bargain topic]

Amazon have some Airfix spitfires (1:48 and 1:72) on sale today

 

Airfix A05135 Supermarine Spitfire XIV

(1:48 - £19.50)

 

Airfix A05125A Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vb

(1:48 - £20.10)

 

Airfix A05139 Supermarine Spitfire MkXIV Race Schemes Aircraft

(1:48 - £21.10)

 

Airfix A02108 Supermarine Spitfire Mk.Vc

(1:72 - £9.50)

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

 

[EDITED: Link fixed. Will portable airbrushes take over? I think so.]

I don't think so.  For those that do their airbrushing at the same workbench a dedicated compressor is better and more versatile.

 

I can see it useful for modellers who don't have a dedicated workbench - like those that set up at a household table but have to clear away at the end of each session.  Also as a secondary airbrush for those who want a portable solution like when going to clubs or a mate's house.

 

I liken it to the broadband in my house - WiFi is great, very flexible but where the device is in a fixed position, like my gaming PC or my Sky Box then wired ethernet is far superior.

[Amazon Bargain topic]

Are you saw it was really there on Amazon in the first place, could it have been a mirage 

[Current Tamiya 1/35 AFV Best]

Not sure whether it is perfectly accurate or not but I really like their SU-76.

[Russian 76mm anti-tank rounds]

I’m no expert, but just had a google and these two websites

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_divisional_gun_M1942_(ZiS-3)
 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_tank_gun_M1940_F-34

 

suggest that they used the same ammunition

 

BR-350P for composite AP

BR-350A for high explosive AP

BR-350SP for solid AP

F-354 for HE

OF-350 for HE fragmentation

 

Essentially, any brass shells that you can buy for the T-34 76mm would good for the 76mm anti-tank (or divisional gun) 

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

 

[First Resin Printer - looking for opinions]

54 minutes ago, bootneck said:

 

If I could make a suggestion;  buy a basic 2K machine and start making your prints with that - perhaps even a second-hand one.  You may find, as I did, that it suited my needs very well; plus it was a good machine for learning with.  I didn't feel the need to upgrade to a 4K for over a year and, even then, I still use the Photon S for much of my printing. 

 

 

Can you even buy 2K printers these days.  I wasn't looking at 4K for extra resolution but because that seems to be the standard resolution for the entry machines these days.

 

But point taken - using the same reasoning, I'm not looking at 8K machines.  I see those as extra cost when I don't really need it - also increase repair cost when you have to replace the LCD.

[First Resin Printer - looking for opinions]

Must admit I like the price point of the Anycubic Mono 4K, which has a smaller build plate than your Mono X but I assume is the same otherwise.

 

The Mars 3 was a good alternative but this seems to have been dropped now in favour of the Mars 3 Pro which is £100.

 

The way I look at it, I can get an Ancubic Mono 4K and a Wash and Cure for the same price as a Mars 3 Pro.

 

The Phrozen looks nice but that is pushing the budget even more and I find it hard to imagine that it is not that much better than the Anycubic Mono 4K to justify the extra £150.

[First Resin Printer - looking for opinions]

Looking at first reason printer, budget of upto £300.

 

At the lower end there is the Anycubic Mono 4K, at the top end there is the Elegoo Mars 3 Pro, and if I were to stretch the budget there is the Phozen Mini 4K.

 

Rightly or wrongly I perceive an increase in quality, AnyCubic < Elegoo < Phrozen

 

But at this entry level, is there any real difference.

 

Interested to hear opinions from anyone who has tried one or more of these.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[Hannant's Current Bargains and 2023 Price Increases]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:43 AM, pigsty said:

Yes it is.  But it's absolutely standard practice everywhere.  It's what petrol stations do when the Budget puts up the price of fuel and they increase prices on stuff that was delivered a week ago and, if the refiners are to be believed, was actually bought and paid for six months ago (which is also the "reason" why the price can't go down when market forces reduce the wholesale price).  It's probably what everyone else selling models is doing, too.  In any retail environment the number who don't take advantage of increasing wholesale prices is pretty low, and all you can do is shop around.  Which I assume we'd all be doing anyway, especially as certain big yellow shops are never knowingly underpriced.

I know what you mean but the fuel increases in the budget are a bad example - because that is tax, the garage doesn’t make anything from that increase - it all goes to HMRC.

 

And it is the government that mandate that the duty increase has to be applied at the point of sale regardless of how old it is.

[Hotchkiss H35 (FTF 1/72)]

Wow, that’s fantastic.

[Hannant's Current Bargains and 2023 Price Increases]

On 2/14/2023 at 7:10 PM, spruecutter96 said:

The only thing about that.... it's a pretty under-handed thing to do. If Hannants bought in any aftermarket sets in recent years at price "X" and then, in 2023, automatically increases the price on those old sets by up to 35%, then they are not playing fair with their customers. They haven't actually incurred any greater wholesale prices on the previously-procured sets but if they are then blanket raising the cost for everything on their shelves...

 

In these days of everyone being VERY careful with their cash, if Hannants do spread the increases across everything, they are going to find a lot of this stuff gathering dust in the coming years. 

 

I'm not slagging the Big H off just for the sake of it. I've often found good stuff on their website and then spotted it at a better price elsewhere. Having said that, I saw some Quickboost resin stuff on the Big H a few months ago and it was half the price most traders were asking on E-Bay. I think they might have made an error in the listings (prices for all the items has now gone up to a more expected level). 

 

Cheers. 

 

Chris.   

Back in the 70s when I was a kid I used to buy my Airfix kits from a little bicycle/electrical/toy shop in the village.  Back then there were no barcodes, or computer point of sale systems, just those little sticky price labels.  In some stores you would see new labels over old but this store never did that.

 

So I remember when I was buying kits I would shuffle through the stock to find the ones labelled with the lowest price.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

8 hours ago, Selwyn said:

The bomb in the museum in Finland is marked as a HE bomb. As its obviously not a real HE bomb as its in a museum, its possible that its undergone some sort of repainting at some time. I am always suspicious of the colours of museum items for this reason.

 

Selwyn

 

 

Thanks for the response, the mystery has now been solved thanks to the recent post by @Casey.  That shows a real swatch of ‘Light Buff’ that looks yellow like the bombs in the photos and museums.

 

My issue was not about the precise shade, I’m a ‘close enough’ sort of guy it was the fact that I was being shown conflicting information, one that that bombs were yellow and the other that they were a creamy brown colour.  I wasn’t puzzled by the exact shade but by the fact that to my eyes they were two completely different colours, yellow and brown.

The problem it seems is that the RGB representations do Light Buff are widely inaccurate.

 

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

7 hours ago, Casey said:

Anything converted to RGB color space is wildly unrealistic. That does include modern cellphone "I know better what is your white balance" photos, wildly colorized old time photos and of course artistic splats from vendor online sales material and also my spectrophotometer readouts->sRGB conversion using math.

 

If you want to compare paints in objective way - use only spectral measurements.

 

Let me give an practical and hopefully relevant here example:

 

Humbrol 7 (Light Buff) vs above BS colors:

 

_{I make paint samples very thick, so it sometimes get wrinkled on edges (especially with enamels), but it does not change the color. I measure the color in the middle of sample anyway.}

 

And here is Humbrol 24 (Trainer Yellow)

 

But try comparing the RGB values my camera measured from same paint swatches - taken from middle of the BS359 Middle Buff It is in the same light conditions too.

 

 

So - never use RGB if you can avoid it.

 

For comparison, here is how my spectrophotometer sees those colors when converted to sRGB. The colors are not 'real' but comparison avoids the difference in light conditions, camera settings, gloss and so on.

 

BS359 |  Humbrol 7 | Humbrol 24

 

 

My spectrophotometer says they are both bad matches. But I guess Humbrol 24 is easier to get.

 

 

 

Thanks, I find those colour swatches convincing - the 358 Light Buff looks a lot more yellow than the colour patches I had been seeing which were a lot more brown.

 

As you show though, Humbrol 24 is pretty close, just needs a little toning down.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

47 minutes ago, dogsbody said:

So as I'm retired and it's cold, windy and snowing outside, I did a little digging around, checking colour callouts in some kits.

In the Airfix Whitley, they ask for the bombs to be painted Humbrol 74 Linen Matt.

 

I compared, as best I could, with Humbrol 24 Trainer Yellow. It's dang close!

 

 

 

Pick your favourite!

 

 

 

Chris

Thus artistic splats can be quite unrealistic.  This is a tin top for linen

 

 

Quite a bit different but I can see that it could be used.  Mix it with some 24 and I think it will be pretty close to the photos.  And could probably work as a scaled down colour on its own.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

57 minutes ago, Mark Harmsworth said:

I've been watching this thread with interest but I'm now not really understanding your point. 

 

If you think that Humbrol 'Trainer Yellow' is a good match then just go for it. What's the problem?

 

I will add that to my eyes that tin lid doesn't look like the undersides of trainers I've seen in period photos (puts on tin foil hat).

To be honest, the thread has grown legs.  It started off with me simply asking “Airfix says Humbrol 24, were they really that yellow”.

 

There were then several photos showing that they were indeed yellow, maybe a little lighter but pretty close to Humbrol 24 - and I’d have been happy with that.

 

But then there was all the talk of them being Light Buff, which I don’t deny, but puzzled because it looks nothing like the colour in the photos.

 

I carried on the discussion because I find the discrepancy intriguing and I like to understand things.

 

So yes, I’m going to use Humbrol 24 (or similar) but I’ll probably tone it down and lighten it a little.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

Firstly, I referred to trainer yellow purely because that is what Airfix tell you to use - Humbrol 24.

 

But personally, I can see their reasoning.  I don't deny that they were painted a paint called 'buff' but I do struggle with what my eyes tell me.  Look at this

 

 

Top left we have the Humbrol light buff, note that the tin lid is nothing like the artistic splash shown in one of the posts above

Top right we have Humbrol trainer yellow

Bottom left we have a swatch for BS381C 358

Bottom right we have a bomb from a museum in Finland

 

Now I can sympathise with Airfix, because whilst none are a perfect match, to my eyes the Humbrol Trainer Yellow is closest by far.

 

Cheers,

 

Nigel

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

6 hours ago, Selwyn said:

What you must realise is that these images are copies of copies of copies of original images from the 1940's that would have colour fading etc. , The colours are at best now just a representation of the original.

 

Selwyn

I agree with that ...

 

All the photos are practically the same shade of yellow.  Have they all been distorted in exactly the same way 

 

In the Wellington photo in particular the bombs are the same colour as the roundel ring.  Pretty close in other photos too, like the Stirling.

 

The photo taken at the Finland Museum isn't copies of copies of copies and yet it is the same yellow as in the archive pictures.

 

And none of them look like the buff patches posted above.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

8 minutes ago, Selwyn said:

Irrespective of what you see the colour that was officially mandated, the colour that the factories had to paint them was   Buff 381C 359. It was the same colour that was used on British  Army and Royal Navy artillery shells. It could not be yellow as this colour was used for a separate purpose in the explosive marking system.

 

Selwyn

I totally respect your knowledge and research and I'm confident that what you say is correct.

 

So do you think those bombs in the photos are painted buff - do they look yellow to you - do you think that is a colour shift in the vintage photography (but what about the modern photos of the examples in Finland) or do you think that buff was actually more yellow than the colour swatches would suggest.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

2 hours ago, Finn said:

Here is a Stirling about to get a load of bombs:

 

 

note the shade of bombs compared to the yellow of the roundel.

 

Jari

I agree they look more pale than the roundel, they also look quite Matt, faded out.

 

But they still look yellow.

 

To my eyes the bombs in the photos have all been yellow, different shades (or lustres) but definitely yellow.  The buff looks more brown orange to me, not at all like the bombs in the photos.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

5 hours ago, Antti_K said:

Hello guys,

 

here's couple that are on display at Finnish Air Force Museum:

 

 

They are "light yellow", certainly not Trainer Yellow. Buff is pretty good name for the colour also. Unfortunately I didn't make a colour comparison but I'm visiting the museum again early next month. After that I will have NCS 1950 values for the colour.

 

Cheers,

Antti

Maybe it’s my eyes, my brain, or my screen, but the colour I am seeing is much closer to trainer yellow than the British Standard buff colour referenced above.

 

Maybe I have ‘trainer yellow’ wrong but to me this colour is definitely yellow rather than buff.

 

And I’m seeing the same yellow colour in all the photos in this thread.

 

 

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

25 minutes ago, wmcgill said:

Perhaps, but you can see how yellow the bomb fins appear compared with the green bombs and the buff bombs & fin, desert sand, Caucasian skin and uniform fabric. Bombs may have been "buff" during WWI and for the inter-war years but they were "yellow" before they were dark green. Hence these obviously "yellow" fins.

 

 

That makes more sense because I am definitely seeing yellow, not buff.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

1 hour ago, Troy Smith said:

Original colour.  The best of the three is the one in the desert for the colour.

 

Maybe it's my computer/monitor but to, my eyes, that looks a lot closer to trainer yellow than it does to the the buff (BS381c) patches.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

Are those photos originally black and white and have been colourised - I ask because, in them, the colours looks more like trainer yellow than buff.  I’m sure you are all correct and buff is the correct colour so wondering whether the photos have been colourised incorrectly.

[British Early War Bombs - Yellow Colour]

I’ve noticed that some British early war bombs were a yellow colour.  Airfix calls out trainer yellow (Humbrol 24) but we’re they really that stark a yellow or was it a more subdued colour?

 

Is there a colour in Vallejo Model Air that is close enough?