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With my shallop approaching completion, I'm starting a new wooden vessel. This is Vanguard Models's HM Armed Cutter Sherbourne – 1763. Sir Thomas Slade's most notable design was HMS Victory. Victory was laid down some four years before Sherbourne, though commissioned over a decade after. The box And content The figures and pin pusher are extras that I bought. Strip Wood The dark wood at the bottom is pear, the pale stuff in the middle is lime (or bass wood), and the dowels are (I think) walnut. The sheet wood: Shown here with the acrylic display stand. In addition to the book, the kit came with 19 sheets of drawings And, those figures I'll take a view on how I use these guys; as presented, they are more appropriate to Trafalgar and the Napoleonic period than to the 1760s. Side note: This Vanguard kit is Chris Watton's second Sherbourne in this scale. The other is still available; this version benefits from additional research and learning.

So I'll be building this... Not a huge amount of parts, originally appears to have been moulded in 1959 it would appear from Scalemates, in a rather odd 1/64th scale. This is a recent (well relatively) reboxing, using the box-art from 1961 - this is the 1994 reissue, judging by the copyright notice on the side of the box. After opening up the contents (it was still in the shrink-wrap) it does have a bit of a musty odour but the decals don't look too bad, might be serviceable if not too brittle (I have some decal film solution so hopefully that will help). Not much in the way of parts, though I noticed this date mark on the wing (1982), the parts have had a bit of rashing from rubbing about in the single poly bag (all the black parts were in a single bag, randomly the single clear part was just loose in the box). You can also see the underside slot in the image, used for the stand, a few sink marks (where the locator pins are on the other side) and the odd raise circle (not sure if that's meant to be some detail on the wing)? Well I couldn't help myself and decided to make a start - the cockpit is a very minimal affair (though the windows are tiny TBH) consisting of a single floor piece and a separate pilot figure (already moulded into a seat). By way of contrast the engine/rocket is a multi-piece affair though only a tiny part will be visible when finished (exhaust nossle interior). Hopefully it should be a simple, quick and fun build!

My weakness in the face of distractions is well known, so here are a couple of converted die-cast cars for the game "Gaslands": This started as a weird-looking Matchbox road roller (but with wheels?) that had extra wheels cast as part of the solid chassis. No idea if it's based on anything real. I added the dozer blade/ram and a mortar on the bonnet, plus some bits of styrene armour and mesh screen to the cab. There's also a set of extra tailpipes (which could be some kind of rear weapon discharger) made from smoke dischargers with the ends drilled out. Given the armament I'm going to call it "Mortar-Della". Sorry! I bought a handful of other cars but made the mistake of trying to strip the paint with bleach, which I discovered reacts with zinc and causes major pitting in the surface 😕 At least the cars are cheap and the one that I really left in a state of disrepair can be a wreck instead. I've switched to leaving them in a jar of lacquer thinner (hardware shop stuff, hotter than Tamiya) for 24 hours and then scrubbing with a scouring pad. While wearing nitrile gloves, obviously. This one ("Laser Raptor", thanks Kung Fury) started as a Hotwheels 50th Anniversary corvette of some description, with a matte-ish paint finish that stripped quite easily. I added a laser weapon from a mix of Games Workshop Skitarii and Tau spares and a tank part. Someone on the Gaslands FB group suggested moving the laser from the bonnet to the roll bar, and that did indeed look better: I also replaced the thick guitar string with one I wound from brass wire and beading wire, which looks worse unpainted but should be fine when touched up. Now to hope that my primer sticks - the roller/digger mudguards are made from very slippery plastic that superglue wouldn't stick to. To the point where I scraped the glue away and attached the hydraulic rams with metal pins. Note to Sgt. Squarehead: The rams and cabling mean this is part of Spicer Harvest research and development and is therefore officially sanctioned Cheers, Will

Hi all, Sorry for the delay in posting these, I was busy last night and have been running around a bit today as well. I found out this year about a car combat racing game called Gaslands, played with modified Matchbox and Hot Wheels toy cars. It's reminiscent of GW's Dark Future from the late '80s, but with a scrappier DIY feel to it, and the movement takes some inspiration from other template games like X-Wing. I finally took the plunge a week or so back and picked up a copy of the rulebook and a couple of die-casts to play with, and here they are armed and ready for battle: The Corvette (Laser Raptor) is a Hot Wheels Grand Sport Roadster, and the dozer (Mortar-Della) started off as a Matchbox Dirtstroyer. They're both modified to some extent, with more work on the dozer as I think it's supposed to be a double-wheeled tractor. I know I had to cut away quite a lot of nasty inner wheel moulding from the chassis! Weapons are made from a mix of AFV spares and 40K spares, and I wound some wire for the laser's power cable as I didn't have a fine enough guitar string. I painted both cars with Tamiya lacquers from the new range after stripping the original paint and re-priming with Alclad. The top coats have had a round of hairspray chipping, which probably wasn't worth it on the car as it's quite low-contrast, but looks good on the dozer. They're sealed with the Tamiya flat lacquer, which is not that flat despite my vigorous stirring, and the car has had a bit of Alclad Flat on the non-bodywork areas and lower body sides. Details and wheels are all painted with GW acrylics and washes, and a touch of the Molotow chrome pen. I'm really pleased at how the bulldozer blade came out - it's basically noodling with a sponge and different orange and brown acrylics over a metal basecoat, and it looks way better than it has any right to! I feel that way about the whole thing really, it was very organic in both the painting and building and the finished result seemed to fall together of its own accord to some extent. Quite relaxing, although I probably need to get back to some of the various longer-term things I've been working on before I'm allowed to do any more. I do have a jar of lacquer thinner in the garage with several metal bodies steeping in it though The next one (when it comes) is probably going to be a jet-propelled VW beetle on dirt tyres. And I'm tempted to get a set of templates and try out the game! BTW thanks to those who chipped in on the brief WIP thread, you can find it here: If anyone's tempted to try this, I definitely recommend it as a cheap and rewarding diversion You can drill out the rivet heads to separate the body from the chassis, lacquer thinner and a scouring pad will strip the thick paint, and you can superglue plastic and metal parts to the mazak castings pretty well. Just don't try and strip the paint with bleach as it eats the zinc out of the metal (as I found to the cost of one 917LH...) Cheers, Will