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Good afternoon everyone, On Sunday I went to Cosford and picked up, among other things, an Airfix 1:72 TSR-2 and a Pit Road 1:144 TSR-2 "Strike Role". So, seen as I'm planning on doing the 1:72 TSR-2 as my local Cosford example, I thought- why not utilise the 1:144 kit's belly fuel tank and martel missiles to create a "what-if" variant? Based on other info on the internet: This is my interpretation of the TSR-2 GR4 as it could have served in the 1990-1 Gulf War. it is fitted with a targetting "pod" underneath the nose of the cockpit and a retractable refuelling probe on the side of the cockpit, as well as the 4 underwing pylons with Martel missiles. -RBF tags and engine nozzle FOD covers made from paper -Paint was mixed from a variety of Vallejo Air colours -Decals from the Airfix Buccaneer (And the obligatory comparison with a 1p coin) Thanks for having a look! Any comments are much appreciated. Kind regards, Sam

All in all a nice, easy build. There are a few amateur tell tale signs (like that big paint smudge on the fin insignia) I need to neaten up. But by my standards this is pretty good, and overall i'm very happy with this Chris x

Good afternoon, I got this kit in early January at RNAS Yeovilton (along with the new Airfix sea king) and decided to build it as XR728- a lightning which I had seen fast-taxi during my first visit to Bruntingthorpe last year. The kit itself is Airfix's superb 1:72 Lightning F.6 which has a high level of detail and from what I gather- accuracy, except for the box-front which was missing both tailplanes... (I won't expand on this evaluation of the kit because there are plenty of reviews out there already) As metioned above, I did the Lightning as XR728, it just so happens that on closer examination the kit decals were for XR728 so I didn't have to purchas any aftermarket decals. It was painted with the Vallejo "Air" paints, I mixed a variety of greys to use as the colour for the top of the wings and fuselage, I used "USAF Light Grey" for the underside and "Medium Olive" for the shock cone. For the appropriately named Red Top missiles, a range of reds, camouflage greens and a light grey was used to paint them. -Modifications to the kit include, opening up one or two of the panel lines on the wings to allow an AK Interactive wash to flow through them after painting, the air vents/intakes (?) on the side of the fuselage just behind the cockpit were cut open as per reference pictures. And alas, apart from a few bits and pieces of plasticard in the cockpit, that was it. Profile view, note the opened air intakes/vents (?) behind the cockpit The cockpit, very little was added here- only one or two pieces of plasticard to highlight some more prominent items A close-up of the nose, also note the belly cannons just below the rear of the missile's tail A close-up of the shock cone (I tried to create a slight weathering effect on it) The underside of the Lightning An AK Interactive- "Engine and Turbines" wash was applied into the main gear bays A closer view of the rear of the aircraft, showing the tailhook and some crisp decals from Airfix The afterburner cans, try and ignore the slight defect that was created by myself (upper nozzle) And finally, a wider view from the rear of the aircraft So that's it for this build, overall a pleasant kit from Airfix, the decals were a nightmare to put on (white line decals along the upper surfaces of the wing) but I think it was worth it in the end. Thanks for having a look, Sam

Hi everyone, In the mid 90's I was stationed at RAF Colishall when an F117 on detachment in Holland somewhere was playing games trying not very hard to penetrate the UKs radar defences developed engine trouble. For some unknown reason the jock forsakes the options of Mildenhall or laken health a few more minutes "up the road" and annoyingly diverted to us at Colt. I was on the station reaction force at the time and was "knocked on" by my colleagues of the much loved RAF Police to join the " Aircraft guard" The yanks were still very touchy about the jet in them days. So I dutifully drew my weapon and trotted off to the shed it was tucked away in.I drew the night shift and We had a ball wandering round it and poking our noses into this and that bit of the thing. Now I want to build a nostalgic model of the plane but I have never attempted it before. Can anyone recommend the best 1/72 scale kit out there of this unique plane?

Hello Britmodeller, In April 2015 I decided to find out what would happen to a model if it was weathered naturally. So I set to converting an old table into a runway, took one of my lesser models and mounted it, then left it out in a garden for just over seven months through a British spring and summer. In that time it experienced all the weathers that one would expect in this climate and a few unexpected ones. Having no real idea of what would happen it seemed a worthwhile experiment. I chose this.. This is my model of XM655 as it appeared on the day the experiment began. All in all it is not a very good Vulcan but I was very new to modelling when I built it so I thought it would be an ideal test subject. Each month or so I visited and took some pictures, if you missed that then here's the link below. http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234979698-vulcan-xm655-a-natural-weathering-experiment-with-completed/?hl=xm655 The original idea was to leave it outside for a year or perhaps more, but I decided to end the experiment a little early due to concerns over it passing from weathered to destroyed. Yesterday it was brought back home, or rescued if you like and some photos were taken. Looking at the above images I wouldn't blame you for wondering if I was mistaken that it was passing from weathered to destroyed, but as we look closer you will see where my concerns came from. My main concern was the paint work, the peeling in places was starting to get quite bad. Below you can see some of the smaller problems areas... All of these on their own aren't so bad, but there were areas suffering a little more... Here you can see where the roundel used to be it is peeling quite badly.. And on the left airbrake. But all over the Vulcan it can be seen that the Humbrol Matt-Cote has made it very spotty and in places it is letting go altogether... Here on the nose, patches missing. Around and above the intake.. The wing leading edges. The tail cone.. A curious pattern just near to one of the antennas All over the top... As you've seen from these images, not many of the decals have survived on the upper surfaces but on the belly it's a different story. No decals have been lost from the underside at all. But still the same pattern of deterioration in the Matt-Cote can be seen (plus the brown varnish which the whole thing was covered in at it's build time). Since this paint is light aircraft grey and it's quite dirty it's not completely clear, so below you can see some shots deliberately underexposed with a strategically placed light source.. It isn't as extensive as the upper surfaces, just happening a little slower I suspect. So the underside could have survived a year for sure, maybe more. One thing I was hoping for was paint fade but this didn't really occur, but one thing I did notice when taking these pictures - In one place the tone has changed slightly... Have a look at the green paint on the tail and compare. The tone seems a little warmer compared to the upper wing surfaces. Finally some points of interest... Dirt has made it all the way into the intakes. ..And all the way under (or above) the ECM plates.. Also in one intake, a non-scale web... All in all a successful first test I think. When I began this experiment I did rush it a little. I decided to re-coat the Vulcan in Matt-Cote before I sent it to the garden but I didn't give it enough time to fully dry or cure. On top of that I later found out the the materials added to it to make it a Matt finish are actually porous. This probably accounts for why it deteriorated so quickly. I had hoped that it would make it to a year at least, for the first month or so it went quite well. Now this Vulcan will sit with pride rather than being a poorly finished early attempt of mine and will be protected from nature. I may at some point attempt a replacement of the wing roundel decals, but other than that I won't be doing anything further. Since this experiment was ended early I've decided that another Vulcan will take the weathering test, and so when I removed this one from its mount I put another one in its place but this time with a gloss finish, properly dried. Look out for that in the Work In Progress section soon. In the meantime, thanks for looking.. Adam

Hello Britmodeller, It's been a while since I posted a WIP and this will not be a typical WIP, but it is something I hope will interest some of you out there. Weathering; It's something that I plan to do in the future, but for now it got me thinking about something. Yes, you can weather a model with washes or power or any other method that one might try. But what would happen to a model if you weathered it naturally? This is my model of XM655, looking glorious in the morning sun. Back in the early days I didn't plan much ahead, I just wanted to build Vulcan's. Originally this was to be XM594 but due to some technical errors on my part I flipped and made it XM655. Technically it's neither really. This model is just a bit above crude, there's minimal sanding, no filler, panel gaps and the paint job is questionable. But it's still pretty, after all it's a Vulcan. Anyhoo, it's now time to replace it with a more accurate Vulcan from the same period but what to do with this one? It represents quite a few hours of stress and pleasure and I don't have the heart to do with it as the RAF did with all their Vulcan's they no longer wanted (i.e. Bulldozer). Experiment time! Which I shall call, Natural Weathering Part 1. Over a year after completion, XM655 is back on the bench for some modifications... Still wet with fresh Varnish... When I originally built this model I wasn't really aware of the importance of Varnish and basically I just threw it on, taking little or no care to make sure it was well spread, in fact you can see areas of brown on the belly where evidence of my ignorance can be seen. On top of that, the Varnish was never applied to the Decals. For this experiment, I have re-coated the whole thing with Humbrol Matt Cote, with an additional extra layer on the topside. I have to say the Matt Cote is much better than the brown Humbrol stuff I've used previously on this model, it's completely changed the finish for the better. Natural weathering means outside, obviously.. So I need to stop the thing from blowing away. Since this is a wheels down Vulcan I've used the U/C bays as a mounting point. Three holes, three nuts and some superglue. As unpredictable as British weather is, we can be certain that there will be wind and some of it quite strong. With the amount of surface area on the Vulcan it will almost certainly blow off the table so it needs to be secured. Putting the nuts in place did create a new problem, the centre of mass is too far aft, or more so I should say - It will sit on it's wheels but only just. To solve this little problem I've dropped many brass stand-offs, usually used when putting a PC together, into the nose. Aside from these mod's, that's all I plan to do with this Vulcan for the experiment. Since my garden doesn't get much sun, I am borrowing some space in my Nan's garden. As far as she is concerned she is getting a new garden ornament as she has much love for the Vulcan. She also kindly let me borrow/destroy an old table. So props to Nan! So now the mount. A table was the obvious choice but just a table would look a little out of place, so.... ...A makeshift runway (not to scale, sadly). As you can see the mount points are drilled for the Vulcan in the centre. I have to admit, I wish I'd spent a little more time on the table, the lines aren't as good as they could have been but that's what happens when you try to get it all done in a day. On the plus side, the excessive amount of black I seem to have used does give the runway a wet look. Let see what she looks like... As you can see the jet pipes are covered, I don't want creepy crawly's making a nest in there. So, some protection from the birds etc... You may have noticed from an earlier picture that the table has four holes, one in each corner.. Here you see four canes in the holes, the idea being some netting will be attached to protect the Vulcan from birds and other wildlife that might damage it. I thought it best to give sink the table into the ground a little to help stop it blowing over in high wind, although the table is quite heavy anyway it wouldn't hurt. Now that the table has (literally) been hammered into the ground and the four canes are in place for netting, it's time to screw the Vulcan down. Screwed into the nut in all the U/C bays and nearly up to the top of the model, it is also secured by two more nuts one on top of and the other underneath the table. All the wheels are raised about 1mm up from the table/runway surface so whatever weather gets thrown at it the bolts will take all the strain rather than the wheels, which are a bit marginal. So here the experiment begins; For at least one year this Vulcan's wheels will not touch ground and will be exposed to every form of British weather. This is how she looks on Day 1 (05-04-2015). Predictions: Since the model is made of plastic I don't expect the standard weathering that a real Vulcan would experience, but what I do hope to achieve is some paint fade and I would imagine a layer of dirt build-up should be expected. These are the two things I expect but what else might happen? I'm not entirely sure. I plan to visit and take a new picture or two each month and I will post on this WIP. For now, this is how I leave her... Do you have any predictions? Post below. I'm curious as to how this will turn out. Stay Tuned! p.s. Expect some night shoots to appear.

Hello to everyone! This is my first attempt at this so forgive me of any mistakes. As a very keen modeller through the late 60’s all the 70’s the one kit I always lusted after but could never afford (or do justice to) was the 1/24th Harrier. An older friend bought one as soon as it was released. He kept getting the box out, looking at the massive sprues and it and put it away again, for years we all kept asking where the Harrier was. That friend unfortunately died a good while ago so in some way this build is to the happy memories of Dave Rodgers. After starting modelling seriously again 3 years ago, I decided that it was time to have a bash and tackle the monster - thanks to a sale on Amazon I picked up the newly boxed GR3 for £36. Even though I enjoy using resin and photo-etch we sometimes seem to be heading toward a world where you needn’t worry about painting skills when you can stick in self adhesive pre-painted details. I remember when building flying models in the 70’s ARTF (Almost Ready to Fly) appeared, buy Saturday - fly Sunday; I railed against that a little too, I’ve always been a builder. My concessions to the modern era are cyano glue and acrylics. I always use Mek as a plastic solvent which costs around £10 for a litre. I buy Isopropanol for around £12 per gallon from Amazon. A great Acrylic thinner is 50% Isopropanol and 50% winter car windscreen wash. Anyroad, the kit still is a cracker and is a superb representation of the early tin-wing Harriers. Anyone who looks closely at a preserved GR1 or GR3 will see Airfix got the surface textures and details spot on. In places the early harriers look almost ‘boilerplate’ in construction. The kits surface detail is one thing - interior detail is another, it’s virtually absent. The design and engineering is typical of the era - even having the novelty folding undercarriage and closing doors etc. I decided to avoid resin and etch and built the whole thing in a true 70’s scratch build style. I haven’t had this much fun in years. Please respect copyright of my photographs. Starting the build. I attacked the cockpit tub first (as tradition dictates) .5mm card was used for the raised riveted plates using the Trumpeter riveting tool to detail. I built some switch panels from plasticard with thin slivers bonded upright to represent toggle switches. I dug out as many reference images as I could but the bulk of the ejector seat obscured much of the view; therefore a little artistic licence was used to give the impression of a busy cockpit. Most of the detail is added from plasticard scraps and stretched sprue. Different thicknesses of solder are always good for detailing. After a few coats of paint, glossing and washing the cockpit tub looks suitably grimy! The decals supplied work very well on the instrument panel and are large enough to cut out individually to fit, I use a set of cheap hole punches. I painted the back of the clear moulded radar/moving map screen then the HUD frame was built from fine brass wire. Shadows were airbrushed in to increase the impression of depth when the cockpit was closed up. At the same time I added detail to the sidewalls using tube, solder, fuse wire and plasticard, I cheated a little and got some ideas for the detail from resin examples I saw for sale at the Huddersfield show… The Seat The kit seat is virtually blank and needs a complete replacement/rebuild especially when everyone peers into the huge cockpit of a 1/24th scale model. To ensure a clean fit in the tub I used the measurements of the kit seat to build one from scratch - only the kit headrest was used. Canopy cutters were added to this and the parachute with its straps and cables were added to form the headbox. The parachute and straps are lead foil. The seat itself was a simple construct of 1mm card with details added from scrap plastic and .5mm brass wire and seat cushions carved polystyrene foam, dipped in PVA to seal the surface before painting. The seat straps and canvas cover are lead foil again. All the separate elements were built, painted and weathered before final assembly. You know, those headbox height adjust bars (red at the moment) are scraps left over from an Aurora biplane model from the late 60's... The straps and canvas cover are all made from lead foil, I found scraps of Eduard etch left over from a Chieftain MK5 build that worked very well for buckles etc. The supplied Airfix decals finish it off very nicely. A quick dry brushing with grey and a coat of matt varnish and it's ready for the straps fitting. My first plan was to build as originally intended and have the whole wing removable to view the engine; however as the build progressed it became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to get a clean fit without large gaps. I did away with this original feature enabling a much more solid build and elimination all those awkward wing joints. a pity though as I'd spent over a week detailing and painting the Pegasus, based on one displayed at Cosford. The Airfix Harrier is big, very big so to avoid damage during construction I replaced all the blade aerials with .5mm brass sheet glued firmly into slots cut deep into the plastic. The slots were filled with thick cyano and sanded, I'm determined to use this method for future builds (of all scales). Bits & Bobs The undercarriage wells on Harriers are quite large voids within the fuselage. In 1974 it was more important for Airfix to compete with other manufacturers and add moving components. Of course moulding technology has moved on in huge leaps since then but the 1/24th Harrier was seen as a wonder in it's day. The wells are nothing more than empty plastic boxes in the kit; I couldn't source any clear images of the inside of these areas so I used my 'Artistic Licence' (mine came from Woolworths for 2/6d) to detail the voids. Only the nosewheel bay is clear on a few internet images I found. It wasn't too difficult to drill plasticard and cut into strips after marking the plastic with a riveting tool and then drilling every second hole with a drill made from a 1mm Hypo Needle. A drill made from a hollow needle gives a very clean cut, I grind the end down to a 30 degree (ish) angle on wet and dry paper. The pressure vessels are 1/72 torpedo bodies from a Nimrod. These areas are well weathered to depict a harrier flown from rough ground. The kit mainwheel well has detail on the backside (in the engine bay) so I invented appropriate looking ribbing, boxes and tubing (I only bought the cheap Artistic License) this was then painted and weathered. It was at this point, when the fuselage was starting to fill up that I could test fit the wing assembly and decided to fix the wing in place. I cut out one access panel to show some engine detail as can be seen on the finished model. All the various vents and intakes on the fuselage were cut out and backed with foil from an old electric razor - the fine mesh was ideal. The nose camera had a similar treatment, a lens was made from scrap sprue, mounted on a bracket in the hole and then blocked with foam until painting was finished. The window was afterwards formed from ‘Clearfix’. The kit vinyl tyres look very realistic after a rub down with wet 800 grade paper, turning them a very accurate dark grey. The undercarriage legs are fairly well detailed, the nose wheel benefits from a small bracket for the lamp, some electrical cabling and hydraulic tubes. These were well weathered to represent the dirt kicked up from rough ground and oil leakage. The fit of the huge fuselage halves proved to be excellent, the little filling necessary required my favourite slurry of cyano and talc. I found that a 1mm hypodermic needle was the same diameter as the Airfix rivets and was used to recreate those lost. I cut square and sharpened a short length of hypo tube and glued it into a paintbrush handle. After drawing lines for the missing rivets this improvised tool was ideal for re-cutting the missing detail, initially easy to do, after completing a few hundred the novelty wears a bit thin. The wingtip ‘puffers’ are not really represented and need cutting out and boxing in before detailing, The same applies to the auxiliaries surrounding the main intakes, these are lightly sprung and drop under gravity on harriers at rest. I cut out the engraved panel lines and constructed a long square tube from 1mm card, cut unto short lengths and bonded in they could easily be sanded flush and filled to neaten the finish. The .5mm plasticard flaps themselves were cut to fit and glued in at appropriate angles. Onto the canopy, this is a very thin and crystal clear moulding, the windshield only lacks the wiper which is easily build from brass wire and a sliver of card for the blade. I traced the outline of the detonation cord on a scrap of balsa and pushed pins where the cord bends, it was relatively easy to wind solder around this and then rest it inside the canopy. Using Pledge floor wax I glued the solder in place. I cut 1mm strips of white decal paper to lay on the inside to form the sealant band and dipped the whole thing in Pledge and covered it to dry for a few days. The canopy was them masked, painted and put away for a few months until needed. The fit of the sealant looks uneven because it's on the inside of the canopy! after masking and painting the camouflage it looks very real. The windshield was masked the wiper added and the whole assembly glued in place with pva, it fits perfectly and needed no other work. The most awkward job proved to be the hot and cold nozzles, the kit ones have a joint in the worst place possible and are smooth all over. The real ones have riveted vanes inside and ribbed plates on the outside (strengthening I assume) these were made from .5mm card, bonded with Mek and then wet sanded to blend them in. These took A LOT of filling, smoothing and fiddling to get them looking something like. I painted them with Tamiya Aluminium, fading into Titanium at the hot end and then thin coats of Tamiya Clear Orange for heat staining. The saving grace is that the moulded exhaust halves are very thin and very nicely contoured. The underwing stores needed some extra detailing, mostly small plates and panels, the pylons however are blank, I made beer can tin templates for the panel lines needing scribing, as eight sides needed detailing this was the best method to achieve consistency. The cut-outs for sway braces were there but I needed to add the braces themselves from 2mm square pieces of plasticard drilled to accept short lengths of .5mm brass wire. As with all the other bits, the pylons, rocket launches, fuel tanks and Aden gun packs were painted, decaled, weathered and put away for use. By now I had a box crammed full of sub assemblies, moving to major works on the airframe was a relief! The overall shape is very good and considering the Harrier is one of those aircraft without a straight line anywhere the Airfix surveyors & drawing office did an amazing job in 73/74. The contours are very well captured and the fit of the fin is so good only a line of thin cyano is needed to hide the joint. The final hurdle, painting the beast. I used a cheap black aerosol car undercoat for the fuselage (it looked great all black!) all the seams were checked and luckily only a few needed filling. On a large scale model I prefer a dark undercoat as I paint the topcoats using a very thin mix and spray at low pressure. In this way I can work closely painting each panel from the centre outward. I find this gives me much better control over a weathered finish and avoids the toy like look of weathering that is even and precise all over. The mixture (mostly Tamiya and Vallejo acrylics) were thinned 50/50. Tamiya thins well with my invented mix mentioned earlier. Vallejo needs water to thin it (or their own thinner). I think Vallejo paint has Polyurethane in the mix and Isopropanol thinners create an instant jelly monster in your airbrush that needs Professor Quatermas to remove it successfully. The paint applied in this manner on a dark ground will look alarmingly patchy, it is also quite fragile. The magic happens with a coat of Pledge floor wax (known as 'Klear' in the colonies). One coat immediately blends the colours and darkens the paint to look like the colours on the tin. It also toughens the finish. Another 3 coats and a polish with a clean dry j-cloth and the monster was ready for decaling! Incidentally, most of the painting on this model was completed with a cheap £25 Chinese airbrush (cheap but beautifully made, sprays anything and is easy to clean). My Badger Renegade Velocity has never lived up to it's macho name and has been completely rebuilt twice in twelve months and was out of action for the third time during this build. I'm afraid the airbrush body is made from a hard anodised but VERY soft brass and the needle mechanism was so badly made Badger themselves described it as 'pants' and sent a replacement. The engineering and build quality is worse than the Chinese £25 special; I'll never buy Badger again... The Airfix Cartograph printed decals are superb, dense, thin and in perfect register. They settled onto every contour and panel line to perfection. Two more coats of Pledge on top and the whole was put away for a week to harden. I weathered and highlighted the panel lines and rivets with Flory Models 'Dark Dirt' wash, this is an absolute pleasure to use and is one of the very few recent products that are genuinely innovative and make finishing simpler. After drying, excess wash was wiped away with a new damped J-Cloth & cotton buds dealt with the tight corners. All those sub assemblies were now added with 5 minute epoxy, cyano and PVA for the canopy before a final post shading with Tamiya smoke thinned with 75% pure Isopropanol. After everything set the whole monster had a couple of coats Windsor and Newton matt varnish, this needs a few days to cure properly but is very matt and very tough. The post shading, dirtying process, paint chips were all completed after decaling. Some of the decals were weathered slightly around the edges to depict paint wear. The dark aircraft grey is a self mix and has a little blue added, if you look at period Harrier images, you will find mixtures of both hard and soft edge camouflage schemes, I like the look of soft demarcation and went for that. I have an old publication from 1982 'The RAF in Colour', there are hard and soft edged camo aircraft from the same squadron in the book! The decals needed only a little softening with dilute acetic acid to settle them onto the Pledge glossed paintwork. And there it is, after 39 years and 7 months I finally built and finished the big harrier. I've always been fascinated by the Harrier it was one of the first aircraft I can remember seeing that seemed to have an 'organic' look to it, no straight lines. Those huge intakes and the pilot seemingly sat in a 'pod' in front of the aircraft had a real 'science fiction' appeal to a youngster brought up on Gerry Anderson programmes. Airfix caught the 'hunkered down' look of the early Harrier to perfection. Oh yes, and all the wheels stood on the ground together when finished. The build was aided by, Radio 3, 4, 4 extra, BBC6 Music, Stuart Maconie's Freak Zone, Amon Duul II, Hawkwind, Faust, Can, Black Sabbath, Falkenbach, Van der Graaf Generator and far too many other unremarkable heroes to mention. The whole experience was an absolute joy and will always rank as a favourite build, it’s also the first model of mine in 40 years to be on a stand!

After having a bit of a fight in the closing furlong with decals I am happy to present my attempt at the new Revell Tornado IDS. Work in Progress http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/234990425-revell-148-tornado-ids-luftwaffe/

TAKOM 03.10.2028 CHIEFTAIN Mk.10 British Modern Battle Tank I have been fortunate to have received an advance release of TAKOM's new Chieftain Mk.10 Within about 20 minutes of it's arrival I had commenced this build Ssssh! Don't tell anyone BUT? ...................... It's an absolute corker! The large kit box measures in at 380x250x85mm and weighs about a kilo. Molded in a light grey plastic and with chunky sprues the parts have good sharp detail. Care will definately be needed removing the parts from the sprues. The plastic is 'a little' soft but Tamiya Extra Thin Cement will be my glue of choice and so-far, it's working fine. It should be noted that although this kit is not necessarily for the beginner, it is not going to be hard work - at least so far? You will need a fresh, new blade in your scalpel. The Photo-Etch parts are very fine, detailed and though there looks a lot, there are some large pieces. The instructions follow the newer exploded CAD view and come in 22 sections across 13 pages. A noticeably smaller manual that would normally be expected. For the Mk.10 you have to remove a few pre-molded parts like the bullet splashes around the drivers compartment. I used my micro-chisel for this. This Guys, is a dream build as the parts generally just fall together - kinda Tamiya Quick! The Stowage Bins though intricate in reality are perfectly atuned to the model builder and the PE is super-fine, so easy to fit and no messing about. The detail is solid and safe with only 2 plug grab handles (like you get with Tamiya) on the searchlight housing. A simple cut off and replace with wire took a couple of minutes. The engine deck grills comprise 6 major parts and 16 assorted PE handles (3-types), easy peazy! Up to now, I have expended some 10 hours on this build and I have a couple more to go before I move on to paint. This will be camouflaged in the Berlin Brigade markings - some serious masking off! This model WILL be on display at the Newark Show on 11th October This is a build summary as I have been doing progress posts on my Club Facebook page I have also done a full build blog on my Club website here, should you choose to take a look.

So... my second entry! The Back-story In 1981 tensions between the East and West became so high that on the 24th October the USSR and its allies moved west into West Germany, Holland and Sweden. This huge and never-ending assault of soviet tanks was met by swift resistance at the borders, much of this resistance was based around aviation, however, the Soviets came prepared and had installed mobile SA-2 SAM missile sites, which, in the first 3 months shot down 37% of all Western aircraft called to combat. The West was starting to lose the war. In 1983 a stalemate emerged at the borders of West-germany, Holland and Sweden. The losses continued to amount until one day an ex WW2 lancaster pilot had an idea, one of the reasons for the the nazis' surrender being the continued bombing of key cities such as Berlin.

I found this a few days ago: http://www.dragon-models.com/d-m-item.asp?pid=DRA7519 I believe that this is currently the only M103 in this scale. I'm not sure if anyone else has put this on somewhere else on the forum, though.

Hi, This is my (almost) copleted Vickers Valiant. i say almost as not all of the decals are on it. i bought this kit from a particular internet auction site for about £40 inc P&P. i was a little irritated about the cost of the valiant kits as last autumn airfix were selling the valiant for £20 in their last chance to buy collection. this kit was a remarkably quick and easy build, as the only real interior detail is the bomb bay (which i left out) and the cockpit. the cockpit was a little basic, but the fit of parts was excellent. it needed a little filling on the fuselage halves and the bomb bay doors, but apart from that is was a relatively straight forward build. the model was painted with Humbrol Gloss White spray paint. i ended up spending £15 on the paint, as the cans are tiny! in future i think i will try to get better at airbrushing and airbrush instead. the decals had no silvering and were in good register. i had some issues with the paint seeing under the masking tape, in particular on the anti glair paint in front of the canopy. i made a few errors, such as the colour of the exhaust surrounds which will be fixed when i get the chance. Will

Good morning all! When going to my local model shop the other day to add to my newly acquired taste (not literally-tasting paint wouldn't be very good for your health ) of Vallejo paints, I stumbled across this kit. In regards to the paints it is a major turning point for me, I have been used to the Humbrol Enamel paints since I first began modelling about 10 years ago and since my "revival" in the hobby about 3 years ago and I have found that the Vallejo paints are less resilient but provide a better coating I believe in terms of the aesthetic appearance. In addition to this, they can be dilluted with water (saving a lot of money on thinners and being better for my general health too). Anyway the kit, it was about £5 I seem to recall which is not bad at all for a newly tooled kit and dare I say, what a pleasure it was to build too! I did make a bit of a mess of it in places and I suppose it was more of an experiment piece to test different techniques and different finishes (my first time using the vallejo silver and the fluorescent red), but nevertheless I believe this is not too bad a model-if I do say so myself. So, without further rambling, here we are: Thanks for looking, Sam

Good evening all, Could I enquire as to whether anyone would have any photos of the Vulcan rear crew seats with all of the cushions/padding added and any belts and straps that were present on such seats? I've seen numerous photos of the rear crew seats (been lucky enough to have the experience of sitting in one at the Midland Air Museum) and in almost all of those photos, no buckles and straps are present (presumably because they are museum aircraft). What kind of straps were present in operational aircraft? A bit of context-Having abandoned my early attempt failure at creating a 1:35 plasticard vulcan cockpit and getting all of the proportions and structure completely wrong, I embark (with more skill, dare I say) but on a different scale and a different material-card. I'm attempting to make a 1:48 card vulcan, I would post the build process on this website but the photo uploading process is so much easier on the blog compared to here (i'm sorry to say). If anyone fancies having a peek-http://cardvulcan.blogspot.co.uk/ Regards, Sam

Good morning all! I am just wondering whether anyone knows how the Blue Steel missile was attached to the V-bombers, specifically the Avro Vulcan. I have seen a Pathe film of Blue Steel showing the ground crew "winding" the missile up into the bomb bay of the Valiant, I am not sure whether this would be the same with the Vulcan? On a related note, having been to Cosford and seen their Blue Steel far too many times for it to be deemed normal behaviour (only kidding, Cosford is a wonderful place) I noticed that on the horizontal "wing/winglets" at the rear of the missile, there are two cylinder shaped attachments which are attached just above these wings. I don't think that the Cosford Blue Steel was a test vehicle so I don't think it could be carrying any sort of flare to mark its location (if the test vehicles ever used such a setup), however I suspect that it has something to do with its suspension from the V-bombers??? I also tried obtaining an estimate for how much it would cost to copy some Blue Steel technical drawings from the national archives and the answer came back- £350!!! So a dead end there... Anyway, thanks for reading my verbal ramblings, Sam

Hello Britmodeller, I am having a little trouble with my latest Vulcan. I want to experiment with weathering, specifically I want to focus on paint fade on this one. My research on the interweb is just confusing me. Do I use a filter, a wash or what? Confused! I am making XM575, which (I think) was the last Vulcan on official service (excluding VDF) and I want to make it as it appeared on the day it went out of service. By that time the colour tones had gone pretty flat. The picture below is the sort of thing I'm aiming for. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hi, my name is Bernd and i have a Britmodeller account since yesterday active, so here is my first AFV on this forum. Revells Challenger is a very nice kit to build, fit is good and no real problems, except mine were discovered. The “baskets” around the turret were replaced with photo etched parts from Extra Tech. Here comes the injected plastic moulding technique to its end. That was VERY fiddly, it didn t help, that the assembled turret falls out of my hand during detailing, this was a moment the heart stands still for a second. The front baskets suffered a highly visible dent, so we have combat damage:-) The tracks are built from the usual single links/length tracks systhem. It is always exciting to close them, and see they get together (works not every time) The green was sprayed on, the black paint was hand brushed with thin layers of black, a dark wash a lot of dry brushing followed on. A major set back were the decals, the “SFOR” markings were black, should be white,i didn t find Royal Army markings, so the side skirts were sprayed with a lot of dirt/n/mud making the missing markings nearly invisible(hope so). Is there a decal producer outthere, who makes British Army stuff?? I hope you like it. Bernd

I'm calling this one finished for now. I got this kit back in the late 80s and out of the kits I made back then I thought it was one worth attempting to rebuild and try to finish it to a higher standard. The fit of the kit is poor and I had made a pretty awful job of blending in the upper and lower fuselage halves originally, plus the rear tailcone is a terrible fit. Without completely breaking the model down I could not do much about those problems, so I instead tried to apply a better finish with an airbrush, plus I got a nice new set of decals, and I got resin wheels and metal undercarriage for it. I also tried to rescribe it which went ok in places, but I suspect it would have been easier to do with an unassembled model, plus no paint on it. Finally I got a set of crew members for the SR-71 from plus model in resin and had a go at figure painting. I guess I'm happy enough with it for a first finished model after being out of the hobby for nearly 30 years and I'm hoping the next model (a Mirage F1) will be much better. The model is pretty big! My portable studio box wasn't quite up to the job! The canopies have a thick rough layer of paint on them from when I first build the kit, so I'm not that happy with them, I didn't want to sand them too much though as I felt they might break. Nice to have something in the display cabinet again, and looking forward to getting stuck into the next project!

After a 25 year break I've just got back into modelling kits and I thought the bests way to get back into things would be to try and rebuild the 1/48th Blackbird I built around 1988. Back then I did not have an airbrush, nor was I much into filling and sanding, and I had no idea what rescribing was! Thanks to the internet and sites such as this I learned a lot about new tools and techniques so hopefully this rebuilt Blackbird will turn out nicely. I have new quality decals for it, plus a SAC metal undecarriage and some True Details resin wheels to add to it. I saw there was a resin exhaust/tailpipe set for the 1/48th SR-71, but it seems to be hard to find so I'll most likely just do what I can with the kit parts. Here it is stripped down at the start (the undercarriage, engine parts, etc came away easily, the glue had dried and was barely holding it together) I sanded off the massive injection mark on the top and I plan to scribe in the braking parachute doors later (as I saw on another build thread of this kit) First attempt at rescribing at the rear, will probably need a bit of a tidy up later Lots of filling and sanding to the underside of the front fuselage (the UMM scriber I got is really nice to use I have to say!) As this weekend is meant to be very cold indeed (and hence I'll give my road bike a rest, (my other main hobby!)) I'm anticipating I'll have time to finish the scribing and sanding and get a coat of Mr Surfacer 1200 on it, and hopefully it won't look terrible!

Hi, here is a “walkaround” on my F-84 G Thunderjet from Tamiya, it is a good kit, like almost all Tamiya kits it is free from trouble. My intention was a korean war fighter bomber, the kit decals looked great on the sheet, leave them there ! It is not new, that they are way too thick, i had to learn this on my own. Rescue came from the also very good Revell/Monogram kit, i used the decals for a “G” from the Royal Netherlands Airforce, the aircraft was on inventory by the 311. Sqn. Volkel airbase in july 1953 ( Revell did this research). After all, these markings are a good idea, because most of the “G” models were given to allied airforces. For the paintwork i used Revell and Humbrol colors and a slight polish. Hope you like it Cheers Bernd

Hello, here is another build from my 1/72 tank collection, was my second (new) one. Right after the Revell T-72. Done before new years eve 2013/14. This is an older kit, released under the Matchbox and Monogram label as well, its more on the crude side by todays standart, but fun to build. The parts needed some clean up, especially the snorkel and the small stuff, some sinkholes had to be filled. Made some additions to the otherwise oob build. The headlights got "guards" over, done by stretched sprue The front skirt, seen on these tanks were made by thin plastic card The turret was improved with an additional smoke grenade launcher, some "wires" seen on pics and the small handlight looking aft at the back of the turret were added. The fuel drums were altered to remove the big seam running through them. The holes at the back plate/engine deck were closed and the "log" was added using a sprue. Painted with Revell colors and weathered with acrylics and some drybrushing. the sand color was sprayed on, the green was brushed on. Maybe i am able to replace the "8,8 flak gun" with a more true to scale replica of the anti aircraft mgs seen on russian or soviet tanks. Not much time for modelling right now, but this was a beautiful day with good light conditions outside. Hope you like it Bernd

PLEASE READ So, news has it that the 2 Lancasters and Vulcan will be flying together at RAF Waddington on Thursday and then parked on the runway (21/08/14) The AVRO aircraft will be there for some time, but it will be ideal to get there early. Here - Is the article http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafwaddington/newsweather/index.cfm?storyid=11B3DBF1-5056-A318-A802C5A20D39A135 I'm NOT going, but I don't know about anyone else but this was a short notice thing so sorry about the sloppy look of posts :3 PM Me if you want to know anything else http://www.globalaviationresource.com/v2/2014/08/19/aviation-feature-bill-ramsey-on-leading-the-vulcan-and-lancaster-formation/ This is an interview/article with the pilot ^ So, again, 2XLancasters, 1XVulcan, RAF Waddington Sorry for the sloppy post, please read the 2 articles. Dylan

Right, with the M3 Stuart almost done, I'm considering these to build next. Originally I was going to build the MRC/AFV Club OH-58D but I#m waiting on some nice resin crew figures to arrive. Here are the candidates... First up and my favorite is the Old Tamiya Chieftain and just a touch of AM. And then or the same era is the M-60... same drills with the AM, this one I've been collecting the detail stuff for a few years. I'm leaning toward the Chieftain ? Regards Dan

Now Mish has put up a poll for us all to vote for the 2014 GBs the time has come to think of out options for 2015 Following on from a joke comment on the What-if III GB thread (I'm blaming you Rob ) a few of us started thinking about a GB for all those nuclear capable systems there has been over the years. Enzo and I had a quick chat and are proposing that any weapons system in 'nuclear trim' be eligable so all those ships, subs, ICBMs, aircraft, AFVs, etc. dressed for the ultimate battle are included. What do you think gang?

Tackling this one as I got it as a £10 eBay bargain! Box Shot Sprues Seats (Oh dear) Cockpit installed after the base coats of grey & black where done. And the stores complete