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Bloody Mary is a hillclimber, built in the UK by John and Richard Bolster in 1929, when they were both schoolboys. It has a wooden (ash) chassis and was originally powered by a single J.A.P. V-twin of 750cc. Through the years, pre-war, it was refitted with bigger engines and ended up with two 1000cc J.A.P. KTOR V-twins, mounted in tandem. It competed until 1959, when it was put on display at the Montagu Motor Museum - and it's still there. It appears these days at events like Goodwood - the picture below is a from recent visit.

I am glad to welcome all forum members! I am starting to build my next project and perhaps it will be of interest to fans of British naval shipbuilding and the Spanish Navy.

Hi guys, welcome to my proposed build for 2021, after I have finished my tug that is. As the title says, this will be a scratch build of the Japanese steam ship, Fushimi Maru. She was laid in 1913, launched in 1914 and her first voyage in 1915. Built primarily for the NYK’s European Routes with a typical routing in the 1920s were Yokohama, Kobe, Moji, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malacca, Penang, Colombo, Aden, Suez, Port Said, Naples, Marseilles, Gibraltar and London. Why may ask, why this ship? It’s a family history connection where sometime after WW1, a Spanish ancestor of my partner, travels from Gibraltar to London. I suggested ‘would you like me to build your Grandma’s ship and here I am, albeit a few years later? Anyways, the Fushimi Maru sailed her European routes until the outbreak of WW2, where upon she was pressed into military service as a troop ship. Unfortunately for her, she was sunk by the submarine USS Tarpon in 1943. Searches found little, most being postcards that show very little detail and images that tend to be from the 1930’s, neither showing the detail needed to reproduce a model of the 1919 era. I did come across this photo a couple of years ago: Once a museum exhibit at the Mariners Museum, Virginia, USA of all places. I approached the museum with the view of getting more details about the model and maker but at the time, my request fell on deaf ears and the project went on the back burner. I tried again a year later and must have contacted the right person at the right time, put my questions forward and to my surprise, the museum sent me a copy of a publication 'International Maritime Engineering' Vol. XX No. 7 and dated July 1915. Struck gold is all I can say, a very useful document indeed containg descriptions of things ranges from berths, holds, engines, boats, winches, etc and also had a Profile and deck plans. Brilliant! Further requests were made about the model or its maker but nothing could be found. I asked about the possibility of photos of the model exhibit and to my surprise, a member of staff was asked to liaise with myself about photos. In the end, I got about 20 images of the exhibit from stem to sten, both sides, with some nice close-ups…and they didn’t ask for a dime and declined a donation. Why can’t more places like this exist? I will be building a waterline model and I don’t think I’ll have any problems with the mid-section or the bow but the stern under section leading to the rudder is problematic to someone who doesn’t have a clue, unclear images or lack of profiles to get the curves. I’m thinking plastic but would wood be a better option for the hull? I chose the scale of 1/350, hoping to find generic offerings to make things easier but it doesn’t seem to be that easy as yet. Later on in the build, I'll be looking at possible cutom 3D options for the winches, custom PE for the davits and as for the boats... Until then. Stuart

The Riley is finished and I'm taking care of its display box at the moment , then when I manage to squeeze out some free time I'm frying my brains out to elaborate a method in order to build the chassis of my next project , the Morgan Super sports. All this intense thinking led me to believe that it would be a good idea to share and old build of mine : a nice cozy shelter for my Lotus Seven ( 1/14 scratch build with a LOT of errors and discrepancies ). I spent a whole morning scouting for cool ideas ( either real garages or models builds ) and came up with a drawing of my main guidelines I then gathered bits, pieces and images of ads cut in magazines to create the centerpiece and its companions ( stool , tire inflator, tool box, floor jack, paint and oil cans ) See you 😉

So this is as much a statement of intent and a request for help as the start of a build thread. It’s the centenary of the formation of the Irish Air Corp, and the Martinsyde was the Air Corps first plane. So what better model to mark the event. This is the beast. But I have a slight problem, this is the closest drawing I can get hold of; and notwithstanding the obvious fuselage and rudder differences I’m not sure if the planview is correct for the Big Fella. So can anyone point me in the direction of a correct plan view?

I’ve been threatening to scratch build a Cheyenne drop ship for a long time, but just haven’t gotten around to it, so as a preamble to the drop ship I’m going to do a 1/72 APC, which I will duly put inside my drop ship when it’s done. First decision which scale. My first thought was 1:48 the apc works out at anout7 inches which is a nice size however the Cheyenne would be 20 inches which is a bit big. So in 1/72 the apc is 4.7 inches and the Cheyenne 14 which although big for me works out ok. So blueprints in hand were off. Thr floor pan for the M577.

G'day All, may I join in with a Bristol Beaufighter? Despite what one of the tags says, this is a kit put out by the obscure "Good Luck With This" model aircraft kit company. 😁 Below is the traditional photo of the instructions and kit parts. As you can see, the instructions are very comprehensive and you get a choice of 'in flight' or 'idle on the ground' versions. I'll do her in flight, her natural habitat. Despite the scale of the drawing the kit is actually 1/600 scale. The kit parts are beautifully molded with almost no flash, seam lines or sink holes. They aren't numbered but they don't need to be as they are so instantly recognizable. But for the benefit of you all, I'll list them anyway. From top to bottom:- Fuselage, main wing assembly, engines, horizontal stabilizer, vertical stabilizer. I've omitted the undercarriage as I won't be fitting them. Anyway, despite the photo being taken at 11.55 AM it is now 12.22 PM so I'd better stop yakking and get on with this. Regards, Jeff.

Here's another Scratch build that I've knocked together in the last few busy weeks when I've had a spare moment or two. It's about the same size as the small 1/241 scale Revell Millennium Falcon. I made it to go onto my Star wars Star destroyer wall display along with the other ships I've built. Starting out with one of these walking robots. Bought years ago on a Sunday car boot sale. The white one had a damaged foot so was always destined for this fate. BT junction box on the underside. The metal rod is how it's mounted to the display. So here it is. A Falcon amost visible to the extreme left here. Another view of the display. For those who may be wondering, it's based on a large pin board and used wood, foam and card. Lots of greeblies fill the maintenance trench here. A flight of white metal X wings (in the wrong scale) zoom past. During construction, (there isn't a WIP thread) The rear underside. Various greeblies stuck on. And the final colour is a lightened Tamiya Cockpit green. But it came out here with a slight lime tint. Front underside. The big square cargo hold was a BT junction box. The Battleship gun turret is obvious. And finished it came out like this. It's a bit rough around the edges TBH, but does the job. The black marking is a decal with a bit of wing walkway red added. The sticky out bits are probably probes. As is the Radial engine cylinder head in the middle. A close up. The yellow stripe is another decal. And that's your lot for this time. Comments are always welcome. Thanks for looking. Pete

After my 1/20th Kreiger scratch build, I'm bouncing back into a Galaxy far far away with this spares box Walker build. Form up! Shortest on the left tallest on the right! Or not. Ah well, I'll sort them out then. Gotta start somewhere. And I ended up with this. The main body, front to the right here. Transparency is ex MBB BO 105 Helicopter. Yes, that's an old Matchbox Puma door in the middle. And the tail end also came from the BO 105. This is inside the left half. A kebab stick superglued into place. The right side also got one. The rear is furthest away from you. The nearest square is the outline for a sliding door. Behind that is an ex Panzer engine deck grille. These two characters will sit just inside the bubble at the front. Mounted on plastic card which will sit on the kebab sticks. And about a week later, back inside the left half. Ribs, seats and greeblies. BTW, the idea is to have the power section at the rear. Hence the Panzer deck for cooling. So with the right side temporarily in place this is how it looks inside through the main (Puma) door. And in the nose, the control section. Three man crew. Two plus a commander. Plus half a dozen troopers down the back. Here's the LH sliding door and that Panzer deck again. And I just added the Commanders Cupolla. Again ex Panzer with Milliput to fair it in. So it's an AT LR. All Terrain Light Reconnaissance. There will be a section added under the command 'tube'. The legs will be attached to that as on an AT ST. Hopefully it will balance! I've yet to work out any armament. I hope you can see where I'm going with this, another bout of spares box madness, but it keeps me out of mischief. As always, Comments, suggestions and edible cookies (not the digital kind) are always welcome. This time I've restocked the tea bags and there's a scraping of coffee in the tin if you're quick. Cheers, and thanks for looking, Pete

Hi Fellow Modellers I had some free time in the man cave recently and I decided to try another 'scrapheap challenge' scratch build. The challenge is to make something using only the bits in the spares box and whatever I could find lying around the house. Luckily the spares box was overflowing with stuff that I put in there ages ago, thinking that it might be useful one day... For instance: Here we have a plastic water container from an old coffee maker, with two pipe connectors from a plumbing project. You can see where this is going.... Next we have a black thing which came off a water bottle. I believe that you're supposed to put your keys in it while you go jogging. Well, I haven't jogged anywhere since the 80s so that's how it ended up as spares. And here we have the beginning of something which might turn into a spaceship.... Now this thing caught me by surprise. I have no idea how I came to have a security tag that originally would have fitted onto a wine bottle. I know I'm getting on a bit but I can confirm that I don't have a criminal record and I haven't been banned from any local shops.... These pictures show how it slowly came together. I didn't post a WIP at the time as I didn't know if this would work - if not, and I had to bin the thing, then at least I could say I didn't waste any money on it. The greeblies are a mixture of junk and kit bits. We have plastic caps from safety razors, the top of a Revell steam locomotive, plastic sheet and bits of tank kits (every scratch build needs tank bits). I even added a couple of little wheels salvaged from our old dishwasher. Finally (for this WIP anyway) I slapped some car primer on it, then a coat of matt white from a rattle can. I added some decals from my stash that I made for earlier projects. I got it all dirty using watered-down black and grey acrylic paint. On top of all that, after it dried out, I added a coat of gloss rattle can varnish. I have more pics which I will post in RFI just as soon as I get around to sorting them out, including the usual money shots showing this bad boy in action. cheers all Monty

Evening All, I have already written in the chat thread that I am keeping up the habit of a lifetime: I am late to the party. However I have only just started on this project, so under the 20% completion rule I honestly think that I am eligible to enter with what I have done so far. Before I reveal all however i will show you some images of my kit and instructions. First the kit: I know that these limited run kits are a bit basic these days, the more so as some parts may be missing - I will need some rod, hardwood for a propellor, and some wood for a plunge mould, but I am sure that you know what those parts look like. (I am aware that there is a vacuform of the SP 3 variant but as I do not like vacuforms I am building one of my own). So on to the instructions/plans: There are two small problems with the above image. First it does not show the plans - I am not doing so because I do not wish to infringe copyright, but there are good 1/72 scale plans in this monograph which I will be using. Second problem, the aircraft shown on the cover is an SP 3, a development of the SP 2 which had a two bay wing, (the SP 3 had a three bay wing), and the shape of the nacelle on the SP 2 was different. So here is a photo of an SP 2 so thet you have a better idea of what I am going to try to build: http://www.ww1-planes.com/Italy/Savoia.php Scroll down to the second photograph on the above link. Photographs of the SP 2 on the net are unfortunately in short supply because this is not a well known type - indeed I only found it via the WS DataFile catalogue. So far I have cut out the blanks for the flying surfaces, (wings and horizontal tail unit), from 30 thou card which has been bent in hot water in a plastic pipe: Also shown are the rudders, a plate for the engine base, (most of the engine was buried in the nacelle and will not be visible on the completed model so I am not making a sump which will never be seen), and some laminated card for the radiators. I have added 10 x 20 thou plastic strip to the wings which I am in the process of sanding down to represent the ribs: I have scribed the radiator blocks and added 10 x 20 thou strip to represent the metal straps and cemented the header and bottom units: So I am off to a flying start, well at least for the moment. Thanks for looking. P

Gidday All, my next model is going to be a scratch build (apologies Mr Airfix) of a German K-class cruiser, DKM Karlsruhe. As with most of my ship models it will be in 1/600 scale, of which there are no kits that I'm aware of. (That's a subtle hint Mr Airfix ). 🙂 Karlsruhe was the second of a class of three cruisers built immediately after the solitary Emden who was the first cruiser built by Germany after WW1, and their design was subject to very severe tonnage restrictions, 6000 tons. As a result they had longitudinal frames, their hull was welded instead of riveted, light-weight metals were used where possible, armour was light (although on a par with similar sized cruisers at the time), two screws only, limited endurance, and very little margin for improvement (board margin in RN parlance). This was to place considerable restrictions on their deployments during their lives. The ramifications of their light construction became evident in 1936 when Karlsruhe encountered a full-on typhoon in the Pacific Ocean, a storm from which she was very lucky to survive. Some of her longitudinal frames buckled and her hull split right across the boat deck. She needed emergency repairs in the Aleutians then the USA before she could sail home to Germany. None of the three had particularly illustrious careers although that wasn't the fault of their crews. Two of them (Konigsberg and Karlsruhe) were sunk on the same day, 10th April 1940 during the invasion of Norway. Karlsruhe was scuttled after being torpedoed by the submarine HMS Truant. Anyway, enough of the ship, on to the model. I've chosen this ship to model for a number of reasons. It's larger than my previous scratch builds (I'm working up in size) and yet looks reasonably simple in design. The off-set aft turrets are unique to this class of ship and I like a bit of variety in the display cabinet, and I was able to get some diagrams of her. Below is one of the diagrams that give me hull cross-sections. As it was accessible free off the internet I don't think I've breached copyright. Anyone could access it, plus my model is for my enjoyment, not for monetary gain. I've enlarged the diagram to 1/600 scale, the overall length of the model is 290mm, the beam 28mm. Another diagram was kindly forwarded to me by @iang which will assist me with superstructures and deck fittings. And further still, I've had some advice from @Richard502 regarding the ships deck coverings. Many thanks guys. This will be my third (and largest) scratch built ship to date, and the first with large revolving turrets. And this has resulted in a change of modus operandi (procedure) for me. I like to have turrets that can rotate so that if the barrels get knocked the turrets turn rather than the barrels break off. Also I like them removable so they can be left out until the build is almost complete. For the last few years I've fitted turrets to model ships by having a long turret trunk with a single key glued to the front of the trunk and a keyway in one side of the barbette, usually to the left. Turn the turret 90* to the left and the turret simply lifts out, in any other position it's locked in. That has worked well with kitted model ships up to now. But my method of scratch building, with a centre profile longitudinal bulkhead doesn't allow that, for turrets mounted on/near the centreline of the hull decks anyway. So I've had a rethink, and decided that the turrets need very short trunks with a double cross key, and as much of it inside the barbette as possible to maintain the integrity of the centreline profile bulkhead. I've decided that they should be my first task, as success or failure with them will have a considerable impact on this build. So, as is often said in TV cooking shows or handyman/DIY shows - "Here's a set I prepared earlier". I've been hanging out for months waiting to say that! 😁 One of the turrets and barbettes are inverted to show that most of the keyway and turret trunk will be inside the barbette. The trunk might protrude down into the deck a little but not by much. To get an idea of size the squares on the cutting mat are 10mm a side. I've made a tentative start on the hull but not worth a photo just yet. So I'll call it quits for tonight. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards, Jeff.

Ok first up I make no oppogies for this looking quite a bit like the MK1 Viper, that was not the intention it's just how it ended up. This is part of a Keighley plastic model club group-built competition, we are all given, well we have to pay for it at cost as the competition is sponsored by https://plastichobbys.com. So we all get the same kit and are told to go away and build it. We didn't know what the kit would be and at the meeting, they came in a brown box, very exciting stuff, this year's kit is/was a 1/48 Northrop F-5A light by Tiger Hobbies so the first thing I did was chop it to bits......😋. The plan was to use as much of the kit as possible but make it sci-fi and that it, so I sat at the bench with the kits and my box of bits and this emerged, time to start with the glue and filler.......😁.

Instead of add the WIP pictures to a discussion of a different object I divert the discussion here. An engine from a Frog V1, droptanks from an Airfix Viggen and probably the horrible from the Gripen prototype from Revell became the start. The Gripen tank was cut in the middle and parts added to the ends. Plastic card added for the shape to take the form of the missile.

Hi folks. This is my first post here, so first - small introduction. I am SF and fantasy modeller (mainly scratch build and kitbash). I am also a middle aged man without language skills, so sorry for my English And that's what I'm doing now. Ian McQue's Remora in 1/35 scale, scratch build from HIPS styrene, with using parts of military and aviation models. Yes, I know - lots of people do it. And yes, I know - you can buy a Remora's kit from Industria Mechanica. But I will build my own This is how it should be: -------------------------------------------------------- And that's my way to it. First steps with the hull (3mm styrene sheets, and Tamiya's L-shaped styrene profile). Strips of thinner styrene (1,5 mm) as frame plating. Rear section arches formed on the wine cork First attemps to wheelhouse Control panel (some junk and parts from aviation models). And the pilot's seat: Let me introduce Helmut. A guy who worked with me on several projects as a 1/35 scale comparer. I've started that project on April. At first it was going very slowly, now I am much further. But I would not like this post to be too big, so I will post the remaining photos in the following days.

Hi everybody, After recently completing my first ever scratch build I am jumping back into the deep end. The BE2c has long been a favourite of mine but has never been available as a 1/32 kit so the only option is to get stuck in and have a go at scratch building one. The version I want to model has a Royal Aircraft Factory 1a engine which is not available as an after market kit so that is where I shall start. The engine looks quite complicated so let's just see how far this goes, if nothing else the modelling Gods might take pity and give us a kit. Here is a picture from the front; Royal Aircraft Factory 1a V8 engine by Richard Williams, on Flickr Scary stuff! The crank case at least is just a box and the massive fly wheel is just a circle at the back. A few bits and bobs stuck together gives me this; RAF 1A V8 engine by Richard Williams, on Flickr The mounting beams are left long for ease of handling and will be cut down once the frame is together. RAF 1A V8 engine by Richard Williams, on Flickr Not he most impressive work for sure but it's a start! I don't know the name for the tear drop shaped housing that the prop shaft goes into, whatever it is called I made with laminated 2mm styrene sheet cut and filed into shape. Handily this gave me a centre line for adding the bolt fixing channels. The bolts (correct number of!) were added by using a similar method to my riveting method. 2mm lengths of 0.5mm brass tube were cut and using a paintbrush were applied with Future floor wax. Nice and easy because it can be rolled into position. 20210811_224652 by Richard Williams, on Flickr Once dried super thin super glue is applied to each one and zapped with Zip Kicker. Hopefully this gives the look of them being part of the casting rather than separate parts stuck on. A quick lick of paint to see how it looks reveals a few blobs of CA glue that need to go but I quite like the overall look. 20210811_231525 by Richard Williams, on Flickr Cooling fins were added to by cutting tiny pieces of styrene. Gel super glue was added to the engine part and using tweezers the fins were added. Great care needed to be taken to hole the fins so the tweezers didn't touch the glue, not 100% successful but at least nothing pinged across the room. 20210812_193956 by Richard Williams, on Flickr Again, super thin super glue was run down each fin in the hope of making them look like part of a 1 piece casting. The main parts are just tacked together with a tiny blob of glue for ease of handling but it is beginning to look like an engine! I won't have any time for a few days so here it will stay for now. Thanks for watching, all comments, criticisms and advice gratefully received. Have a great weekend. Richie

This project has come about almost by default. When I completed the 1/32 de Haviland 1A scratch build : I put it in a purpose made perspex display box, only to find that I had made a measurement error and the box is only just big enough to hold the model! I bought a second larger box for the de Haviland and now have a spare box. What to put into it? The box restricts the size of the subject: I had thought of an RE 5 or RE 7 but both of these are too large to fit. Other smaller subjects either do not interest me, are available as kits or are going to be released in the future, so they were all crossed off the list. Then the idea came to me to build a Royal Aircraft Factory BE 2a, (the predecessor of the better known BE 2c), as this was my first "free-lance" conversion (ie. I did not use an article but built it myself using the Airfix DH 4 as a donor kit for the wings, wheels, prop and struts), and it is very unlikely that a kit manufacturer is going to issue one at any time soon. This is the model I built in 1978: When I made the above model I had originally wanted to build a BE 2c but detailed sources were limited and I could not find any drawings of the type. Therefore I built the BE 2a because I had a copy of Profile No 133: Building a model of an aeroplane in 1/32 scale means that a great deal more information is needed. Fortunately DataFile No 163 provides excellent 1/48 scale drawings and many photographs: There are also many photographs of replica machines at Point Cook in Australia and Montrose in Scotland, and there is a replica BE 2b in the RAF Museum at Hendon. Recently this fine volume has appeared on the type: This book is a mine of information on the type and a go-to source for information: there is a review in Cher Ami vol. 10 no 1. There was only one outstanding problem: I could not find enough information on the 70 hp Renault engine dimensions to be able to scratch build one, (there are no kits of this type available in this scale). In the meantime I continued with other True Scale projects until I had a breakthrough via RichieW of ww1aircraftmodels.com. He is scratch building a 1/32 BE 2c and has to make a 100 hp RAF 1A engine. He was discussing how to make the cylinders on that website when "Rookie" gave him the engine sprue of the WingnutWings RE 8 which had an RAF 4A engine. The RAF 4A engine was a 12 cylinder V which had been developed from the 8 cylinder RAF 1A. The latter was an upgraded version of the Renault 70 hp and as Richie only needed 8 cylinders for his model that left two spare cylinders which he kindly passed over to me. I now had a potential solution to my biggest problem - how to scratch the 70 hp Renault engine - because I could now calculate the critical dimensions and had sufficient information about specific details to make an attempt. If I can build the engine, I can build the remainder of the model. I intend to use as little aftermarket material as possible on this build, so I will only show it if I use any. Apart from the engine the other part that I was concerned about making was the 4 bladed propellor. I have made 2 bladed props in 1/32 scale, and 2 and 4 bladed props in the True Scale, but this would be my first 4 bladed prop in 1/32 so I started with this. I have a supply of hardwood strip, (I do not know what the wood is - I inherited it from my father many years ago), which I use to carve RFC and RNAS props. I cut two long strips and 4 shorter ones: The long strips were glued to make a cross and the 4 shorter pieces then glued to each of the 4 arms with Evostick wood glue to give me the correct thickness of wood to carve. This was pressed for 24 hours in my state-of-the-art press (a pile of books): The shape of the blades was drawn on to the surface of the cross and arrows drawn to indicate which way the blades needed to be filed: The shape of the individual blades and boss were cut and filed first. This ensures that each blade is the correct shape and size when looked at head-on. The next step was to shape one of the blades: this was done with files only - it is too easy to slip when using a knife and the wood does not always cut smoothly, so an accident is possible and much time and effort can be wasted in a second if a mishap occurs. Filing may take longer but errors are much less likely. The arrows indicated the slope of the blade face - each one has to be identical to its neighbour and mistakes can be easily made here too. Final shaping and smoothing was done with glass paper: The quantity of dust that filing and sanding one blade is shown here: This is the finished propellor waiting to be varnished: I will use a resin boss from Proper Plane, (an aftermarket product), as this will be in a very prominent position on the model and for once I am taking the quickest route! I will post more on the engine later because at present it consists of a lump of laminated plastic waiting to be filed to shape. Thanks for looking. p

Gidday All, in the Inspiration Gallery of this GB I mentioned a couple of contenders for this, one an 'R' class battleship and with some photos of battleships I've previously made. Well, sorry but I've decided to go to the other end of the scale of sea-going warships and do a Flower class corvette. I like to work in 1/600 scale and AFAIK there are no kits available so I'm going to have a go at scratch building her. While I've done a lot of scratching of ship's superstructures and fittings and such this will be the first hull I've done, discounting carved balsa hulls decades ago. So this will be something new for me. I won't be doing a specific vessel but a generic ship of the class with the longer foc'sle. I've been giving it a bit of thought as to how I'm going to do this, with a few ideas bouncing around inside my head. There's not much else in there to stop them bouncing, I guess. 😁 Anyway, I've made a start. I got some drawings, fiddled with them a bit, cut them out and traced them onto 0.4mm thick styrene sheet. That's rather thin but it was what the LHS had in stock, and it's possible to cut them out with scissors which makes concave curves easier. As you can see but I didn't notice, the profile (side) drawing is slightly longer than the plan drawings, which are a touch too short for the scale. Oh well, I'll work something out. I slotted the profile and main deck pieces to fit them together, and wedging them between two blocks of wood I started to glue bracing bits of styrene to them. And I've ended up with this:- Why so many? A number of reasons, the first being that I have a highly developed sense of overkill. Plus I had to pull the main deck down to follow the curve of the profile. And finally because I thought the thin styrene sheeting I've used would need some stiffening. But I've probably overdone it a little. Oh well . . . You can see that the main deck dropped below the pencil line at the bow but I don't think that will matter as it'll be hidden by the foc'sle deck. I think the next job will be to fit some ribs. The heavy bracing blocks I've used here might work against me in that they take up a lot of space. If this particular model turns out to be a pig's breakfast I'll cut my losses, absorb the lessons learned to date and have another go. I won't have lost much. So until then, thank you for your interest. Stay safe in these times and regards, Jeff.

Some of you may remember me eventually turning out the Hansom Cab a couple of years ago, a long and protracted road but I am happy we got there in the end. This time I am turning my eye to the horse drawn buses which made Birmingham (not alone of course, but I am a Brummie and not even ashamed of it guys) the workshop to the world. As factories were opened they needed men and womens to get down and dirty making their products and as Brum got bigger a transport service was needed to feed the factory's desire for more, more, more employees. Birmingham's first horse buses first ran in May 1835 and by 1869 there were 20 horse buses in service on 15 routes. Trams drawn by horses came later, in 1873, hmm maybe later... Anyway a reminder if you dont mind me slowing the section down to hoof pace I shan't be making wheels with fellies and the like, in this scale I am going to stick with my own tried and tested method of protractoring away any plasticard that isn't a wheel rim. And using these as wheel hubs. 👍 So that is me, this will be my fourth piece of Brummie Victoriana and maybe this is a time to show what I have in mind. A B.C.T Co Ltd 'bus unloading, possibly at New Street near the station. Allegedly, so little of Birmingham's great Victorian buildings was left after a town planner got his bulldozers into them in the fifties and sixties that it is difficult to identify the place definitely (rant over, no promise that it won't recur as we get into the business) This style of 'bus with three windows is more commonly photographed than the four window style popular in "that London" and is intended to be what I build if progress happens If... These happy folks look as if they are in their Sunday best which gives me to think they must be boarding the Balsall Heath 'bus to ride to Cannon Hill Park. Anyway, this is the plan Co-incidentally these are the plans The Model Wheelwrights kindly supplied me copies of their plans of the London Omnibus by John Thompson which have given me immense amounts of useable data and sizing clues (the plans had some scale info but were reduced from the original before I got them and I have had to resize and scale them as I go along, this is going to slow me down. If you thought the Hansom's pace was glacial, this time consider continental drift as a pace maker. (I was a little scathing about town planners destroying the Victorian infrastructure in Birmingham, but Manzoni did not get it all) Here is a Victorian bus in Sparkbrook with the same road now courtesy of Google Maps And a shot of the planning underway Work has begun on the lower deck foot well. And the BCT Co Ltd markings are being adjusted to. Well this is me at the moment, if you are interested on riding the bus please kick in with any comments helpful or not. (I am used to being told I am a dumb dolt ) Glue and knife time now, ciao.

Having been talking around this one for a while now, I’ve sort of talked myself into this one. So I’ve decided to go ahead and build a large scale Hetzer now instead of waiting for the GB, if it does happen. Of course in the process of building the Hetzer I’ll have to mold it fabricate quite a few sub components that will be of use for any 38(t) chassis so I’ll just build a Marder or a 38(t) for the GB when (if?) it happens

Another oddity from warplanes of the First World War. Designed as a fighter pre synchronising gear the idea was that the observer could stand up to wield the single Lewis gun. I think it looks wonderfully quirky so fits the collection perfectly. The Sage. First order of business some working 1/48 scale drawings. As I’m committed to getting my KUTA builds and 109s done ( hopefully) this side of Christmas I think this will be a comparatively slow build, but as 2022 is looking like I’ll be building a lot of kits for GBs I thought I’d get at least one scratch build in to the bench.

Here is my latest maritime subject, the tug 'SA Everard' in 1/100 and with the exception of two items, she is scratch built. I started this back in 2018 and is built using mostly plasticard and rod, metal tubing, clear acetate for the wheelhouse. The windlass and anchor are 3D printed by @Iceman 29, thanks Pascal. Paints were wide and various, and the decals came from my decal bank. Figures are 1/96 from Deans Marine. WIP here: Stuart

Came across this while surfing the interweb and thought I had to build one, I may even attempt the digital camouflage. Step 1 as the plan is slightly bigger than A4 I resorted to good old pen and paper drawings to scale it to 1/48. I’ll mold it as wings, tails, booms and fuselage/canopy so quite a bit of woodworking to follow.

So my first contribution to the GB will be the Scout F a development for the Scout but I’ve chosen it firstly because I like it’s looks and secondly because it looks much more like an interwar fighter than a WWI plane. First job is to scale these to 1/48.

Built for the GB but owing to life etc getting in the way of modelling didn’t quite make the GB deadline. For 1917 they were both somewhat ahead of their time. The F was powered by the Sunbeam Arab while the F1 was essentially the same airframe with a Mercury engine, both aircraft performed well but neither engine was reliable enough to go into series production, hence neither Scout got past the prototype stage. The Scout F And the F1