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After reviewing the newly re-released Bristol Bloodhound kit the other day, which you can see here, I thought to myself "I talk a good fight about adding a cab interior to the Land Rover, but could I do it?". I started mucking about cleaning up the parts last night while I was watching The World at War, and things initially started with the dashboard, as that's probably going to be seen from outdoors, at least from above. I found some pics of a restored exRAF Landy, and aware that you should always be a bit wary of restored vehicles, but what the hell? Something in there is better than nowt! I put a couple of strips across the bottom of the windscreen, then added an instrument binnacle from a piece of strip that I rounded the ends of. A couple of punched discs were used to depict the instrument, and I bent up another piece of strip to support the steering wheel. Now, about that steering wheel... It's a bit small, but I'm not changing it now! I made the rim from lead wire, then made the three spokes from flattened wire, bending them to shape into a 3-pointed star. I glued that to a column made from rod, and then somehow managed to glue the rim to the spokes without too much swearing, or destruction of property. I touched in the joints with extra CA, and left it overnight. A coat of grey primer showed it was "OK", so I shortened the column by trial and error, and installed it in a shallow depression in the dash and its support. You can also see I added a few supports to the allegedly canvas roof, just in case anyone looks The seats were figured out as I went along, putting in a base made from strip and rod, over which I put a piece of styrene that I'd scribed into three cushions and rounded off to look a bit cushion-y. The back cushions were a bit more tricksy, as they had curved backs. I started with scribed grooves, then used my curved sander to put a dish in the individual sections, accentuating it near the top. I also put some thinned areas and curves in the top of the back of the cushions to give the impression of them being curved, and it seems to have worked. The short bulkhead behind it was trimmed to accommodate a mistake I'd made earlier, and glued in place behind the seat backs, both strengthening each other. The pic doesn't really show the curve to the seats very well, but I'm happy with 'em. Shame they'll never be seen I replaced one of the location tabs for the dash with a shaped piece of rod, as there's a bit of transmission tunnel there, although it's in a recessed part of the bulkhead, and I'm not that crazy. The other bit of tunnel was made from a larger piece of strip that was trimmed to something like the right shape. The next job was the vehicle sides, taking care not to baulk the final assembly in the process. I started off with a couple of strips representing the basics of the door cards, such as they were on early Landies. Then I realised that the bulkhead behind the seats wasn't full height, and there were a pair of windows in the back of the vehicle. I put in some benches from 0.25mm by 4mm strip to cover the top of the wheel arches, and then boxed them off with more of the same, then added some base and back cushions to each one, being careful of the short bulkhead behind the seats. I've been test-fitting everything as I go along, so hopefully it'll all fit together in the end. As a happy coincidence, I have had a bunch of cabochon self-adhesive rhinestones in my drawers (not the ones I wear, that's just silly) for years. I dug them out and noticed that I'd got quite a few larger 3mm and 4mm ones, some 2mm ones that were just a wee bit large for the lights, but LO! at the back of the 2mm packet, I found a small strip of 1,5mm rhinestones, and peeled one off to quickly test it. It could have been made for it, which makes me a happy fellow. As a quick afterthought, you might notice that I've hidden quite a few ejector-pin marks on the interior, including the roof. If you're wondering how I did it and why I was so fastidious about doing them all, I've discovered a fantastic new tool that makes it a piece of cake I have a Galaxy Model engraver/motor tool that's more like a pen than a Dremel, and is rechargeable. I usually use it to trim, sand and cut small tasks, but on a recent trip to AliExpress, I found some DSPIAE bits that fit this and any other 3mm chucked tool, with a bit of a warning not to use them at too fast a speed for fear of melting the plastic. The bits have a flat circular top, and you can either glue/tape bits of sandpaper to it, or buy the sponge-backed paper that they sell, and at AliExpress prices, they're pretty darned cheap, so I stocked up on different sizes and grades. This is the first time I've used them in action, and I'm very impressed. It will sand away putty-filled pin marks, it can reduce the height of pins that stand proud, but it's best to trim them back so you're not sitting there sanding all day. The best and most effective method I've found for handling recessed marks is to fill them with CA applied by cocktail stick, squirt a bit of accelerator over it, and then sand with a larger tip until it's flat. Sometimes you have to re-do it if the glue was a bit low, but it takes all the tedium out of it, and you should all get one immediately! I'm fiddling about with this kit over Christmas for a bit of fun, and may or may not finish it (what's new, I hear you cry!), but at least I've put my money where my fingertips were, and proved you can lash-up a quick interior to give the viewer something else to look at if they get close enough Last bit for now. Apologies for the dust, but you can't make an omelette without breaking legs

We are making a stone age (Neolithic) village diorama - in OO scale, because I have a nice ruler and it'll end up the approximate physical size we want. Our diorama will include a river, the side of a lake, a palisade-bank-ditch village, and a mixture of stone and wood houses. Plus gardens, paths and pasture. Grand plans, obviously - but we have to start somewhere. We've started with some stone houses roughly based on those at Skara Brae, in the Orkneys. We made walls and posts out of fimo, scribed in the dry stone outlines, and baked them. We then made latex moulds, and used plaster to cast lots of walls and pillars. Some are now painted, and ready to be assembled. Top of the photo is a plaster wooden bench - just the top so far. Also made from fimo, latex mould, and cast in resin plaster.

So for my first (kind of) build since I moved to uni accommodation and started using my much reduced models setup here, it'll be a Vulcan B1 of course. If you've seen my Mk1 Vulcan threads before you'll probably know that there is no available kit of any Mk1 Vulcan, only 1950s kits that are long since OOP and not remotely accurate, so the only option is to convert. Despite it being my favourite variant, the standard Vulcan B1 is one of the few missing from my collection (I do have a couple of vintage Frog kits but neither are completed). Of the 45 Mk1 Vulcans, 40 were initially built as standard B1s with the Phase 2 kinked wing (the first 5 were initially fitted with the original pure delta and at least three of those were refitted with the Phase 2 wing's leading edge). It is this variant which I will be building. It'll be quite an extensive task to convert this 1/200 scale Cyberhobby Vulcan B2 to a B1, but I'm confident I can manage it. I made a model of the prototype B1a (an ecm upgrade on the B1) a few months ago, now one of my favourite models in my collection. This will be a fairly similar conversion with the main difference being in the tail, I'll have to remove the ECM tail and build a new one, which also means I need to extend the rudder, but I'll get to that later. Anyway, I started with just marking out where I need to cut the wing to hack out the rough shape of the Phase 2 wing from the B2's larger Phase 2C wing. You can see just how much is to be removed. Chop! Now we have a much slimmer Vulcan Chop! More bits chopped off... and half a Blue Steel Missile? A surprisingly useful basis around which to build a new tailcone. By cutting off the fins and most of one half of the missile, it fits perfectly in the inside of the upper half once the ECM tail has been removed. Milliput will be used to make the new original tailcone. But first I'll need to work on refining the shape of the wing. I will be painting this in the original white scheme with full shade markings, possibly as XH481 which carried very few if any Sqn markings at one point. A list of tasks to do in this conversion: Cut wing shape - done Refine wing shape and smooth out leading edge - Remove all B2 specific panel lines - Rescribe control surfaces - Maybe rescribe wing panel lines (probably not) - Build new tailcone - in progress Extend rudder - Remove TFR from nose - Shorten jetpipes - Replace landing gear (unlikely, probably going gear up) - Remove air scoops from under the engines - Add air scoop for bomb bay cooling Fill the holes meant for attaching pitots and other aerials - Make the intakes narrower - not worth it in this scale

Since the lockdown started, it seems to be the fashion to go with multiple builds, so I thought, why not. The M51 will continue as it's not far off finished, and I'll do some more on the Centurion, as and when. But as this dropped through my post box a couple of days ago, I decided that I wanted to make a start on the conversion. And this is what you get in the box. X2. It's certainly a very nice looking kit. Gone is the old Tamiya cast metal hull, and this one looks as though it assembles easily. Tamiya include two lengths of metal to give it some weight and a sensible method of fixing it in place. One thing that I did find strange is the fact that the indentations on the forward and rear parts of the track guards have been moulded raised instead of recessed. It's up to individual taste as to whether you correct this. My original intention was to turn this into a Tiran 5, but getting hold of an M68 105mm main gun in this scale is a no no as it doesn't exist, and I didn't want to start scratch building one. So the alternative was to go with and early Tiran 4 as the D10T 100mm gun is included in the kit. I have the Sabingamartin book on the Tiran 4 which has a few profiles of possible candidates. I spoke with Das Abteilung with regards to whether this is possible and there are some pitfalls apparently. BUT, I decided to go ahead with the conversion and try and produce one of the profiles from the book. 100% accuracy might not be there, but hopefully it will look like a Tiran 4. I’ve got both the Miniart kit and the Takom kit of the Tiran 4, so I will be using those as a guide. So I'll be getting this up and running very soon. John.

Prolog. Avert your eyes from this build sequence if you are expecting a super accurate construction, replete with oodles of PE and resin goodies whose collective worth is sufficient to pay off our National Debt. This WIP is for us mere mortals, where all is well and good where measurements have a tolerance of roughly 0.5 mm or the vessel looks right when viewed from a distance of 3 feet or more. First some history: I started this model in my youth when dinosaurs walked the land. The fledgling internet was still a decade off being invented. Heck Tim Berners-Lee was still at Queen's college, Oxford! All I had to work with were a few grainy, low resolution images found in publications like Jane's Fighting Ships, borrowed from my local library. To me, back then, HMS Queen Elizabeth, after her 1941/43 refits looked far more modern and snazzier than HMS Warspite. The latter still retained her side hull sticky out guns, and appeared too old fashioned. Ironically, in my dotage I have come to like the older style battleships, even pre Dreadnought ones with their mixed calibre main batteries and side hull sticky out guns. Ah, the foolishness of youth. I looked at these few images at my disposal, and decided it would be simple task to convert the Airfix HMS Warspite to HMS Queen Elizabeth. Just fill in and build up the hull where the sticky out guns are. Mess about with the midships structure. Add the turreted secondary armament. Bob's your uncle, Fanny's your aunt, HMS Queen Elizabeth, done. I started the project. Stopped the project. Concentrated on things like getting my A levels, girls, getting my degrees, girls, starting a career, wife, continuing career, children, etc, etc, etc. Roll forward several decades. I knew this build was somewhere in my stash, and came across it when I sold said stash; remember the children in the list above - now the rugrats need university fees paying. No way could I include it as part of my sale. Anyway, being a tight fisted (fiscally prudent) Yorkshire man, I couldn't bear to throw the kit away or buy a newer uber expensive modern kit. Instead, I decided to complete the conversion - but on a shoestring.

Hi all! First just to say a quick hi to everybody! This is actually my first post and my first model in a really long long time, actually it's my first armour kit. The model in question is an old issue of a Panzer Ausf. V G 1/48 from Academy, which is a motorized version. Although I am not planning in focussing much on the motor bit. I got this model back when I was a kid so I had to go through undoing a big gluey mess I did back then. As I am using this model to learn all the techniques back again I would much appreciate comments on how to improve things! As you see I cleaned the side objects there were glued to the sides of the hull and have started adding Miliput plaster for the Zimmerit cover. I have made a custom mould for the zimmerit pattern out of plasticard with a scribbler. I have also added some brass mesh to the air intakes at the back to the tank. Here is a detail of the zimmerit pattern: And here from the back of the tank: As you see there is still plenty of fitting issues at the back of the hull and also on the front. Here is a detail of the front: Also as you can see I have started adding some plasticard to the sides as I plan to add some scratch-built armour plates to the side. This is it for now. I plan on keep on adding the zimmerit and give it a light sanding. Also finish adding the armour side plates and modify the upper bit of the turret where the gun joints to give it the proper shape of the Ausf. G. I was also thinking in adding the curled protection plates to the exhaust at the back of the tank. Thanks in advance for your comments! All the best, Alex

Making photo etched parts at home Many years ago I was a young apprentice in a small electronics company, one of my tasks was making printed circuit boards (PCBs) for prototypes and one off’s. Making PE parts is a very similar process, so I gave it a go. When I made PCBs the boards were pre-coated and we used ferric chloride as an etchant, I’m going to show you how to make a double sided PE using dry film resist. You will need to invest in some bits and bobs to help you along, nearly everything is on good old ebay, the rest you can get in Tesco, ASDA etc, and don’t forget to pick up some wooden or plastic stirrers from Mc Donald’s and the like. I won’t write a long list now of things you need I’ll leave that to the end and get straight to the interesting bits, You may not get success first time but keep practising, I had many fails at various stages getting this right so i'll share what I know. but first this :- Making photo etched parts uses some hazardous chemicals and as such safety steps should be taken in the form of protective clothing, gloves, goggles etc. The chemicals are corrosive to skin as well as to brass so should be immediately washed off with plenty of water if contact with skin occurs, medical attention may be required as well. By continuing to read this article you must accept that YOU are responsible for your own safety and should read all labels and safety data sheets available. Nuff said, lets get on with it. Artwork The artwork was printed on over head projector (OHP) film for inkjets this film has a rough and a smooth side. The rough side is the printing side. We are going to use negative resist film so when you create your artwork white is where you want brass and black is where it is to be etched away. You will notice the ‘sprue gates’ are only on the rear art work this is so they get etched away from one side only and become half the thickness off the surrounding brass. Start off by creating your artwork without the gates so the parts are ‘floating’ with no attachment to the surrounding frame, save this file call it ‘front’ or something now make a copy of that file and call it ‘rear’. Open the rear file into your editing software and draw the ‘gates’ in. You now have 2 files front and rear. Print your files using your printers best settings, on mine I have selected Print quality high, Use black ink only, darkness max, contrast max, high resolution paper. If your software can print alignment/crop marks, use them! If not add some crosshairs to your art work but they must be the same on both files so check for this before you create the second file. The two artworks are shown here, top is the front with the floating parts bottom is the rear with the 'sprue gates' (to be printed mirror image) Fold lines should be on the inside of the fold and twice the thickness of the brass. Printing preference page manual ajustment pop up page Because I’m from up north and a bit tight, to save on OHP film print off one of your artworks on plain paper first, now you can cut out a bit of OHP film appropriate to the size of your artwork to include the alignment marks, tape this to the paper over where it is to print and put it back through the printer, same again with the other file. Print the rear one as a mirror image and let them dry for an hour or so. I’ve tried using laser printers for the artwork but the blacks aren't as deep, I find the inkjet better. We have 2 artworks, the rear one should be turned upside onto a white surface or light box if you have one. Cut the top art work out so it just includes the alignment marks but make sure it smaller than the bottom one. Now carefully align the two together on top of each other with printed sides on the outside, this is where your alignment mark come into use, use a magnifying glass if necessary. When you are satisfied that you cannot get aligned any better put a piece of tape across one edge to form a hinge and make sure it doesn't move as you do so. We now have our art work prepared, did you make that second check that is defiantly aligned? If it has moved peel off the tape and do it again, super accuracy is required here if your PE is going to be of any use. Cut out a piece of brass just bigger than the artwork with scissors and give it a clean with Acetone, IPA or other solvent. I'm going to use a 0.005" or 0.125mm gauge sheet Applying the resist The resist is a negative resist so the bits that get exposed to UV cure and harden while the unexposed bits stay weak, the resist should be stored in the dark and away from sunlight. It should also be kept away from sunlight and bright lights while your work with it until it has been developed. Switch the laminator on. Cut out two pieces of resist just larger than the brass, the resist is in between 2 protective sheets you need to remove one before applying to the brass. Take one piece and with two bits of tape on either side of one corner pull them apart, one of the protective sheets should come away, you might find it takes a couple of goes to get this. Put your brass on something flat that will be easy to turn around as you work, a hotel room key is ideal for this, make sure there is no dust or anything and put a big blob of water on it. Take your piece of resist, find the side without the protective layer (it’s the side that feels sticky if you touch it on the edge, don’t touch the bit that’s going on the brass) and gently offer this side to the brass, when it touches the water, the water will grab it, gently lower it on and let it settle. Check there are no air bubbles trapped, if there are just lift the resist a little and gently give the bubble a little persuasion to depart. You might need a little more water before lowering the resist down again. When you’re happy that there is nothing there except a thin layer of water give the centre of the sheet a small press just to tack it into place and stop it slipping, then with a tissue or soft cloth work the water out from the centre don’t press hard just yet, if you do it will tack that bit onto the brass making it harder to remove should you find an air bubble. Once you are happy that you have ALL the water out with NO air or water bubbles trapped smooth the resist down with a bit of pressure. Take a piece of paper and fold it in half, gently lift the brass off using a scalpel blade to break the adhesion and place it in your folded paper. The paper acts as a carrier to go through the laminator if you put the brass through naked it will get bent and damaged, also as its small it might get lost in there, with all the electrical hazards you might expect with a loose bit of metal rattling inside an electrical appliance. Once though the laminator, open up the paper, the resist will be stuck to the brass except where there is air or water trapped, you did get it all out didn’t you? The overlap will also be stuck to the paper so take your scalpel and cut the brass sheet free. Do the same for the other side. Exposure You need a UV light source, ebay has some ladies gel nail curing lights for £10-15, they come with four bulbs two above and one on each side, you only want the light going straight down through the artwork onto the brass so leave the side bulbs out and put them some ware safe, these are now your spares. You need two sheets of glass, I found two cheap 4”x6” photo frames the ones that are just glass and wooden back in Tesco for 50p each kept the glass a threw the rest away. Make sure they are clean, now slip your brass between the two artworks making sure you are happy with the positioning then sandwich this between the sheets of glass and clip together with bulldog clips. A quick check that the brass is still in the right place, no foreign objects obscuring things and the handles of the clips are not in the way. -Optional- You get a slightly sharper image if you remove the protective sheets at this stage however you run the risk of the resist getting stuck to the artwork if this happens you will need to strip the resist off the brass and start again. This is why the artwork has been prepared printed side out. If you get the resist on the artwork IPA or acetone may get it off (only clean the non-printed side) but you could end up having to print a new artwork. Expose this to UV light, I have a bit of cardboard clipped to the side not being exposed, this is just to stop light spilling round to the rear so you can remain in control of how much exposure takes place. Once exposed turn over, swap the card to the other side and expose the other side. Timing, getting the timing tight is critical, too short and your resist is not suitably hardened, to long and you start to expose the bits you shouldn't, remember the artwork is actually translucent the black bits don’t block the light completely they just attenuate it. I have found 45 seconds per side seems to be the optimum timing, this will all depend on how dark your black is, how strong the light is, how close the bulb is, how old the bulb is. 45 second is for my setup yours may differ, some experimenting maybe required. Once done your brass should have the image on it with the exposed bits turning darker blue. Edit - You can use sunlight to expose but be careful as this is an unknown and variable quantity so you could end up over exposing it. Developing As I said earlier exposure to UV light hardens the resist leaving the unexposed areas soft and dissolvable in the ‘developing’ fluid. The fluid we are going to use is a sodium hydroxide solution. Sodium hydroxide is caustic soda sold as household drain cleaner. We need to make a 5% solution of this. I’m going to make 50ml of the stuff. 1ml of water weighs 1 gram so 5% of 50g is 2.5g. you need to make enough to submerge the brass in your container, find out how much you need either in volume (ml) or measure the weight of the water (g) and multiply this figure by 0.05 e.g. 50g x 0.05 = 2.5g. This is how much caustic soda you need to weigh out. Dissolve this in your measured amount of warm water. You’ve now made your developing fluid. Be careful, this is corrosive and will cause chemical burns. I warm the fluid up by leaving the it in the airing cupboard where it is 38°c, Remove the protective layers from your brass with tape on the corner, once the protection is removed avoid putting the brass flat down on any surface, if you do the unexposed bits may well stick to it and you will be back to stripping and starting again. Dunk you brass in the fluid for 2-3 min to dissolve the unexposed resist, you will see it dissolving and turning opaque or milky. Then wash the resist away under a running tap, you can assist this by gently brushing it off with an old paintbrush under the tap. Have a really good look to see if you got all the resist off look carefully as it can be difficult to see. If there is any left put it back in the solution for another minute and wash off again. Don’t leave it in for too long however as it may start to dissolve the exposed stuff too. Once your satisfied you have got it all off put it back under the UV to see if you missed anything, if you did, strip the brass with acetone (see stripping at the end) and start again. Pain in the neck I know, but you haven’t yet etched it so you can reuse the brass. Better to find out now rather than once you've etched it in my opinion. Etching To etch we are going to use an acid to erode away the brass. Sodium persulphate is an etchant used in making PCBs, other etchants are available including ferric chloride, ammonium persulphate & potassium persulphate. For sodium persuphate a 20% solution is needed so multiply your weight/volume of water require by 0.2, so for 50ml of etchant weigh out 10g of sodium persulphate. I haven’t tried other etchants yet, so other ones may need different concentrations. This is also highly corrosive and will cause chemical burns. Find a suitable non metallic container and stirrer and dissolve the etchant in the appropriate amount of water in the same way as you made the developer, and warm it up for use, for me that’s put it back in the airing cupboard again. (It may take a few minutes of stirring to fully dissolve.) Submerge the brass in the etchant, as the etchant tends to become more concentrated at the bottom give it a stir every 10 mins or so until fully etched. The pic shows pin holes starting to appear after 28mins and after 50mins it was fully etched. Keep an eye on it. I nearly over etched this one as I was writing this article at the time. Don’t forget the areas that are going to be etched from one side only will carry on being etched until it is washed off and also the etchant will start to undercut from the sides. So as soon as you are satisfied that it is fully done. Remove it from etchant and fully rinse it under a tap. The etching time will increase as the etchant becomes exhausted the more times you use it, the same will happen with your developer. Stripping Soak the PE in acetone for a few minutes to remove the resist, it should start to peel of but might need a little help. The acetone will become purple in colour and becomes a fantastic dye so watch you don’t spill it, I have a bottle I keep the used acetone in just for cleaning PE. The photo actually shows it in water and is just for illustration! If all is well you've just made your first PE, go have a beer or three to celebrate. Things you need Brass http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5d304537b0 Dry film http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=dry+film&_osacat=0&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xdry+film+photoresist&_nkw=dry+film+photoresist&_sacat=0&_from=R40 OHP film http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_from=R40&_nkw=inkjet+ohp+film&_sop=15 UV Light http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1311.R1.TR10.TRC0.A0.Xuv+na&_nkw=uv+nail+lamp&_sacat=0&_from=R40 Sodium hydroxide, caustic soda cleaning product section of ASDA Tesco etc Glass sheets - cheap photo frame Spatula http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_sacat=0&_nkw=laboratory+spatula&_frs=1 Etchant Different types are available - Sodium persulphate, ferric chloride, ammonium persulphate & potassium persulphate. Couldnt find the Sodium persulphate I used doesnt seem to be listed, http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_odkw=pcb+etchant&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xetchant&_nkw=etchant&_sacat=0 Edit 28/8/13 Looks like the Sodium persulphate is listed on ebay again http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.Xsodium+persulphate&_nkw=sodium+persulphate&_sacat=0&_from=R40 Containers, I used lab beakers, do a search on Borosilicate beaker Scales, search pocket scales or micro weighing scales Stirrers grab a hand full at McDonald’s Timings & quantity's Exposure 45sec per side 1ml of water weighs 1gram Developer 5% strength 2-3mins at 38°C Etchant 20%strength 45min to 1:30 at 38°C (Sodium persulphate) Single side etch To make a single side etch, still apply resist to both sides of the brass and expose the rear completely. etching time will be double as the etchant can only eat through the brass from one side so has twice as much go through to meet the other side. I'll make updates to this as I find new things but in the meantime good luck! Mark

Just for fun this one is a sort big hero 6/Robots sort of way. This sort of fell together when I was rummaging through the parts box but my first scratch mech is being built.

So the new year starts with some scratch/ kit bashing building practice, i want to build one of the Revell tugboats into a flying Sci-fi junk boat but that is going to take a lot of building that i need A LOT of practice in. So this a practice project, its a deep space probe/ship/satellite with a hint of retro and Ma.k. influence. Starting point is a yakult bottle. Had a go at using milliput as well, i will be using a lot more of this. Fitted the nose and what will become sensor domes, these will be filled in and shaped with milliput once the resin glue is dry. You can see my box of plastic bit for building into stuff!

Hi, and happy new year 2014 to all Britmodellers. I've decided to bin everything I previously did on my Sanger Shackleton and start again more seriously (and I hope more successfully). I chose the same path as Tom did on his superb build, and started with the engine nacelles, with quite an ambition: I intend to make a master and cast four "power eggs" in resin. I can't back out, as I already spoke of that point to two gentlemen who told me they were interested in two sets each. Well, now I have to deliver. So here's what I've done so far. John Aero told me the front end of the engine nacelle basically was a Spitfire Griffon nose with an annular radiator (I oversimplify, but that's the idea), so I took a Daco Spitfire XIV nose, removed the rocker covers and glued it to the front part Sanger provides: Then I figured the radiator usind .01 solder wire: The center grid is done using fine mesh a French friend provided (he's interested in a set too, so...), The walls of the nacelle were thickened at the opening using bits of plastic cards glued then puttied. The front part is almost done. The picture is merciless: looking at it, I saw the problem with the two "wings" on each side of the resin part. I'll correct it this evening. Now with the nacelle parts: Have you seen errors I overlooked? Please tell me, I want to correct any mistake I've made before closing the nacelle. TIA, Sebastien

About 15 years ago I wrote a book about mold making and resin casting which was based on my apprenticeship with a master mold maker and from experiences I had while operating a resin model kit manufacturing company back in the 1990s (Wingnut International). The book was self published and rather hard to get, being a completely "in house" operation--I printed, bound and sold the book directly to my customers. It was a modest success but as is the nature with many books, sales gradually dwindled until it was no longer worth my time and effort to keep it in print. The book attained sort of a legendary status and there have been inquiries from time to time about the possibility of reviving it. This wasn't an easy thing to do because the ancient software used to make the book was incompatible with more modern hardware and operating systems. Then about a year ago, after being lobbied hard for the rights to the book by someone active in the how-to publishing field, I decided to take another look at the feasibility of bringing it back into print. I did a literature search and discovered that no book published since has gone into the detail mine does, so I began to think that maybe it would be worth the effort to revive it for the 21st Century. I've spent the last year updating the book and working with an editor to improve it and make it compatible with modern distribution channels. The book is now professionally printed and bound and available on CreateSpace.com, a division of Amazon.com The book is also now available on Amazon and Amazon UK. Copy and paste Secrets of Expert Mold Making & Resin Casting into the Amazon search window and it will take you right to the listing. If 2 listings show up, go to the one with the blue/green cover--the white cover is for the old edition and is no longer available. I have been trying to get Amazon to remove the old listing, but no luck yet. Sorry for any confusion.