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I have always loved Castle in the Sky; it was the first anime film I ever saw when I was a little kid and it made a big impression on me, for years I would just refer to it as Laputa until I grew up and found it again and have watched it countless times since. Any way, flash forward to now and I've wanted to get one of the flaptter kits for a while and I thought I'd missed my chance to not be bent over on price but managed to get one at a very reasonable price (I would have loved to have one of the robot kits too but they are hard to find let alone at decent price) So I got it on the bench and started cutting sprue, which felt really nice as its been a while after dealing with sculpting and 3d prints! IMG_20230823_191404849 by Nick Frost, on Flickr IMG_20230823_191451104 by Nick Frost, on Flickr IMG_20230824_192035458 by Nick Frost, on Flickr Obviously its Bandai so the moulding, detailing, and fit is really good! But I needed to do a bit of prep work with it to make the bits fit the way I want them too. Basically to avoid any fiddly/difficult masking for the front grill and the back area I modified the fit so that the main body can go together in one piece and I can fit the other bits in after. So I got the main body bits off and cleaned them up and sanded down all nub marks. IMG_20230824_193423265 by Nick Frost, on Flickr The two side halves go together and then there are two large lugs for the grill detail part that goes behind, so that would have to go on first. So I cut the part so that it can be slid in afterward when its together. So I can use tweezers for the thin grill part to go in and then slide this in behind. IMG_20230827_192121286 by Nick Frost, on Flickr Heres a quick shot of the front on (not glued yet) and this is where I've slid it in to text it and it pops in nicely IMG_20230827_192150410 by Nick Frost, on Flickr then I've cut some of the side parts where the instrument panel goes in, again so that it can be popped in from the front later IMG_20230828_151905778 by Nick Frost, on Flickr And to help with that fit for the instrument parts and floor, I sanded down the side thin location bits on the side of the front of the floor part by half, and widened the holes for the instrument panel pins. And for the lower instrument panel itself I cut the top pegs that fit in holes on the side parts, trimmed the bottom pegs to about half, then sanded down the sides so it can slide in and out without putting pressure on the sides and force it apart. IMG_20230828_164 Then for the little clear part I had to sand down some rectangular tabs that were on the side, and from the part that sits in the bottom there are two small triangular little flaps that help hold it in, but stop it just popping in when together. IMG_20230828_164616274_HDR~2 by Nick Frost, on Flickr So with that all done I glued the sides together and got the front on IMG_20230828_165247718 by Nick Frost, on Flickr IMG_20230828_172607976 by Nick Frost, on Flickr Then when it was dry I popped all the stuff in with no glue just to double check there was no more modifying to be done. So the front grill inner detail part just pushes in from the bottom after I've used tweezers to get the grill itself in. IMG_20230827_192150410 by Nick Frost, on Flickr IMG_20230828_195515825~2 by Nick Frost, on Flickr And then I got all the other bits in the cockpit. IMG_20230828_194712297 by Nick Frost, on Flickr So now its all back into individual bits ready to paint, oh and you can see I also glued on the front bump details. First thing I need to do next before I get the airbrush out is just fill the join that runs from the windscreen to the front seam. Thanks for looking, more soon

For some reason or another last weekend I did something I have in 25 years of modelling never done before - fired a scratch-built steam-punk type model together. I was actually working on a Tamiya Fw190 A3 and I think I was so bored with how well it fitted together that my hand went a wandering. The main body part is the fuselage ventral fuel tank from the Italeri B-58 Hustler chopped off. I started with the pilots station using the 1:48 pilot from the Tamiya Fw190 kit and some bits of one of Revells Stars Wars kit's. The tail unit is also for the B-58, the wing units form a Su27 (or Mig29) and the cable cutters are from the Revell Type VII C u-boot. After that it's a explosion of parts from the spares box and Everegreen. Parts still to come including modified side fuel tanks and ventral fins. I am going to call the pilot the Commissar of Grievance as there seems to be a lot of them about these days ;( The pilot is 1:48 Luftwaffe (needing Borg type interface with the control panel ) and 1:35 head from Takoms St Chamond tanker with face mask and with a respirator, trunk and mohawk added for good measure. Will post update again later when closer to painting stage Regards Brian

Not everyone's cup of tea, but... At the end of August for the bank holiday weekend there will be a three day steampunk festival in Lincoln in the uphill cathedral area. Have a look at visitlincoln.com for details. Hopefully I'll be going into town to have a look. Pete