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I dug this kit out of the stash for a bit of light relief, but ended up doing a little more to it than I had originally expected. Nose sharpened and the spurious finlets either side removed, lower tail intake vents corrected and the semi-circular vent at the top hollowed out, tail pipe replaced, nose gun added from plastic tubing, a little bit of detailing inside the cockpit including a slightly smaller pilot figure (the lesser known reserve pilot Cacophony Angel) - more in scale, and the original very basic decals replaced with home-printed copies of the rather lovely (and comprehensive) ones provided by Airfix in their more recent (2011-ish?) re-release (still in my stash). WIP can be found here Thanks for looking! Nige

Whilst having a rummage in the loft stash for something else, I came across this Snap'n'Glue boxing of the old Angel Interceptor. As a big Gerry Anderson fan (I have lots of models and toys from Stingray, Thunderbirds, UFO, Space 1999 and of course Captain Scarlet) I made one of these WAY back in my youth, but I'm not sure what happened to the bits. So this is a good opportunity to fill that gap on my shelf (I'm lying - there ARE no gaps on my shelf, but you know what I mean...). This particular boxing has the horrible extra "fin" things added either side to support the nose piece, so they'll have to go once the nose has been added. I can't find the original decals, but that is no big loss as they weren't up to the standard of the later rerelease which had lovely detailed markings and stencils (I believe printed by Cartograf) - and I have been able to scan a copy and print a set onto some inkjet decal paper. Badged as 1/72, it is in actuality around 1/87 based on published specs, so the included standard Airfix jet pilot figure is a little too large. However, I found a figure from an old Scout helicopter kit which is rather smaller, so I'll use that one. I've also got a Milliput-moulded copy of an aftermarket ejector seat which looks a bit more like the "real" thing and is in any event miles better than the flat shelf-like thing provided in the kit. The kit tailpipe also annoyed me - it is probably a scale 6" thick and has no depth. So something better needed to be found. It just so happens that last year I was in my local DIY store and saw a little packet of mini plumbing fixtures; dunno what they're supposed to be used for, but I saw tailpipes... Original kit exhaust on the left, replacement bit on the right. Sadly, I failed miserably to take any more WIP shots for a while, so this is where I'm up to now - fuselage is closed up, some detail added to the cockpit, revised tailpipe added, nose added and fixing bits removed, nose itself "sharpened" - the kit nose as provided is far too blunt - and the intakes cleaned up a bit and added. Quite a lot of filler is going to be necessary, I think...

How could I not join an Interceptor GB with anything other than an Angel Interceptor!!! This is an old resin kit from UNCL, also known as the legendary 'Uncle' Bill Oram. I'd been looking for this kit for years as its been out of production for quite a while and then this one came up on Facebook last month for a reasonable price so snapped it up. Its UNCL's old cream resin, with a vac-formed canopy and some small white metal parts for the pilots arms and the wing skids. It came without decals but I have spares for the Spectrum roundels in 1:48 from my What-If builds, when I sourced a bunch of decals from JBOT in the USA. The large A on the underside will be masked and painted For the A on the tail I've got examples from the 1:24 Angel I built last year I have photographed to turn into an image I can print myself. I'll raid the spares box from some other decals for the ejector seat warnings etc. The first job will be to wash it all in soapy water and then cut all the excess resin from the pour stubs and clean up the mating surfaces and joints. This is going to be a bit messy so I might try to do some of it outside weather permitting. A mask will be worn of course, we're all getting used to wearing those beyond the resin modelling arena!

I had visions of all sorts of resin beasts I could build for this GB, but most would have been fairly substantial builds, like a 1/32nd TBM-3 Avenger or Typhoon Ib “Car-door”, and I just don’t have the time. But I came across this and I really couldn’t resist, plus it was super cheap, ~$100USD less than others around, plus a 1/35th Captain Scarlet SPV!!!! Gosh who wouldn’t want that. The model from General Products was released sometime in the 80’s and is long out of production, plus it is the only one available in 1/35th, all the others (only 3 strangely) are in odd scales. This model could be built as a Remote/Radio Controlled model or a static one. Unfortunately it’s not made of resin but Vinyl, something I have never worked with before (and the first Vinyl model I think for this GB as well). So some quick study on the net was required to figure out how to build with vinyl. Similar to resin the model is cast in large pieces which is sort of nice, though there are huge vinyl blocks that’ll need to be removed. As can be seen the vinyl is sloshed around the mould and is very thick, also notice the droplets on the roof of the mould. They were an issue with the lower half as I found out later. There are not that many parts to this model, most are the wheels. Plus the tracks, not the greatest mould work, being vinyl I will not replace them with scratchbuilt items, maybe a wee bit of filler here and there to tidy them up. You get some nice (?) white metal hub caps and a replacement fin, and some vinyl stickers instead of decals. Decals are non-existent for this model so in keeping with the 80’s vibe of the model I will use them, the letters I may replace, will see. Instructions……..well my Japanese is pretty bad….ok I’m illiterate in Japanese, so I’ll just have to look at the pictures. Ok so off we go…..and a hour later and one scalpel blade later I have this. Another 2 hours later and I have this, all tidied up, the side guards thinned down (what a job that was!!!), plus after a hot bath to help straighten some warpage in both parts. Also I have started to remove those vinyl droplets in the lower body section…… ………. this was done so I could fit a solid card base to it. This will help keep the base sort of straight and level………. ……. just a little bit of persuasion required. Since this photo I’ve added some more support structure to this base as well as the upper body as it is really flexible. I’ll be adding more to help strengthen it as I do worry that any flexing will cause the paint to flake off. And this is why they provided a replacement metal fin, pretty sad huh! Now that's much nicer. The wheels, I started cutting the extra bits off them (I didn’t know all the wheels were doubles, on my Dinky one they’re just single ones), the smaller ones are ok, the big ones……. well they’re…… lets say I’ll need to do quite a bit of work to get them sorted. They’re moulded ok, it’s just how they’re meant to go together as they don’t at the moment! Plus I have to come up with a better solution with how they’re going to fit as well. The paint colour is a bit unknown, I have found some references plus I have my Dinky Toy version. I may try and use a automotive lacquer as I think I’ll be able to get a better colour match. So far I am enjoying this build, it’s very straightforward, it won’t be long before I can have an undercoat on her. This won’t be a super-detailed build or have heaps of scratchbuilt extras added, Vinyl models don’t have/need this….. now if it was resin!!! Plus I did for a short time had an idea to do a resin cast of her…….. maybe that is something I can revisit in the distant future.

Started over the Easter weekend, finished 1st July, with a break in the middle for a hernia operation - not bad going considering This is the resin kit by Simian Stuff, available from Kits for Cash It was a bit of a beast as this was one of the earlier kits, the newer ones have a different parts breakdown. It was painted with Halfords primers and Appliance White, but given a Daler & Rowney matt varnish at the end. The decals which come with the kit were printed by JBOT and are lovely. I added a load more from the spares box for the "No Step" stencils and so on. The build thread is here, in which you can see me 'wrestle' with the resin, hole, gaps and voids! It measures: Length: 2' 6" (80cm) Width: 17" (43cm) Height: 7" (18cm) This is not a decal - it was masked and painted! Some details not easily visible now: Instrument panel Now my main problems are two fold: 1) Find a box big enough to transport this to model shows and protect it in transit 2) Find a place to display it in my house! At the moment it has pride of place on my coffee table!

With the prospect of an Easter weekend of good weather coming along, I thought it was time to dig out a kit I've had int he stash for 18 months since it was released at SMW in 2017 by Kits for Cash. Its a very large amount of resin that will need a significant amount of sanding so there was no way I was going to do that in the house or even in the shed! I've set up a work table in the garden ready to begin work tomorrow. Here are the original "sprue shots from 2017 Yes it has an obviously female pilot, unlike the Airfix kit! This is from the original batch of castings Simian Stuff did. Since they they've had it recast and this part is now split into 3, fuselage and separate wings. So now we come up to the present day and this evening I got it all out of the box that has been languishing on the shelf for 18 months and gave it all a good wash in warm soapy water. Here it is drying just now Tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll be out in the garden and start sanding down some of those quite prominent seams and flash...

I posted this here rather than in the sci-fi/space forum because it is a real airplane, although I finished it in a sci-fi paint scheme. As most of my models are, it is somewhat 'rough and ready.' Not of the high standards of some here. I describe its construction (and that of the accompanying Airfix Angel Interceptor) on this page of my web site: https://everardcunion.wordpress.com/falcon-excel/#top

Back in late December, one of the greats of TV entertainment passed away. As a tribute, I interrupted my current project and had to build something appropriate: which was a kit I picked up at Telford last year. As usual for Imai models, they HAD to turn it into a toy by adding missiles that could be fired from under the wings! Needless to say, I removed this "feature" and tried to add some flashing warning lights to the wingtips using flashing LEDs. The result was this: To be brutally honest, the paintwork could be better - had problems with the masking due to the panel lines - er trenches and the fit of some of the pieces. The LED lighting doesn't really show up very well unless you are at a particular angle - ie edge on to the wing HIdden under the "clouds" are the batteries but even though I beefed them up to 12v, the LEDs still don't show up very well. The LEDs: Fibre optics to illuminate the wing lights - I think the main problem is there just isn't enough fibres I can't honestly say this is one of my better builds sadly...