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Once again had a good start to the year and a disappointing end, but so it goes. January: Hasegawa 1/72 Kawanishi H8K2 Emily: A really nice kit - build thread here, and RFI pics here 1/72 Arma Hobby PZL P.7a: This was a gift from our much-respected and admired forum-buddy Procopius; another lovely kit and extremely well engineered, it was a pleasure to build, which bodes well for their new Hurricane kit. RFI pics here February: 1/72 Hasegawa Kawanishi H8K1 Emily: This is the Emily that I would have built first, and indeed it would have been the only one I'd built, if I'd known Hasegawa were going to release one. I do like the H8K2 variant but I like my aircraft 'clean' and without the whiskery radar array fitted to the nose of the later H8K2s, I prefer the rather more pert nose of the earlier Emily and also like the Vickers K-type guns fitted in the nose and side blister positions. Anyway building two Emilys in rapid succession might seem excessive but I regret nothing More pics here March: 1/72 Airfix Nakajima B5N2 'Kate': To be honest I only built this as a test-run for spraying the national markings for a following build (the Hasegawa 1/32 'Jack'), but I am pleased with how it came out. The Airfix Kate is another one of those kits that is just a pleasure to build. RFI pics here April: U.S.S. Pennsylvania BB-38 1944 - 1/700 Dragon Modern Sea Power Series: I built this at Jamie (of Sovereign Hobbies fame)'s request in an awful hurry prior to the Scottish Nationals Model Show in Perth at the end of April 2018. It's well outside my usual area of interest and I didn't do a particularly good job even taking into account the time restraints, but here we are anyway. More pics here. It was built to take it's place in the Sovereign Hobbies enormous Battleships game which drew many admiring glances at the show - Gill and Jamie built all the other ships: May: 1/72 Eduard Grumman F6F-3 & F6F-5 Hellcats These two were built for the "Carriers Ahoy" Group Build: More pics here and here June: 1/32 Hasegawa Mitsubishi J2M3 Raiden 'Jack': I dont know why I suddenly decided to build a 1/32 aircraft, but it was an interesting experience. Build thread here and more RFI pics here August: 1/72 Tamiya Kawasaki Ki-61-Id Hien 'Tony' x 2: One of these was a gift from our esteemed forum-buddy Cookenbacher and the other a drunken midnight internet order gift from Past Me. I don't suppose I really need say much about the famously precise and beautiful Tamiya engineering and the kits cover and signpost the variations in production between the various schemes very clearly. Build thread is here and more RFI pics here and here ... and that's as far as I got aside from a couple of disappointingly unfinished Group Builds; I didn't so much hit the wall as ran face-first straight into it and haven't done anything other than a bit of desultory tinkering around since then. Hopefully I will face 2019 reinvigorated and ready to get back on the bench properly again. Anyway ten completions is a marginal improvement on last year's nine, so I should be grateful for small mercies. Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and a Happy New Year and I look forward to seeing you all next year. Cheers, Stew