'Columbine' LaGG 3 of Georgy Kostylev refuels by Lake Ladoga with a BZ 35 in winter 1942. So, so cold..

[TonyTiger66]

Hello modellers ,

Well, I've been looking forward to this, only my second GB. I wasn't sure what a Vignette was in modelling terms. In terms of writing a little story, yes, so I thought that is maybe what it is for modelling. Perhaps a small section of what would usually be a diorama? A small part of the bigger picture. I hope I have at least the essence of the idea.

Originally I had wanted to build one of two Spanish Civil War dioramas, but as time went by, I realised that my WIP for three I-16's had made such a diorama difficult. Many setbacks with these builds meant that I couldn't be very sure I could complete *another* I-16, a conversion to a 'Type 10' from an ICM 'Type 18' kit in time to have it ready for this GB. Moreover, I simply could not find figures I was happy with for the SCW Republican aircrew. I am so happy Minairons exist, their AFV's are lovely (although I prefer SteelWorks, but both are great). Nevertheless I purchased a set of their 'Republican Infantry' and was disappointed.

They're obviously meant for the gaming community. They have that exaggerated, cartoon like quality, that inhuman chunkiness that simply doesn't float my boat. My brother is an avid gamer and I know these figures will be loved by that community (and I often wish I was part of it), but true to scale modelling is my love. Therefore figures like Preiser, even Revell and Airfix, make me happy

So, I re-assessed. I'm making three Lagg-3 aircraft in 1/72 for the GPW GB. I checked and found it was OK to use one of these in this GB. This got me rather happy!

A few months ago I found a photograph of a Polikarpov Po-2 being refuelled in the cold, harsh environment of a WW2 winter . I didn't know it was a Po-2 at first, but friends over on WW2 Aircraft Net helped me identify it as a night fighter variant on skis. The refueller is a BZ-35 in white distemper and I love white distemper camouflage! Here is the photo:

Some sources state this as a BZ-38, but I will not worry too much about that, this Vignette will not even include the Po-2.

I purchased a Po-2, but I have decided I will not have time to build it for this GB as I am also committed to the Airliner GB soon, so to keep it fun, a LaGG 3 (one of my aviation favourites!), should be in the process of refuelling.

A photo of a LaGG 3 in winter 1942 by Lake Ladoga has always been a favourite; here it is:

This image is from Page 10 of 'Lagg Fighters in Action', Squadron/Signal Aircraft Number 163 by Hans-Heiri Stapfer 1996. It is also on Massimo Tessitori's superb VVS website and there credited to'Red Stars'. If I need to remove it please let me know.

I have always like the nature of this photograph; the rugged, extreme cold it shows, whilst the aircraft is pared down, even the cockpit main canopy removed, in this hellish freezing cold to improve visibility for the pilot; very likely Georgy Kostylev. He named his aircraft Columbine and was clearly fond of her, scoring at least 10 victories.

Well, the components were in the porridge pot of my brain and this vignette was born.

Georgy Kosylev waiting for his Columbine to be refuelled. Absolutely freezing even in his long coat. . For some reason the refuelling guy is wearing normal ground-crew clothing with no overcoat and doesn't seem to be cold at all. This causes some questions and thoughts to appear in the mind of Georgy! Has anyone yet noticed it is very cold ?

The progress of my build of Columbine can be found here . Meanwhile, I purchased these Zvezda ground Crew figures:

They are splendid figures and clearly based upon characters from a famous Soviet film

(Only Old Men Are Going to Battle) that can be found here as a colour version (with subtitles) on Youtube, in particular one can identify the quite portly (like me) cheerful man:

​I ask some advice here; the Zvezda kit provides no information on the colours to be used for the ground crew uniforms, I have Googled but to no avail. l If I could type in Russian, I think I would have success, but I can't . Could anyone advise on colours?

​I have bought a figure to represent Georgy waiting for his beloved aircraft to be refuelled, it is by Aero-Bonus, is in resin and is very nice indeed. It was a little expensive for just one figure, but this is for something special

Painting instructions are, very helpfully, included with this one:

Finally the BZ-35. I have no way of knowing where Georgy got his fuel from, or what kind of bowser, but this will do; it was around in 1942 and looks the part. It is by PST and Sgt. Squarehead helped me to research and locate it; thanks Sarge!

Finally the base, two dollars (a pound) picture frame from a Salvation Army charity shop:

I will be cutting the size down to fit the dimensions allowed in this GB. It does not have glass, it has a plastic clear face, so I think this could be a nice 'icy' start to the terrain

I've made a little start on the fuel truck/bowser and this, the base, a crew figure or two and the plot will be included in this WIP. I have never built a Vignette before and have no experience of painting figures or AFV's/trucks! !!

This will be a huge learning experience.

Any advice on how to replicate snow over forest/tundra grass will be much appreciated.

Also any figure painting advice for 1/72. These are lovely figures and I'd like to do them justice. I've done a lot of Youtube and other research on painting them, and bought a 'Lifecolor' 'Flesh Paint' set. I hope that was a good start?

Next post; the BZ gets underway.

Thanks for reading and happy modelling

Tony

[PlaStix]

Hi Tony and welcome to the Vignette GB. Thank you for the wonderfully detailed intro and background to your project - I was fascinated throughout. It looks like it should make into a fascinating vignette.

With regards the figures - this is only my way and there are plenty of others - once I've cleaned of any flash and seam lines (these tend to show up in photos if you don't get rid of them) I tend to give all my figures several coats of very thinned Revell's Anthracite. If you paint them with un-thinned paints you can loose some detail. Once dry I tend to paint the main parts of the clothing with thinned acrylic paints - I only do these main areas at this point because I want to dry-brush them and not have to worry about getting the dry-brush paint on other painted details. Over this I apply a wash of Revell's Gunship Grey to tone down the colours. Next I dry-brush the clothing with a lightened version of the clothing colour (by adding a touch of white paint) - this is to highlight any creases and raised detail. Finally on the clothing I sometimes add a wash of Revell's Anthracite into any deeper creases in the clothing - just to give them more depth - I do this with a fine pointed brush.

Next I paint any peripheral/other details - belts, gloves, boots, helmets, etc. with a thinned paints using a fine brush.

I leave painting the faces and hands (if the latter do not have gloves) until last - I use a suitable overall flesh tone for these. I don't worry about trying to paint any facial details in 1/72 or 1/48 because often the features are not well enough defined. To get the features to appear I use Citadels Reikland Fleshshade - which is a kind of wash that, if you leave the figure on it's back, settles into the recessed areas and looks like natural shadows.

Hope this is of some help.

Kind regards,

Stix

[TonyTiger66]

Hi Stix, thank you for the great welcome, very kind

Your advice really helps, I wouldn't have thought of doing it that way, I always used to paint the Airfix kit pilot's faces first. I like the idea of the shading and also if the washes.

I wanted to ask, do you use acrylic or enamel Revell anthracite? I have the enamel one, but can get the acrylic quite quickly if I need it.

Progress has been slowed this week as Mrs. T isn't very well, but I have made some nice progress with the fuel truck; just painting, cutting off sprues and dry fitting. It's been a while since I've done a vehicle so I must have spent a good hour today just studying the instructions and making sure I don't make any silly mistakes.

Here are the instructions.

I'm very impressed by them. The parts diagram is good and once one is used to how the curvy arrows work in the construction diagrams, it all becomes clear (I hope!).

Here are the sprues

Not everything gets used; one dummy engine sump and quite a few suspension leaf Spring assemblies and differential units end up being useful additions to the spares box

I may be doing this the wrong way around, but I decided to paint the parts on the sprue. I decided to airbrush them, the first time I've ever done this with a vehicle. I realised the truck will need spraying again once built, but I felt doing if this way gave me a good colour foundation. I washed the parts thoroughly first and gently dabbed dry with kitchen towel.

The instructions call out for Humbrol 102 but I don't have it. I did some searching on BM and found Tamiya XF65 is recommended by some for Soviet trucks, and I have that:

Now I'm a bit colour blind, but my daughter agreed with me that whilst this colour is called 'field grey' it certainly looks green!

That was fine by me. I mixed it around 60% paint to 40% Tamiya acrylic thinner and sprayed the green components with two most coats. I used Tamiya NATO black for the tyres. I find that any manufacturers 'Black' (oh, don't get me started on BLACK again...this comment is to do with my I-16 build..) is too black. It makes tyres and so on look too toylike. I don't know what other people think but I either add around 20% light grey or use NATO black or anthracite.

This is how everything was left to dry, at about 1am in the morning!:

I have more images of the next day when I gave a more substantial coat then removed parts from the sprues. I will upload these pictures very soon.

Just as a parting piece of interest; I am going to be cutting down an A4 frame for the base, as you can see it was packed in air-tight film:

Regardless of that, for those that don't live in this climate, this is what it does to even air-sealed metal; the frame holders at the back had rusted!:

I'm still amazed by this sub-tropical climate. Having lived in the UK most of my life, this kind of thing still surprises me. The other things to take into account include how the sun will fall on displayed models, especially resin ones: they can, and will warp badly in the strong sun here.

Well, thanks for reading folks, some actual building next time, both here and over on my 'three LaGG 3' build, where Columbine is progressing nicely.

All best regards

Tony

[PlaStix]

Hi Tony. I use the acrylic version of Revell's Anthracite - I find it's good to apply in a variety of situations.

I'm sorry Mrs T isn't very well and I hope she feels better soon.

The truck looks to be a really nice kit and that paint looks green to me too from my side of the Internet. Where I can, I paint stuff while it's still on the sprues. You have to take a bit of care when cutting the parts away and cleaning them up but these areas are fairly easy to cover with thin layer of paint afterwards.

That rusting of the metal parts of the frame is amazing!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Cookenbacher]

You can feel the cold in your reference photo! This looks like a great project.

[AlexN]

That's the Sydney climate all right; Brisbane worse! You don't want to see what it (and the fact that we lived in a cold, dark swamp) did to my precision tools. Hence, in part, our move to drier climes.

Looking forward to this one.

Cheers,

Alex.

[TonyTiger66]

Hi Tony. I use the acrylic version of Revell's Anthracite - I find it's good to apply in a variety of situations.

I'm sorry Mrs T isn't very well and I hope she feels better soon.

The truck looks to be a really nice kit and that paint looks green to me too from my side of the Internet. Where I can, I paint stuff while it's still on the sprues. You have to take a bit of care when cutting the parts away and cleaning them up but these areas are fairly easy to cover with thin layer of paint afterwards.

That rusting of the metal parts of the frame is amazing!

Kind regards,

Stix

Hi Stix and it's great to have you looking in I have followed your advice and continued painting on the sprues. One thing I wish I had done was a little weathering in the sprues, but I'll store that for next time.

Also I haven't completed any sub assemblies yet, so I may weather separate sections such as inside the wings/fenders, behind the wheels, the chassis etc before I glue it all together. It really is going to be whitewashed and extremely grimy, like the one in the picture of the Po2 above, so I'm going to have to think ahead quite a bit.

Thanks for asking about Mrs T. She is clear if the old Pneumonia but has a nasty 'post viral' cough and is very short of breath, so I'm still playing nurse. I don't mind at all, it's good to feel useful! . Still Unhavent got much modelling done. I've kept up with the forum though and learned a lot, so it feels like I've been modelling by proxy

I'm looking forwards to trying your figure painting technique; Revell acrylic Anthracite is on its way!

Best regards

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

You can feel the cold in your reference photo! This looks like a great project.

Thank you Cookie! I want it to feel absolutely frrrreeeezing !

I'm an odd lost Pom in Australia as I really miss snow, rain, ice, frost, sleet and all permutations thereof. I think the cold diorama and love for winter camo is so that I can imagine myself in them !

I'm still not decided on how to make it look cold and snowy. Space will be tight on the base, but I may just be able to get a thin tree or two in

White sand is available here but I can't help but think it will look like.... white sand .

I'll have a ponder.

All best regards

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

That's the Sydney climate all right; Brisbane worse! You don't want to see what it (and the fact that we lived in a cold, dark swamp) did to my precision tools. Hence, in part, our move to drier climes.

Looking forward to this on

Cheers,

Alex.

Hi Alex! It's great to have you along on this one.

This GB is truly fascinating as I really don't have a clue what I'm doing ! Then again that makes it sound as if I normally know what I'm doing when slapping huge dollops of filler in short-run model aircraft kits. It's just that they're my comfort zone.

I really like models to be in an authentic scene, so I hope I can conjure something up.

It's winter in Brisbane, yet as you'll know, at 22-24 degrees C in the daytime that's like a mild summer in England/Scotland, so to get my brain into 'snow, ice and tundra' mode is a challenge. The pilot/ground crew figure and (trying to) weather the fuel truck will be fun

To have escaped a cold dark swamp sounds pretty marvellous. There is a warm, smelly, foetid swamp very near here. I often visit it as I like to sample the flies

Honestly, these Brits that complain about their climate haven't a clue what we face in a land down under !

I hope your precision tools aren't utterly ruined. I have often found that a great deal of effort with WD40 (the engineers eternal friend) can sometimes revive things after many years of mould and decay. In my past life most of a 56 year old car was freed up again with that wonderful stuff.

I hope the old digestion system is recovering after your massive trip and the clock is starting to click back into place

All best regards

Tony

[Cookenbacher]

I grew up in Alaska and now live in the New Mexico desert (107 F/42 C today), so I'm familiar with your pain.

Thanks for the sandpaper idea, my diorama takes place in the South Pacific, and I was wondering what to use for 'sand'!

[PlaStix]

Hi Tony. Glad to hear Mrs T is doing a little better and I hope she continues to progress.

With regards painting on the sprues - there is a lot to be said for doing as much as you can before cutting the parts away - the only thing to be careful of is keeping the paint, either away from any surfaces to be glued, or knowing you'll be able to clean them up okay once the part is off the sprue. Hope you manage to get some modelling done soon.

Kind regards,

Stix

[AlexN]

Thank you for your warm welcome, Tony.

Deluxe Materials (makers of Super 'Phatic, Perfect Plastic Putty, Roket Hot and many others) do a range of snows, ices and waters - and scenic rust! The distributor in Oz is about halfway between Brisbane and Sydney and does a fantastic mail order service - very quick, like BNA-quick (if in stock)! Link should take you to the DM page for snow and rust, etc., should be here. Delux materials also have their own website, or course. Note that on the respective products' pages there are excellent videos and downloadable pdfs on their use and application. I hope that you find this useful.

Cheers,

Alex.

[AlexN]

Sorry to hijack your thread: just some comments on your post that I didn't do at first since I considered the snow and ice link(s) more important.

I have a 20 litre drum of WD40 - almost empty, as a matter of fact, on account of the usefulness as you remark on! I need to order another one to deal with all sorts of things. As I was packing up I smothered everything remotely ferrous in thick layers of lanolin paste, which helped keep the dreaded rust at bay a bit - especially from off my metal stock*. Speaking of rust, I think that the DM "Scenic Rust" is actual rust, formed from oxidising a ferrous (or ferric?) solution**. In a controlled way!

And speaking of climate, etc., we were amazed at how jolly bright the light is here after the almost-sepulchral gloom o' Bonnie Scotland in high summer . We have been getting headaches and having to put on the sunnies! At least the temperatures (apart fom Tokyo) are similar at the moment.

Cheers,

Alex.

* Just as well - the damp from the workswamp went into the shipping container with my wood stocks - and stayed there until we cracked the seals. A cautionary tale for the unwary.

** From an iron powder paste - as far as I can tell...

[TonyTiger66]

Thank you for your warm welcome, Tony.

Deluxe Materials (makers of Super 'Phatic, Perfect Plastic Putty, Roket Hot and many others) do a range of snows, ices and waters - and scenic rust! The distributor in Oz is about halfway between Brisbane and Sydney and does a fantastic mail order service - very quick, like BNA-quick (if in stock)! Link should take you to the DM page for snow and rust, etc., should be here. Delux materials also have their own website, or course. Note that on the respective products' pages there are excellent videos and downloadable pdfs on their use and application. I hope that you find this useful.

Cheers,

Alex.

Hi Alex,

I'm sorry for the delay in replying, life stuff took over from modelling . Tonight I've managed to get back to it. Thank you for the link to the snow .

I've explained to my very kind and understanding wife that it's important that next week I order some scale snow

It will be done!

It seems as if I'm doing nothing on the vignette, but I am, it's just that it is on the aircraft itself, the LaGG 3. I don't want to duplicate posts and 'Columbine' is part of a three LaGG 3 build over on the Great Patriotic War group build.

It's a Roden kit and takes a bit of wangling, but I'm getting there.

I've done a little more on the fuel truck so will post that shortly.

WD40 is amazing stuff, from cleaning to polishing to freeing off. I have used it to free off things that seemed utterly seized, like 45 year old car door hinges, even a soft seized piston in a petrol engine.

As for damp...it's a dreadful thing. It followed some of my stuff in storage containers too, in this case it was hiding in textiles, clothing and bedding. It had got into them in temporary storage (18 months of it) in a garage with a leaky roof in Yorkshire. Once the stuff was here in Australia I just laid it out in the sun, to dry, for days. Then much careful cleaning of books, records, mouldy shoes etc was needed. A high value of items were ruined.

Damp is just awful stuff

All best regards

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

I grew up in Alaska and now live in the New Mexico desert (107 F/42 C today), so I'm familiar with your pain.

Thanks for the sandpaper idea, my diorama takes place in the South Pacific, and I was wondering what to use for 'sand'!

Oooh Alaska and then New Mexico ! That's a big contrast Cookie. It's winter here at the moment, which means it's like a moderate British summer.

People born here are wearing coats, scarves and pullovers, whilst I'm comfortable in shorts and T shirts. It's a situation where they think I'm insane, and I would love to take them to a * real* winter, maybe one of those days when Glasgow gets to minus 25 degrees C!

Sandpaper for deserts... it was white sand I mentioned for snow, but yes, fine sandpaper would be a great base for a desert scene. Then maybe get some real, fine sand (I would guess there's no need to buy that in New Mexico ) and use it to build up dunes etc. I wonder what would be good for binding real sand together? White glue?

Thanks for looking in Cookie, I'll try to make the snow look right so we can feel at home

Best regards

Tony

[TonyTiger66]

Hi Tony. Glad to hear Mrs T is doing a little better and I hope she continues to progress.

With regards painting on the sprues - there is a lot to be said for doing as much as you can before cutting the parts away - the only thing to be careful of is keeping the paint, either away from any surfaces to be glued, or knowing you'll be able to clean them up okay once the part is off the sprue. Hope you manage to get some modelling done soon.

Kind regards,

Stix

Thanks Stix. Mrs. T really appreciated the well wishes She's still coughing badly and very tired, but back at work now.

Tomorrow I will post pictures, I painted the truck on the sprues. I wish I had weathered the wheels and some other bits now, but I'll remember for my next vehicle model. I've got hold of some AK Interactive Soviet style white distemper so I'm looking forward to trying that on the truck

I took your advice and made sure to leave surfaces to be glued free of paint, or I've scraped it off; most parts are off the sprues now.

I have made a lot of progress on the aircraft for this vignette, it's over on the GPW GB. I think tomorrow I will be able to start applying colour to it.

Photos within 24 hours

All best regards

Tony

[PlaStix]

That all sounds like excellent news. I will watch out for the photos!

[TonyTiger66]

Righty ho,

Let's have a tiny bit of progress. I meant to post more today but Photobucket is just not very good at all. Pictures from previous posts here weren't showing, yet the links were fine .

Also, is it just me, or every time over say, 10 perfectly fine photo files are uploaded, does it start to miss photos out! I.e. It says there's a problem and may miss between 1 to 8 pictures out of a batch of 50?

I find Flikr much more reliable for uploading pictures, but I can't find where on the app (iPhone) is the option to copy a link. I also can't find a 'help' option. Can anyone advise?

I had given the parts an initial airbrushing of Tamiya XF-65 Field Gray. I didn't use primer as I had washed the parts and the colours were very close. I have been modelling late at night and I had t realised just how thin my coat of paint was.

This probably gives an impression of the subdued light I've been working in:

I decided to give all the green parts another two coats, after which things started to look a bit better:

I have shown the main tank section for a reason. I'm not used to vehicle kits. The main tank mounts to the chassis by those four stubs at the bottom of the lower tank half, on the right in the photo above.

I noticed that the stubs aren't the same distance from each end of the tank, and it's possible to fit the bottom half on either way, with a big gap or a smaller one relative to the truck cab.

It isn't clear from the instructions which end of the main tank lower half goes towards the cab.

I'm glad I spotted this and just didn't blindly wallop the main tank on, I'll come back to this later.

At this stage In still 'thinking' a lot about what I'm doing or need to do, as this is very different to aircraft construction; my main Hobby area. I carefully detached the chassis from the sprues using a Trumpeter micro-saw. I didn't want to risk sprue cutters bending or warping the frame. It looks huge in a computer monitor, but it's actually tiny and fragile. The first thing that looked very different to the instruction sheet was these two huge pins sticking out between the suspension leaf springs at the front:

I double checked the instructions and they shouldn't be there; they're huge ejector pins (is that what they're called?). I'll have to figure out a way of sawing those off without damaging anything, they're in a tricky place.

I then noticed the instructions show that the front bumper has to be sawed off the chassis, but not straight across as one would imagine:

Look at step 4 at the top. The bumper has to be sawed off in three parts, leaving the main lengthwise chassis members intact. I must be stupid because it took me a long time to realise this and to realise what the inset to the top left of step 4 was saying to me.

In fact, it shows that once the bumper has been cut off, then the extreme front of each of the main lengthwise chassis members need reshaping as per the diagram, with some quite pronounced curves. A knife is shown suggesting the dark shades areas be cut away, but in my opinion this would lead to breakage so I will gently file these areas to shape.

Ok, so I figured that out, but then the exhaust puzzled me. The instruction sheet shows this being cut up. Once again I carefully removed it from the sprue using a micro saw. This piece is very delicate indeed:

Here is what the instruction sheet wants to be done to it:

So the first 19mm are cut off to form part 10a (the exhaust?) and the rear section is cut off to form part 10b, that then goes between the chassis rails at the front, and looks somewhat like a fire extinguisher? The instructions call out for Humbrol 174, which is red, so I'm assuming this kit has been made so that part of the exhaust moulding becomes a fire extinguisher !

Moreover, is it me, but looking again at the diagram, is it asking me to attach the exhaust to the engine with the exhaust pipe outlet coming to the front of the engine?? I'm imagining it was done this way on fuel trucks/bowsers to keep the hot exhaust pipe away from the main fuel tank and any spilled drops of fuel?

Hot exhaust gas plus fuel would equal = ??

I guess those as new to this as I am will understand why I'm going through the instructions so carefully, I'm fully expecting to have to saw one of the tyres up to create the seats!

I studied the rest and it seemed I'd figured out all the wierd stuff, so I then cut out all the remaining parts, with the exception of the tyres and some very, very tiny parts like handles and headlamp holders that I am scared of losing:

Well, I thought I had figured out all the wierd stuff, but then I saw this in the instructions:

Look at what it is telling me to do to part 16, the radiator, to the lower left of step 6. Is it really asking me to cut off the top of the back of the radiator? I dry fitted the radiator to the bonnet/hood and sides and indeed, it doesn't fit. The rear moulding does need cutting off. It's that arch shape at the top between the two verticals that's going to have to come off:

The rest of my time has been spent on the three LaGGs I'm doing for the Great Patriotic War group build and my ongoing I-16/UTI-4 WIP. The LaGG 3 for this vignette is coming along well. In this photograph it is the model on the right:

I have it at the stage where the under surface has been sprayed in Hataka brand acrylic model paint Soviet light blue grey, the upper surface in soviet AMT camouflage green. It is the aircraft to the left in this picture:

This Roden kit has been the trickiest of the three LaGGs to build, but I have concentrated on it the most as I need it for this Vignette group build. Next I have to apply the black camouflage areas, then the white distemper. There is an area that still needs smoothing (somehow) in the lower rear fuselage where the water cooler outlet (eventually, after I have filed it some more! ) fits. I will then re-apply light blue grey to that area.

Then it will be the canopy, weathering, fitting the propellor and undercarriage.

Doesn't sound much if I say it quickly!

Then figure painting, then the base, snow, finishing building the truck......

If you would like to see how Columbine (the Roden LaGG 3) has been built/has got to this stage, please have a look over in the GPW GB area.

Meanwhile, whilst aircraft paint dries, I now have a lot of little tabs to file off of truck parts!

Thank you for watching, any comments or ideas are most welcome. I'll be ordering some snow in a weeks time

Happy modelling

Tony

Edited for spelling and auto-correct errors.

[AlexN]

Strange instuctions indeed, although they do have their own internal logic once you know what's going on. Saves setting up a whole new set of moulds for some "minor" fiddly bits, I dare say.

Looking good .

[PlaStix]

Yeah those instructions and what they are asking you to do are 'interesting'! Good to see more progress though on all aspects. Good luck with any more instructional strangeness!

Kind regards,

Stix

[CliffB]

I'm looking forward to seeing that assortment of bowser bits magically transformed into the finished article!

Cliff

[PlaStix]

Hi Tony. Just checking if there has been any progress?

Kind regards,

Stix