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Frog Squad GB Chat


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3 hours ago, Rabbit Leader said:

Great post 825, sounds as if your well and truly into this GB caper!  Now besides the Shark, we currently don’t have any of the other kits pictured so whatever you decide will be good to see. Of course you are free to build whatever you like so a Firefly and (third GB) Shark will be just perfect! 

 

Cheers and welcome aboard.. Dave

Thanks Dave, I'll get the Firefly off and running later today and tidy up the Shark. The Sea Hawk looks straightforward so I may have a go at it as well. The Corsair and Vengeance look pretty good in terms of plastic so they may be possible in the time. Nonetheless of them have a lot of parts and only the Shark looks particularly complex with all the struts. Hope that hasn't jinxed me. 

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4 hours ago, 825 said:

I've just done a Seahawk for the 50's GB so should I do another?

Hi @825, of course you should, I was looking out for one of those to build, but with sods law one never materialised so I went down different paths

Just wish someone would build a decent 48th scale one :) 

 

Ian :) 

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Sorry guys, but this has absolutely nothing to do with FROG per se, but may nevertheless appeal to those of you who like ancient British plastic.

I've got these three in my stash and have just started the Hurricane as a nightfighter in the Specialists GB.  It's giving me grief though, with the plastic delaminating when I sand it (see photo below).  Any thoughts on cause/solution/directions to nearest bin please ;)?

 

Thanks

Cliff

 

P1100735.jpg

 

 

P1100734.jpg

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Good grief! I've not seen that before.  It looks like the plastic is going to be unusable.

Old plastic is starting to do strange things now. Early Airfix soldiers can get as brittle as glass and then shatter when handled. Soft tyres in car kits can melt the hard plastic of the kit itself if left in contact with each other for any length of time. Eagle kits, and the Vulcan ones that pre dated them were very much small scale in operation, I don't know who did the actual moulding of the kits but I would think the moulding would have been very much price led, so quality might suffer. That didn't matter much when the kits were new, they got built, played with and then shot or blown up! Sixty years on things are a bit different.

Those kits are still quite valuable to a collector, so it's not all bad news.

Edited by TonyW
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Thanks Tony.  This particular one was made under licence in France by Sitaplex and even in the box didn't look as crisp the other two (which are British made), so that may be a factor.

I'm persevering as best I can!

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What scale are they - reminds me of a Hurricane MkI kit somebody bought me as a birthday present many years ago and that was 1/100 I think?

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9 hours ago, PeterB said:

What scale are they - reminds me of a Hurricane MkI kit somebody bought me as a birthday present many years ago and that was 1/100 I think?

These are 1/96 Pete.

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e28c51be-73c5-46d5-a1c0-082fdc97d1dd-ori

 

Not the oldest it seems!

Tailplane missing.  As you can see no such thing as wheel wells.  Upper surface of wings has 'mould flow'  To correct this I would lose all surface detail.  Air intake needs drilling.  Repair to mystery hole underneath behind propellor.

 

I have painting instructions from the Airfix 1/24 Spitfire.  Some early spitfire decals canopy and mast from the Airfix Mk I spitfire.

 

Interesting the instructions don't explain the dihedral of the wings.  However the overall shape is accurate and for that reason is worth the effort.

 

 

Also hope to enter  Harrier GR I

 

Edited by MigModeller
rorgot
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186fe30c-2714-4e5b-8b8e-022515f32f2e-ori

 

 

Of note here is the smooth nose cone without the scanner/camera.  As you can see the box artist has captured it.

 

Shape looks accurate.  ordanence needs replacing - all too small.  Not worked out yet where decals will come from.

 

Cost 78p in 1977!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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On 6/10/2019 at 8:45 PM, Rabbit Leader said:

So I flew 2 1/2 hours down to Melbourne and back today to attend Australia’s premier Model Expo and Swap meet. With a firm eye on Frog kits I managed to acquire the small stash below for what honestly are bargain prices. There were others, however the asking prices were a little too high for what they really are. Special thanks should go to @Rob S for gifting me the Barracuda as a birthday present. It was great spotting a fellow Queenslander so far away from home and the kit was just perfect. Funnily enough, I’ve just opened it up to find a nice sealed bag, good decals and what’s this - instructions for the Frog Mosquito!! Oh well, I’m sure I can work things out without them. 

.....

Cheers.. Dave

Damn it Dave!

 

Didn't know you were there. I turned up in the arvo for presentations. I give the S&S a miss these days. I did see one FROG kit at one of the Traders stands in the main hall but did not want to spend $20 on it, Sea Fury I think. I did find some non FROG RAAF bargains at the same trader ) Caribou and F-111C/G).

 

I did catch up with Rob S (and Graeme) a couple of times over the weekend.

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12 hours ago, Romeo Alpha Yankee said:

Damn it Dave!

 

Didn't know you were there. I turned up in the arvo for presentations. I give the S&S a miss these days. I did see one FROG kit at one of the Traders stands in the main hall but did not want to spend $20 on it, Sea Fury I think. I did find some non FROG RAAF bargains at the same trader ) Caribou and F-111C/G).

 

I did catch up with Rob S (and Graeme) a couple of times over the weekend.

Sorry I missed you too Ray, however I was only there for a short time before heading back to the Airport.

Now Rob is trying to entice me to travel down to the Canberra show in November, so if all the planets line up we could catch up there. 

 

Cheers.. Dave  

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7 hours ago, stevej60 said:

Just looking over in the reference section what's the story on the Whirlwind and Hampden? Never seen either kit.

Is this the Hampden you're refering to Steve?

 

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2 hours ago, CliffB said:

Is this the Hampden you're refering to Steve?

Must be Cliff,I saw you were tackling this kit in the odd scale the advert threw me as it states 1/72,probably the same story with the Whirlwind,I wonder how

many survive out there in stashland?

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24 minutes ago, stevej60 said:

Must be Cliff,I saw you were tackling this kit in the odd scale the advert threw me as it states 1/72,probably the same story with the Whirlwind,I wonder how

many survive out there in stashland?

I think they've intermingled a few scales within the ad.  Like you though, I know nothing about the Whirlwind!

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22 hours ago, MigModeller said:

e28c51be-73c5-46d5-a1c0-082fdc97d1dd-ori

 

Not the oldest it seems!

Tailplane missing.  As you can see no such thing as wheel wells.  Upper surface of wings has 'mould flow'  To correct this I would lose all surface detail.  Air intake needs drilling.  Repair to mystery hole underneath behind propellor.

 

I have painting instructions from the Airfix 1/24 Spitfire.  Some early spitfire decals canopy and mast from the Airfix Mk I spitfire.

 

Interesting the instructions don't explain the dihedral of the wings.  However the overall shape is accurate and for that reason is worth the effort.

 

 

Also hope to enter  Harrier GR I

 

 

That one looks to be the end of a line that started here, the first issue Spitfire, bottom left.

 

IMG-7589.jpg

 

 

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54 minutes ago, MigModeller said:

Thanks for posting this Cliff

To save my visit to reference library to read:

 

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchResults?cm_sp=SearchF-_-topnav-_-Results&kn=frog history plastic construction&sts=t

 

What year did they Grace the shops?

 

 

Those boxes were issued in 1959 and were used up to 1964. The Spitfire was the only kit of those four to stick around, having its surface detail redone in 1968 and issued in the bagged version you showed, then reissued in another box in 1974.

 

The Whirlwind was one of the first FROG kits issued in 1956, and was discontinued in 1964. The mould was sent to New Zealand in 1966 and the kit was produced there until about 1971. The whereabouts of the moulds sent to New Zealand is a mystery, as there was a rumour that they were sold to a company in Hong Kong and ended up being lost while being shipped, although it's just as likely that they were scrapped.

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3 hours ago, Richard Humm said:

The Whirlwind was one of the first FROG kits issued in 1956, and was discontinued in 1964. The mould was sent to New Zealand in 1966 and the kit was produced there until about 1971. The whereabouts of the moulds sent to New Zealand is a mystery, as there was a rumour that they were sold to a company in Hong Kong and ended up being lost while being shipped, although it's just as likely that they were scrapped.

Shades of the Aurora train wreck! Was that the wartime Whirlwind fighter bomber or the licence built Sikorski helicopter? If it was the chopper they were quick off the mark as I believe it only entered RAF service in 1955 though I think the Navy had it a year of so earlier.

Edited by PeterB
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Just a quick "Thank You" to all the participants to this build. As a model and plane mad lad growing up in Plymouth the main shop for me was Lawsons in New George Street in Plymouth.  They had all the usual Airfix, Tamiya, ESCI and FROG!.  I could only afford the Airfix Series 1 kits and I used to wonder what was in the mysterious Frog boxes with their exciting box art and unusual subjects.  I was lucky enough to build a few and then when Novo started to appear in Plymouth Model Shop I thought I was the only one who had made the connection with Frog and I was able to have a go at the Miles Master and the Hotspur.

 

Thank You

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This is probably a silly question but as this is my first GB please humour me. I can see how many views my builds are getting but is there any way of telling how many people are involved - is it a few viewing a lot or many viewing infrequently. Doesn't actually bother me one way of another but I would be interested to know.

 

Cheers

 

Pete

Edited by PeterB
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Pete, do you mean involved in the Group Build?

 

The chat thread had those who were interested, but not all will participate due personal circumstances, loss of mojo, etc.... You will also have others who did not register interest who will join up during the build.

 

You would need to count the build threads and weed out any duplicate builds I think.  Dave ( @Rabbit Leader )is keeping some stats in a thread here. I suppose this would be the most up to date record of involvement.

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19 minutes ago, PeterB said:

.... is there any way of telling how many people are involved

Probably not Peter. Each time you update one of your threads I will open it up and read it. If you multply that by the number of BM members who also want to see what your up too, you soon get a big number. 

Cheers.. Dave 

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