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Burn Down Their Hanging Trees (1/72 Airfix Lancaster B.III)


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I do hope the lurgy doesn't persist too long, and many happy returns for the month!

I believe stuck pigs are generally only full of blood prior to being stuck, not so much after the event!

 

Ian

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8 hours ago, SafetyDad said:

BTW, and not wanting to hijack your thread, I think you gentlemen might be confusing two Ju88 acquisitions by the RAF.

You're quite right, I definitely was! Thank you.

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On 02/03/2019 at 19:20, dogsbody said:

Admit it! You're as weak as the rest of us, unable to resist the lure of injected styrene and the scent of liquid glue. Oh, to unfold those pages of new instructions!

 

Actually walked out of the LMS on Saturday without adding to the stash and with ony three tins of paint, a bottle of normal Tamiya cement & a bottle of Humbrol matt cote. This was despite spending over half an hour in the shop looking at various kits. Explained to the owners wife that I was being strong & not buying a kit & she said and I can't believe she could be so cruel...."Go on build something from the stash!" I just about fell over. She must know my SWMBO or something. She then questioned me about the size of it (fnar)! My excuse well some of its for the grandkid (four kits I think) (out of er over fifty) was met with mild derision!😱

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3 minutes ago, Harley John said:

My excuse well some of its for the grandkid (four kits I think) (out of er over fifty) was met with mild derision!😱

Only fifty or so? Oh, I wish I could winnow mine down that far.

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11 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Extra marks for the use of “eldritch” - a word I have (had) not heard in a long time.

 

Nice Lanc, too, but that’s hardly a surprise!

 

What does this say about my last name, Eldridge?

 

Dictionary

el·dritch

Dictionary result for eldritch

/ˈeldriCH/

adjective

adjective: eldritch

weird and sinister or ghostly.

"an eldritch screech

 

 

 

Chris, the " weird and sinister " old ghost.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Gnnngh, but all that 1/48! Just lolling in sinful concupiscence for an unnatural scale!

There is nothing in 1/72 in my stash at all.  When you get to my age, your fingers & eyes may yet urge you to change.

 

[But not before you’ve built your EC-121, please!]

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Just now, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

There is nothing in 1/72 in my stash at all.  When you get to my age, your fingers & eyes may yet urge you to change.

 

[But not before you’ve built your EC-121, please!]

All puffery aside, that's definitely a fear, as my eyesight isn't the best already, that or some sort of tremor that makes even my current low level of modelling impossible. Of course, who will come after me to buy my stash from me?

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12 hours ago, SafetyDad said:

The defection was a Ju88R-1 to Dyce in Aberdeenshire; indeed two crew were defecting (gosh my auto speller had them going to the toilet there, rather than changing wartime allegiances - 😲).  One poor lad on the crew wasn't in on the plan, so must have had a very bad day...

 

 

I rather suspect it was the poor chap who wasn't in on the changing allegiances thing who did the actual defecating when he learned of the plan... Oh, and excellent work on the Lanc, PC! You can never have too many Lancasters - I know, as my ever-growing stash will attest. Indeed, I have a Lincoln conversion winging its way from Blighty to the States to combine with my Airfix B.II I have stashed away in my storeroom (all right, it's a Lincoln, not a Lancaster, and it's not a full kit just a conversion, but close enough).

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

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29 minutes ago, Learstang said:

Indeed, I have a Lincoln conversion winging its way from Blighty to the States to combine with my Airfix B.II I have stashed away in my storeroom (all right, it's a Lincoln, not a Lancaster, and it's not a full kit just a conversion, but close enough).

 

The Blackbird conversion? I want to get one. Tell me though...did you order direct from his site? Did you get an email confirmation of your order if you did? I ordered a Manchester conversion but never received an email and'm kinda fretting about that.

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18 hours ago, Procopius said:

The Blackbird conversion? I want to get one. Tell me though...did you order direct from his site? Did you get an email confirmation of your order if you did? I ordered a Manchester conversion but never received an email and'm kinda fretting about that.

 

PC, I ordered directly from the site on 3/1, and still have not received an e-mail confirmation (it's only been a couple of business days, of course). However, I'm not certain I received confirmations for my orders of the Ju 87 landing gear, and the Neptune MR.1 conversion either (nice conversion set, by the way), and I received both items. I ordered by PayPal, and received confirmation from them that the payment was received. To be honest I'm not overly concerned about receiving the Lincoln set. How long has it been for your Manchester conversion?

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

Edited by Learstang
Additional comments added.
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2 minutes ago, Learstang said:

 

PC, I ordered directly from the site on 3/1, and still have not received an e-mail confirmation (it's only been a couple of business days, of course). However, I'm not certain I received confirmations for my orders of the Ju 87 landing gear, and the Neptune MR.2 conversion either (nice conversion set, by the way), and I received both items. I ordered by PayPal, and received confirmation from them that the payment was received. To be honest I'm not overly concerned about receiving the Lincoln set. How long has it been for your Manchester conversion?

I ordered it on the 11th of last month. I'm somewhat reassured to read you never received a confirmation either.

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7 hours ago, Procopius said:

I ordered it on the 11th of last month. I'm somewhat reassured to read you never received a confirmation either.

Hi There,

 

I've only ordered decals a couple of times from Blackbird but have received emails both times, but they always drop in my spam folder for some unknown reason.

 

Hope that helps

 

 

Alistair 

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On 3/4/2019 at 10:07 PM, Learstang said:

 

I rather suspect it was the poor chap who wasn't in on the changing allegiances thing who did the actual defecating when he learned of the plan........

 

Best Regards,

 

Jason

Especially as IIRC,the fellow was held at bay by another crew member's(obviously not the gentleman in the "driver's seat")revolver

shoved exactly where we may not wish to speculate upon.........

Edited by DaveWilko
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I received The Great Coup on Friday, and I'm sorry to say I was pretty disappointed in it -- clearly a rather sensational take on the topic, written in a very novelistic style (which I dislike in history books -- few people remember precisely what they were thinking at a specific instant thirty years on) without a bibliography, though comments in the book clearly indicate archival research was done. It does benefit from the author having either interviewed or listened to interviews with some of the Ju88's crew, however, two of whom had rather understandably chosen to relocate out of West Germany by time of writing. (IMO, throughout West German-penned war memoirs, there's a strong skein of "it's a good thing we lost, I guess", which just goes to show the remarkable fighting spirit of the German soldier from the safety of his armchair twenty or thirty years after he was on his knees, begging for his life.) 

 

In happier news, my Manchester conversion set from Blackbird arrived, and I've followed up with an order for their Lancaster VI set, despite this build reminding me that while Airfix makes the best Lancaster, it's certainly not the most fun to build. 

 

And in further happy news, I got the decals which @06/24 so kindly got me for this build. 

 

2019-03-09_11-57-12

 

I think I'm going to opt to use the nose art with my Xtradecal Bomber Command sheet to make Phantom of the Ruhr as she would have looked during the Battle of Berlin, having recently finished Martin Middlebrook's excellent book on the campaign. If you haven't read it and you have the slightest interest in the Bomber War, you need to pick up a copy without delay. Part of the book, an eyewitness account from Flight Lieutenant Alan Bryett, a bomb aimer on a Halifax of 158 Squadron who would later participate in the Great Escape: 

 

Quote

We were attacked again. I went back to the pilot. We had our intercom on and he shouted out, ‘Don’t bale out.’ But the intercom was very bad and crackly and I think that some of them only caught the last two words. The wireless operator, the navigator and the flight engineer all went out. So, one gunner was probably dead, the other probably dying and three men had baled out, just leaving myself and Kevin. He tried to control the plane but the fire probably burnt through the control cables and it started to dive, with a terrible screaming sound. Kevin and I realized that we had to get out but, because of the G force, we couldn’t get to the hatch in the nose. I could see that we were going to go down in this bloody plane but Kevin managed to reach the escape-hatch in the nose and pulled it open. He then physically got hold of me, shoved me into the hatch and pushed me out with his feet. He said he was following. I pulled my cord. I couldn’t see anything but very quickly indeed I landed in some trees. The plane crashed three or four hundred yards away. Kevin never got out. We had been too low. I am very conscious that my life hinged on that moment when Kevin pushed me out. When my son was born in 1951, I called him Kevin, as a daily reminder of Kevin Hornibrook, to whom I owed the rest of my life. Never a day goes by without me remembering that he was first at the door and could have saved himself easily. 

Kevin Hornibrook must have had a profound effect upon all who knew him; the aircraft's navigator also named his son after him

 

I turn 36 this coming week, on the Ides (then fall Caesar, which I reflexively say after my DOB whenever I'm asked for it and which invariably elicits a baffled look), which I suppose in Britmodeller terms isn't old, but it's certainly older than I've ever been, and definitely old enough to know that young people are my mortal enemies, though I think I'm lazy enough to leave it to the inexorable passage of time to settle their hash, as it's so ruthlessly settled mine. In any event, Mrs P and I went out for dinner tonight, her mother being in town to watch the kids, who adore her (they don't know her like I do), at a restaurant of Mrs P's choosing, and at the conclusion of the meal, I learned that it was my birthday dinner. Would have been nice to know beforehand, as I wouldn't have gone there, and indeed, my choice was vetoed! There is no country for old men. 

 

I've been sick this week, so haven't been really in the mood for modelling or sneezing out great gouts of ichor onto the model while attempting to model, so today was the first time I've made it downstairs for a while. Lots of fits and starts this time of year -- the February-to-March transition is a rough one for me. 

 

I've managed to put the kit interior in almost completely backwards as far as what the instructions suggestion, but hear me out: if you attach the floor to the side Airfix wants you to, you have to then get the infinitely more warped other half to seamlessly fuse to this. My way, it got firmly clamped right off the bat and the exterior fit is going to be a helluva lot better. I promise! 

 

Speaking of, the navigator's table (which needs some touch-ups) is now in the fuselage, as are a few windows:

 

IMG_20190309_235514

 

I'm a little hazy on how or where the seatbelt went on the Flight Engineer's uncofortable-looking little fold-out seat (some photos I've seen seem to suggest it had a back redolent of those seen on folding beach chairs), and I welcome any useful input anyone has before I close things up. 

 

On the other side, the windows are all in:

 

IMG_20190309_235511

 

I should also mention the Infini sanding sticks -- I saw them advertised by @Duncan B on his store's FB page, and while I didn't get them from the UK (I picked up some from Sprue Brothers here in the 'states before they sold out), I recommend grabbing some from Black Mike Models while they have them, because they really are a cut above other sticks I've used, and I'm very hard on sanding sticks. 

 

I also dipped some other clear parts in Alclad Aqua Gloss:

 

IMG_20190309_235521

 

All of this of course looks like it should have taken no time at all, but the better part of ninety minutes was spent thusly. 

 

 

 

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18 minutes ago, 06/24 said:

Time well spent sir.

 

As was the time spent penning your post, which was thought-provoking in several ways, entertaining in other ways, and usefully informative in respect of the modelling, thanks mate.

 

I hope you have as good a birthday as you might reasonably expect :) 

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

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Just done a catch up. Happy Birthday and get well soon, PC.

Nice interior on the Lancaster, some great details there, shame they'll never be seen again!

Sanding sticks? with my style of modelling I mostly use 800 grade wet & dry.

Pete

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Now this is nice. Mrs P starts your birthday early with dinner, and now we all keep wishing you well. This may get old by Friday, but 36 is no age (says the man approaching his half century) and getting old always beats the alternative!

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May I join the chorus of 'Happy Birthday' as well? Nice going on the Lancaster - she'll turn out well.

Being in your 30s is just like an extension of being a teenager :)

 

Later on, there's real aging to do!

SD

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