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

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

12 hours ago, Rob G said:

 

Dare I say it... (yes, I dare)... The Hornet is prettier than the Mosquito (and that's quite a large hurdle to overcome.)

 

In that case you are agreeing with me!  I said only a lunatic could NOT like the Hornet...

[Procopius]

Primer's been applied to most of the top of the Lanc:

 

 

It looks like all that interminable filling and sanding's paid off! No visible seam. 

 

Just waiting for the liquid mask on the astrodome (which is a bee to mask properly) to dry to go over the fuselage around the cockpit.

 

 

I also dropped in some of that expensive rebottled white glue to make windows in the upper escape hatches:

 

 

Probably should have painted around the insides first, but they're easy to rip out.

 

Also, primed the props:

 

 

 

On 8/1/2019 at 2:42 AM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Since we are using coolness and size of jet pipe (fnarr) as criteria, henceforth I shall campaign unceasingly for the air groups of QE & PoW to consist of Sea Furies & Buccaneers, perhaps with a few Pups, Flycatchers, Fireflies and Swordfish held in reserve just in case.  And Sea Kings, obvs - but none of your Mk5s & 6s, with their passive ASW and <*shudder*> digital processing; strictly HAS2 and valves in this shining new world.  

Judging purely from the various F-35 threads here, there are men who would fight to the death to bring this to pass. 

 

On 8/1/2019 at 5:18 AM, Fritag said:

Ah.  It probably doesn't help my case then that I (i) firmly declined the RAF's kind offer to drive the F-4, (ii) spent much of my RAF career driving adour powered(?) jets with simply minute jet exhausts and (iii) had a rather enjoyable few months driving the F16C/D at Macdill.  Not sure I'm equipped for persuasive advocacy on this issue..... 

Ah, but the Jaguar's exhausts look huge, and, I might add, perfectly proportioned. In fact, their rumps look pleasingly like those of Spey-powered Phantoms:

 

 

I understand there's some intermittent antipathy in the RAF about the presence of navigators, which to my mind is foolish -- what else are you supposed to eat if you come down in the desert?

 

On 8/1/2019 at 9:11 AM, limeypilot said:

F-14, Vietnam veteran? Very tenuous. I really don't think you can class it as a 'Nam veteran when its first mission was covering the evacuation! 

I've been trying to sell off my stash of Vietnam kits before I become compelled to buy a 1/72 LINEBACKER II B-52, but when I was still gung-ho for it, I absolutely wanted to do a FREQUENT WIND F-14A. Curiously, nobody seems to do decals for it. 

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Are you serious?  There was an Operation FREQUENT WIND?  Were Operations STINKY FART & SILENT BUT DEADLY already allocated?

 

As your countrymen are (irritatingly) prone to say, “Only in America”

[Procopius]

43 minutes ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Are you serious?  There was an Operation FREQUENT WIND?  Were Operations STINKY FART & SILENT BUT DEADLY already allocated?

 

As your countrymen are (irritatingly) prone to say, “Only in America”

I thought it was an improvement over names like EAGLE CLAW and INFINITE JUSTICE, which I find a little bombastic. I still think it's better than the Australian's PIG BRISTLE or MORRIS DANCE, however.

 

In general, I'm with Churchill on this one: 'Operations in which large numbers of men may lose their lives ought not to be described by code words which imply a boastful or overconfident sentiment,… or, conversely, which are calculated to invest the plan with an air of despondency…They ought not to be names of a frivolous character…They should not be ordinary words often used in other connections…After all, the world is wide, and intelligent thought will readily supply an unlimited number of well-sounding names which do not suggest the character of the operation or disparage it in any way and do not enable some widow or mother to say that her son was killed in an operation called “Bunnyhug” or “Ballyhoo.”'

[Procopius]

So last night, I prised out the Micro-Crystal-Clear with a toothpick and painted the inner rim of the hatches:

 

 

And, absent anything else to do in the immediate present, got started on the underside:

 

 

So the goal is not to do all of the Night parts first, just those where paint likely won't reach when I do the uppers. For obvious reasons, I try to do and then mask off the lighter upper colours before doing the Night on the flanks. 

 

[opus999]

On 7/26/2019 at 8:28 PM, Procopius said:

Grant, as can be seen, was immediately taken with her, and received a battlefield promotion to firstborn.

Good choice by Grant! 

 

I'm glad somebody's kids seem to be ready to take up the mantle.  I don't think my boys could care any less about aircraft, or aviation in general.  They inherited many of my other interests, however, so I suppose all is not lost!

 

It looks like a good time was had by all. I'm happy to see everyone had a good time!

[opus999]

Getting to the actual painting stages now... Looking really good, too! 

[Procopius]

And now, in glorious Colourcoats-o-vision

 

 

First coat of Colourcoats Dark Earth on the upper surfaces. 

53 minutes ago, opus999 said:

I'm glad somebody's kids seem to be ready to take up the mantle.  I don't think my boys could care any less about aircraft, or aviation in general.  They inherited many of my other interests, however, so I suppose all is not lost!

I'm not sure exactly how long the interest in aviation will last, but I'm hoping prolonged exposure will work its magic. My dad and I never did anything together except for lawncare, which he loves and I...do not, so I have no basis for comparison.

[opus999]

8 minutes ago, Procopius said:

I'm not sure exactly how long the interest in aviation will last, but I'm hoping prolonged exposure will work its magic. My dad and I never did anything together except for lawncare, which he loves and I...do not, so I have no basis for comparison.

Well... Here's hoping!

 

My wife wonders why I do so much around the house, but just the minimum of yardwork.  I have reasons similar to yours as my parents had an enormous yard that was 3/4 grass and 1/4 tumbleweeds in the back. So summers were spent both mowing and pulling tumble weeds. Not a fan...

 

When the wife and kids were gone, I let the grass grow until the weekend before they got back and then "crammed for the test".   

[Stew Dapple]

Ooh that's looking seriously nice PC  

 

Glad to see you're making such good progress; for a while there I thought you were suffering the same mojo malaise I was, what with the new job and all. good work mate  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[CedB]

Really nice finish PC, looking good  

[Troffa]

With several Lanc's in the stash I'm following along keenly, love your work and your stories! 

[Andwil]

Great work on the Lancaster, I am constantly amazed at how you can produce such high quality from such a messy bench!

 

AW

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

9 hours ago, Andwil said:

Great work on the Lancaster, I am constantly amazed at how you can produce such high quality from such a messy bench!

 

AW

Messy?  Pah!  You should see mine...

[perdu]

He certainly doesn't need to see mine

 

🍹🍸

[Terry1954]

Very nice Lancaster coming along here. Beautiful aircraft and one of the best ways to see four Merlins flying in formation IMHO.

 

Terry

[Procopius]

On 8/4/2019 at 12:37 PM, Stew Dapple said:

Glad to see you're making such good progress; for a while there I thought you were suffering the same mojo malaise I was, what with the new job and all. good work mate  

Oh, I was, Stew, I was! At one point I seriously considered chucking it all in and selling off the stash, but three things stopped me:

 

1. I worked really hard to get some of these kits that I'm too nervous to build.

2. It's very hard to sell 400 1/72 kits, especially in the USA, where everyone builds 1/48 (hacks, spits).

3. What the hell would I talk to all of you about when I went to Telford?

 

So there was no choice but to get back into it.

 

On 8/4/2019 at 7:15 PM, Andwil said:

Great work on the Lancaster, I am constantly amazed at how you can produce such high quality from such a messy bench!

It's just my filing system in full expression, something that's no longer possible outside the grotto, where Mrs P "helpfully" moves things I've left seemingly haphazardly about the house (but which are actually carefully placed so that I encounter them at the precise moment I need them). Upstairs, it's like going insane, since nothing stays where I put it, but down here? Perfection. Bliss.

 

On 8/4/2019 at 12:30 PM, opus999 said:

When the wife and kids were gone, I let the grass grow until the weekend before they got back and then "crammed for the test".   

I'm doing the same right now, in fact!

[CedB]

4 hours ago, Procopius said:

It's just my filing system in full expression…

Ah, like me then (according to John Richardson) you're a 'Putter' and Mrs P (like my other half) is a 'Leaver'. I know where I put things and she doesn't know where she's left things…

Luckily (I guess) you can't have two putters together as they'll kill each other over which way to orientate the bean tins in the cupboard…  

[perdu]

I should be more widely read, that is a good, nay excellent illustration of my household

 

Still...

 

PC don't forget you could discourse in 1/48 with Crisp at Telford…

 

[Riksbar]

 where Mrs P "helpfully" moves things I've left seemingly haphazardly about the house (but which are actually carefully placed so that I encounter them at the precise moment I need them). Upstairs, it's like going insane, since nothing stays where I put it,

 

Ahh, the dreaded “hidey-tidy”. I feel your pain!

[opus999]

On 8/5/2019 at 6:41 PM, Procopius said:

especially in the USA, where everyone builds 1/48 (hacks, spits).

+1

 

The trials of a dedicated builder of the one true scale... *sigh*

[Procopius]

I'm back from San Francisco! 

 

 

I spent a lot of time doing social media, a lot of time NOT getting to visit the USS Hornet (CV-16)) in Alameda, which, as we all know from Star Trek IV, is across the bay, a lot of time eating fancy food, and along with my colleague, a former award-winning TV journalist, got pursued on foot for two blocks down Turk Street by an irate and extremely verbally abusive homeless man while on an abortive quest to find one of the top ten best breakfasts in the SF Bay Area. I got punched in the head by a mentally ill transient back in 2005 or so in a bad part of Chicago, and I'm thankful I didn't get to replicate the experience on the west coast. And I did it all in a suit and red Chuck Taylors.

 

 

 

 

The food was pretty good, though I think Chicago is still better as an eating city than anywhere in the USA that doesn't have a very distinctive and specific regional cuisine can ever be: there are a lot of us, we're very fat, so we have a lot of chances to get it right. Those whisperthin Californians and kale chip-munching Tech CEO imports have no idea what it's like to eat a whole pizza. For us, that's breakfast.

 

 

I know Britons in general aren't overmuch impressed by US bacon, but this had Millionaire's Bacon, and it was pretty good. Three months until I dine upon Full Englishes!

 

The opportunity to fly 2100 miles west into a more congenial climate and stay at the Westin and do what I more or less do anyway is obviously a huge -- and some might suggest the only -- perk of my job. It's about the same temperature here as it was back there, but the humidity here is through the roof; I got back late last night and spent today catching up on yardwork (whenever I was doing something particularly likely to send rocks whipping through the air or atom-sized razor sharp grass particles flying about like a whirlwind, I would look up to discover Mrs P had set the children outside and vanished somewhere, super helpful, but I suppose it's what I get for being gone for six days) and managed to dehydrate myself pretty comprehensively. Always an adjustment to have to return to real life.

 

Nothing is better, of course, for the ol' modelling mojo than not being able to model (as opposed to being home and not modelling, which is deadly), and a few Wolfpak decal sheets should hopefully be winding their way to me, along with the new Sword Skyraider AEW.1 and their somewhat older TBM-3W Avenger (fun fact: in my innocence, the Mach 2 TBM-3W kit was one of the first models I built when I came back to the hobby in 2011), thereby blowing out of the water my secret, highly unofficial resolution to "buy not more than ye can builde". I'm sure Sword appreciates it. 

 

I haven't had a ton of time to myself since getting back (though this morning when I went to get Grant out of his crib, how did he react to see me for the first time in ten days? He shook his head and said "No. Mommy."), but I did step downstairs tonight and smooth out my finish a bit:

 

 

What sort of cloth or whatever do all of you use to clean off the surface of a model before spraying? I'm looking for ideas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

Um, cloth? I don't use one, which could explain why all my models have dog-hairs and dust particles stuck in the paintwork, but no lint  

 

Looks Like a nice business trip too, good to have you back though  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[CedB]

Welcome back PC!  

 

Looks like you had a good time - and I'm with you; the food and drink are probably the best bits of conferences.

 

I can't help on the cleaning either, sorry. My models usually don't get time to gather dust!

 

Looking forward to seeing you in 11 weeks tomorrow. I'd better get the draft plan sorted.

[malpaso]

Cloth???  PC's gone all Haight-Ashbury on us.  Must be the red sneakers, man.

 

At the start I usually wipe the model down with meths (wood alcohol?) on a bit of kitchen roll or a make-up pad, but that might strip off your Dark Earth (well it would mine as I use acrylics).

 

I have heard of a mythical material used for cleaning down real cars before painting, called "tack cloth" to pick up any dust etc.  I have never seen or used such but it does seem to exist.  There must be US sellers like this.

 

Hope this helps

Cheers

Will

 

Edited August 15, 2019 by malpaso