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


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Hi Edward good to have you back.

 

As per Will's post, tack cloths are what auto painters here in the UK use when prepping for paint. They're essentially a cloth soaked in a sticky substance that pulls the dust etc from the surface. I used one on my stalled Hurricane & had no trouble from dust or stray dog hair.

 

Edge

 

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On 8/6/2019 at 1:41 PM, Procopius said:

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 8/6/2019 at 6:35 PM, CedB said:

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…

 

On 8/6/2019 at 8:25 PM, Riksbar said:

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

Aaahhh, the crossesses we have to bear, I feel for you brothers. :D

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

And I did it all in a suit and red Chuck Taylors.

 

2019-08-14_11-25-12

Now that's style, unfortunately, much as I would like to, whats a suit by the way?, my off spring would likely disown me. I'll check out the Chuck Taylors though, my youngest will know though they look a bit like what they sell here under the Converse brand. No doubt CTs are way cooler. :) 

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

For us, that's breakfast.

IMG_20190813_075713

Jeez I wish you wouldn't show food porn like that, I'm loosing weight just now & that could put me back at least a month. :( 

3 hours ago, Procopius said:

new Sword Skyraider AEW.1

Yes. :)

Steve.

I've just been advised that Chuck Taylors are Converse, no less cool for that though. :) 

Edited by stevehnz
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I use one of Mrs Avereda’s old white t-shirts. Being Scottish she has imparted just the right amount of natural abrasion to the cloth, it smooths matt surfaces beautifully.

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I hope you enjoyed SF. I've only been there once, in 1985, then I hitch-hiked all the way to San Diego and spent 2 months living on Ocean Beach with no job. They call it homeless now, but I met some of the finest human beings I've ever met during that time. Also had my pack stolen so I was left with literally what I was wearing. Fortunately I managed to phone home to advise of a change of flight and stopped my parents flying to the US on emergency passports after receiving a Police notice that my pack had been found, and a day later, a hospital bill. Totally unrelated, I sprained my ankle jumping a small fence! (And I did have my return ticket to the UK in my pocket.) Happy times!

I look forward to discussing the only true scale in 11 weeks!

 

Ian

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Also -- the Blue Angels are tooling around in their Hornets outside my office window prefatory to the Chicago Air and Water Show this weekend -- hoping I see the Red Arrrows today as well, since they're here. Wish I knew where their A400M was parked!

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33 minutes ago, Procopius said:

Also -- the Blue Angels are tooling around in their Hornets outside my office window prefatory to the Chicago Air and Water Show this weekend -- hoping I see the Red Arrrows today as well, since they're here. Wish I knew where their A400M was parked!

Probably Grissom afb in Indiana or mitchell afb in Milwaukee. Im at Palmer house and watch the Angels for awhile this morning. 

Edited by Corsairfoxfouruncle
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6 hours ago, Procopius said:

Also -- the Blue Angels are tooling around in their Hornets outside my office window prefatory to the Chicago Air and Water Show this weekend -- hoping I see the Red Arrrows today as well, since they're here. Wish I knew where their A400M was parked!

Hope you get to see them! Managed watch them at Fairford (first time the kids have seen their fully display, very impressed) and they were fantastic, also their last uk show of the year as they packed up and were off to the Us a week later.

 

Rob

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6 hours ago, Procopius said:

Also -- the Blue Angels are tooling around in their Hornets outside my office window prefatory to the Chicago Air and Water Show this weekend -- hoping I see the Red Arrrows today as well, since they're here. Wish I knew where their A400M was parked!

Hope you get to see them! Managed watch them at Fairford (first time the kids have seen their fully display, very impressed) and they were fantastic, also their last uk show of the year as they packed up and were off to the Us a week later.

 

Rob

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I went to San Francisco a couple of years ago on a choir tour.  Top place; loved it.  I too utterly failed to get across to see Hornet, despite desperately trying to carve out enough time.  But I did at least get to see the Liberty ship (Jeremiah O’Brien) and US submarine (USS Pampanito) on the SF side of the bay.

 

We were not allowed to wear cool red shoes on the tour.  Boo.

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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20 hours ago, Procopius said:

What sort of cloth or whatever do all of you use to clean off the surface of a model before spraying?

I live in a place where dust storms are a regular occurrence:

 dust%20storms

(from: https://www.tri-cityherald.com/news/local/article33740067.html)

 

I've found that cloth diapers work extremely well: they are soft enough not to scratch, don't have any lint and also work well with a little water or alcohol to get fingerprints, etc. off.  Although I think @Courageous's idea of an anti-static brush is brilliant, too. 

Edited by opus999
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Lanc is looking good.

 

I agree with your comment about proper bacon, what my Irish wife calls rashers, but at least you can get it in the US. We go to France quite often & it's unknown over there. Can't understand it as there's not a part of any animal they won't eat.

 

Pete

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Up here, we know bacon! Not that " Canadian " bacon you people in the US have. That's not real bacon, it's ham. That's from the pig's rear end. Real bacon comes from the side of the pig.

 

 

48552670986_3a9e52bd42_c.jpg

 

 

 

Chris

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On 8/15/2019 at 10:16 AM, Procopius said:

Also -- the Blue Angels are tooling around in their Hornets outside my office window prefatory to the Chicago Air and Water Show this weekend -- hoping I see the Red Arrrows today as well, since they're here. Wish I knew where their A400M was parked!

Mr. P ,

I was at North Avenue beach for the rehearsal with friends...the Arrows did not participate in any practice or rehearsal...was very disappointed when I found out.  The"show" today was quite excellent even with out them...I enjoyed it much more than the usual Saturday event...the crowds, though not tiny, were very manageable. Saw..A-10's (4 w/ Stratotanker in formation) , F-22 put on an awesome show...the Blue Angles put on an extended practice a few aerobatics of course. Overall quite nice for a practice less no Arrows. All of the planes and groups come out of Gary Municipal...the Arrows are there with their support aircraft.  I believe a couple of friend will be there watching them take off tomorrow...if they get some pictures I will share whatever they provide.  I think we will do the practice next year and stay downtown....and do Gibson's or Maestro's for dinner as a real treat.

 

Take Care!

Don

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1 hour ago, DJJunis said:

Mr. P ,

I was at North Avenue beach for the rehearsal with friends...the Arrows did not participate in any practice or rehearsal...was very disappointed when I found out.  The"show" today was quite excellent even with out them...I enjoyed it much more than the usual Saturday event...the crowds, though not tiny, were very manageable. Saw..A-10's (4 w/ Stratotanker in formation) , F-22 put on an awesome show...the Blue Angles put on an extended practice a few aerobatics of course. Overall quite nice for a practice less no Arrows. 

Don, if only I'd known! I was watching the same display today while ostensibly working at my office (is it really an office if it's a desk in an "open plan" environment? At least I get a window). I also saw the F-16 tooling around for a little bit. Apparently the Arrows were practicing on Wednesday, when I stayed home to mow the lawn, go figure. 

 

1 hour ago, DJJunis said:

 All of the planes and groups come out of Gary Municipal...the Arrows are there with their support aircraft. 

For the first time in my life, I almost want to go to Gary.

 

On 8/15/2019 at 8:00 PM, opus999 said:

I've found that cloth diapers work extremely well: they are soft enough not to scratch, don't have any lint and also work well with a little water or alcohol to get fingerprints, etc. off. 

As a lazy person, I use disposable diapers, which is probably making the world a worse place to live in for my children, but perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if they'd use their potties. (Winston is actually pretty good now. Grant...means well.)

 

On 8/15/2019 at 5:32 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I went to San Francisco a couple of years ago on a choir tour.  Top place; loved it.  I too utterly failed to get across to see Hornet, despite desperately trying to carve out enough time.  But I did at least get to see the Liberty ship (Jeremiah O’Brien) and US submarine (USS Pampanito) on the SF side of the bay.

I saw them as well. It's a nice juxtaposition, with the Liberty Ship right across the water from Alcatraz. Just to rub it in.

 

On 8/15/2019 at 10:08 AM, limeypilot said:

I hope you enjoyed SF. I've only been there once, in 1985, then I hitch-hiked all the way to San Diego and spent 2 months living on Ocean Beach with no job. They call it homeless now,

They may have called it that back then, as well. 

 

On 8/15/2019 at 10:08 AM, limeypilot said:

but I met some of the finest human beings I've ever met during that time. Also had my pack stolen so I was left with literally what I was wearing. Fortunately I managed to phone home to advise of a change of flight and stopped my parents flying to the US on emergency passports after receiving a Police notice that my pack had been found, and a day later, a hospital bill. Totally unrelated, I sprained my ankle jumping a small fence! (And I did have my return ticket to the UK in my pocket.) 

It sounds like quite an adventure! I had a second encounter with the homeless population of SF, which went roughly as follows:

 

Homeless Guy: Nice shoes!

Me: Thank you!

Homeless Guy: Are you from Britain? [NOTE: If you're hoping for one of those classy mid-Atlantic accents on me, prepare to be disappointed.]

Me: I wish! I'm from Chicago.

Homeless Guy: [proffers hand] My name's Bob.

Me: Mine's Edward, but my hands are too sweaty for a shake [this is, sadly, true].

Homeless Guy: That's okay, mine are dirty because I was hanging with a bunch of hookers. Bye! [As he walks away, to himself:] I was an angel and they never knew.

 

 

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Current state of play, after I ran out of blu-tac tonight:

 

IMG_20190817_230153

 

I forgot how big these things are. I'll need to surreptitiously pop out and pick up more tomorrow. 

 

After a week of striving in vain to see the Red Arrows, guess who saw them today? No, not me, Mrs P! She took the kids to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago to see her mom and dad, who're in town (and who tried to hide this from her so they could do touristy stuff) and as she was unloading the boys from the car, the Reds whizzed overhead. "A bunch of red jets just flew over," she texted me, in her innocence. 

 

Oh well, all is forgiven, because when she got home, she made this:

 

IMG_20190817_161730

 

I'm not a big steak guy, but every now and then I go for a good filet mignon, and this was one of the best I've ever encountered. Even the alarming phenomenon of Grant dunking his broccoli in cream soda and then cheerily noshing on it failed to disturb my sense of enormous well-bein'.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Gah! Where am I? What am I doing here? Who are you people?

 

It's been a long time, hasn't it, folks? Sorry for my lengthy absence, so much has happened since I last posted. Not with the model, of course. Nothing was done there.

 

Grant turned two, Mrs P got a metal detector, Winston has nine (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) cavities, which will cost me two thousand five hundred American dollars to repair and which have necessitated the selling off of a not insignificant portion of the stash and will further require a payment plan (literally the MONTH we'll have finally paid off the $1200 ER visit from the summer of 2018 for both of the boys, naturally) to avoid financial destruction and to ensure that I don't have to pack two weeks worth of bag lunches and sell myself down at the docks during my trip in November. Exciting.

 

One of the very cool things about being married to someone with a masters degree in Early Childhood Education is that you come to learn how little it actually teaches them about keeping human children alive. I was told (multiple times) that brushing his teeth in the morning was a wasteful extravagance, but I should have thought twice about that, because only one of us has cavities when we go to the dentist, and it's never me. Apparently it's child abuse if I just pull them out with heated pliers, but really, aren't they all just baby teeth anyway?

 

All of this, plus a joint birthday party for the boys (Winston turns four on the second) which temporarily reduced us to penury has greatly increased my stress level as of late. On the plus side, I've apotheosized myself into the ranks of middle management, since my organization has deigned to hire me a subordinate/deputy, and even had the grace to pick the internal candidate who was my first choice. I'm actually really excited about this; we had some promising candidates with a lot of experience, but I got my start at social media basically by chance (the only time I've ever shown any initiative whatsoever, in fact; when our social media guy quit, I immediately walked into my then-boss's office and asked for his job, despite having no background in the field), and my deputy is young and newish to it, but with a lot of raw talent, so it will be cool to help her develop her skills, and it's also nice because the position pays really well and represents something like a $20k raise from her old job, and it makes me really happy to be able to have that kind of tangible effect on someone's life. Now I just have to not suck as a boss, easier said than done. My current boss told me I'm "a natural rallier of the troops", though, and while nothing could be further from how I see myself (essentially introverted, awkward, furtive, shy, weirdly overinformed on a few esoteric subjects but strangely ignorant of much of modern life, a classic hobbyist, if you will), maybe if I pretend to believe that, it will come true?

 

So this week in particular has been long and frustrating, not helped by a vicious late-September heat-and-humidity-wave that's seen temperatures hit 86 F/30 C and humidity levels of around 90%. There were three cold days in a row the first week of September, which convinced Mrs P that we'd soon be up to our eyebrows in snow, so all of the window units were removed, giving our home the approximate climate of the Black Hole of Calcutta, except far more humid. This has done nothing to improve my temper. My ancestors lived in peat bogs like warty trolls and never evolved to face temperatures greater than 60 F /15 C for any meaningful length of time, and I'm the same.

 

Tonight, I finally made it downstairs to finish masking the camo for the Lanc.

 

IMG_20190921_213551

 

Out came the Colourcoats, and it behaved beautifully for me, as always. Unmasking is always my favourite part:

 

IMG_20190921_215139

 

 

It looks pretty nice, I think! And only one spot where the masking failed. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Well you say there's a Lancaster there. It must be camouflaged, 'cos I can't see it 😆

Welcome back PC and well done on the paintwork/masking.

Did I mention that I live 7 miles North of the Reds' home base, Scampton? Oh, and I worked there back when I was in the mob.

RAF Scampton is due to close next year, and speculation as to where they will go is rife.

(Don't mention the Dambusters. Due to a new Max Hastings book, it seems to be a thorny subject at the moment amongst the easily offended).

 

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