Morse Code in a Wimpy?

[Ed Russell]

The Morse code appears on the new GR.VIII Wellington too, as you would expect. I never noticed it in the one I built but, like the rest of the invisible internal detail, I know it's there!

 

[Graham Boak]

Sometimes it is difficult to tell full copies from just repeating earlier kits' mistakes.  The story about introducing deliberate errors to catch copyists was also told about Alan Hall and his magazine plans, and certainly some of the errors took some explaining otherwise!  I must admit feeling that this industry is too small for such tactics, as any resulting legal action would be too expensive to afford, and bring much less reward than any actual loss, which was likely to be small anyway.  I gather that there are or were  a few deliberate mistakes on Ordnance Survey maps, but the money involved is rather more considerable.

 

I do recall one modeller declaring that he didn't care whether the EE Bf109 kit was a rip-off of Hasegawa or not, it was cheaper and that was good enough for him.  It was also of lower quality, clearly of equal unimportance in this cheapskate's eyes.

[stever219]

1 hour ago, Work In Progress said:

ICM's P-51 was extremely Tamiya-like

Hobbycraft’s 1/48th Hurricane IId has very much in common with the original Airfix 1/48th Mk. I apart from having recessed panel lines: all of the major airframe components are interchangeable.

[Graham Boak]

A Mk. II Hurricane with all major parts interchangeable with a Mk.I?  Very odd.  Fuselage, radiator, propeller, spinner?

[Work In Progress]

I think he means interchangeable but not the same i.e. the Airfix wings fit nicely on the HC fuselage and vice versa. Long time since I built either but I have both in stock so I might try over Christmas and perhaps a IIa will emerge.

[Uncle Pete]

On 12/9/2019 at 6:33 PM, dogsbody said:

My kit has those, too.

May I ask have you built and installed the engine nacelles yet?  I found the fuze to be a cakewalk as far as fit is concerned but the nacelles are giving me a devil of a time.  Is it me or the kit?  (I suspect it's me).

[stever219]

3 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

A Mk. II Hurricane with all major parts interchangeable with a Mk.I?  Very odd.  Fuselage, radiator, propeller, spinner?

Yes: Hobbycraft wings and tailplane fit Airfix fuselage and vice versa.  Undercarriage and radiator also interchangeable.  Obviously you could wind up with 2 unusual Hurricanes if not careful, a IIa with the longer nose or a very underpowered IId with early Merlin.

[Graham Boak]

53 minutes ago, stever219 said:

Yes: Hobbycraft wings and tailplane fit Airfix fuselage and vice versa.  Undercarriage and radiator also interchangeable.  Obviously you could wind up with 2 unusual Hurricanes if not careful, a IIa with the longer nose or a very underpowered IId with early Merlin.

OK, understood now, but the Mk.IIA should have a longer nose.  Otherwise it isn't a Mk.II, because the Merlin XX wouldn't fit.

[Asmodai]

While the aircraft may have come from elsewhere, Academy definitely copied Tamiya for armor and ship kits. Like the 1/35 M60A3, LVTP, Ford Mutt M151, etc. And for their 1/350 Bismarck, for example. I’ve heard anecdotally several times of individual modelers and shops still shunning them in Japan for this to the present day. 

[Work In Progress]

45 minutes ago, Graham Boak said:

OK, understood now, but the Mk.IIA should have a longer nose.  Otherwise it isn't a Mk.II, because the Merlin XX wouldn't fit.

huh?? Why ELSE would I be putting Airfix I wings on a Hobbycraft II fuselage?

[Troy Smith]

6 hours ago, stever219 said:

Hobbycraft’s 1/48th Hurricane IId has very much in common with the original Airfix 1/48th Mk.

Despite Hobbycraft version naming, OOB it's a IIc.   the wing panels on a IId are slightly different.

The leftover from a IIa would get you the basis fro one of the very few Sea Hurricane IC's or the sole MkI armed with cannon which was used by IIRC, 46 Sq in the BoB. (there was a thread here on this onetime)

Hobbycraft were notorious for their copying,  I believe their Sea Fury owes quite a debt to the Falcon vac. 

[Troy Smith]

On 10/12/2019 at 12:13, lasermonkey said:

If you got a Porky Prime Product, you got a good pressing.

 

you probably got a good CUT on you master disc. (allowing for the limits of the format, the more bass and stereo image you want, the bigger the groove and the shorter the playing time, which is why dub reggae and dance records are 12" 45s they are physically louder)

 

the quality of the actual pressing would depend the pressing plant, and their treatment of the master disc in processing, which is an electro plating process.

 

On 10/12/2019 at 14:32, Ossington said:

I'm sure I have a Damned album with Peter Jones's voice on the run-out. (He of the radio version of Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, circa 1977-78ish) saying "Nibbled to death by an okapi" on repeat. Machine Gun Etiquette? Sorry for the thread drift.

MGE does have this, in the run out groove,  but this is not the same thing at all to engravings in what the Americans call  'dead wax'' 

On 10/12/2019 at 07:57, Ossington said:

A bit like how production staff at vinyl record manufacturers would scratch their name onto the shiny bit at the end of the grooves?  

what gets put in the ''dead wax' or matrix run out were originally to add catalogue numbers to the acetate cut so you can identify the disc.

These are handwritten.

One with machine stamped numbers are added at the pressing plant, in the disc processing stages, and sometimes pressing plant identifiers.

 

Porky Prime cut was a signature of the cutting engineer, Bilbo Talpe "another Bilbo bopper" is another.

Some of the engravings are in-jokes, Joy Division -Still 2LP has chicken feet tracks on sides 1-3, and the chicken stops here in side 4 IIRC.

 

There are all sort of tricks and gimmicks that were/are possible with the vinyl format,   including double tracks, and tracks that intertwine (eg "horse racing" records, and the Monty Python LP, the Johhny Moped - Cycledelic LP has a track that plays either one or other song)

Lock grooves make a continual loop, and can be added anywhere,   label called RRR did a 7"  as their 100th release,  which has 100 noise artists, each having one lock groove, there are 50 each side.  Yes, you manually have to lift the stylus between track, and they last 1-2 secs each. I used to have this but lent it to someone who ran a label and they never gave it back. RRR then did a RRR 500 LP,  with.... you guessed it 500 lock grooves.

There have been records cut which play from the inside out as well.

 

Definite thread drift....  I like winding up vinyl bores by asking them questions about record production and mastering (what is the difference between  acetate or Direct Metal mastered is my starter) and for a while used to be able to tell you something had been pressed by looking at it....  combination of grooves and indent caused by different pressing machines and the matrix etchings, also vinyl weight and feel..... that was in the late 90 early 2000 as by then there were only so many pressing plant still operational though so it wasn't that clever  

 

I digress, hope this amuses....

 

 

[janneman36]

And the 1/48 Fonderie HP52 Hampden was a copy of the contrail vacform....

[Uncle Pete]

7 minutes ago, Troy Smith said:

I digress, hope this amuses....

No complaints here.  Fascinating stuff.  I had no idea I was opening a can of worms!

[Ed Russell]

7 hours ago, Uncle Pete said:

May I ask have you built and installed the engine nacelles yet?  

I had no real problems with them in my build (top of this page). I agree they are a little unusual in assembly but they fitted okay. I'll do a GR.VIII next and report back in 2020!

[JosephLalor]

On 12/10/2019 at 12:13 PM, lasermonkey said:

If you got a Porky Prime Product, you got a good pressing. And sometimes a bad joke on the runout groove.

He's become a bit of a legend.

The Queen is Dead had 'The Impotence of Earnest' in the runout groove I recall.  

[Uncle Pete]

22 minutes ago, Ed Russell said:

I had no real problems with them in my build

Thanks for the input.  After a whole day of messing about with them (not to mention extensive use of the more colourful elements of my vocabulary) I've got the nacelles in and the wings buttoned up mostly by brute force and overkill in the clamping department.  Hopefully the seams are not under so much tension they explode in the night, showering the cats with plastic shrapnel.  

[John Aero]

The base drawings for the Aurora 1/48th and the Airfix original Spitfire 1/72 shape were done by William Wylam (USA).  When the original Airfix company at Haldane Place closed down, a number of Wylam Books of drawings and Aircraft of the Fighting Powers Vol One were gifted to me by Keith Melville then of Airfix.. I still have them.

 

The Spitfire drawings (as are many Wylam drawings) are covered in measurements which are totally fictitious and are obviously scaled from the drawing and then added to the drawing as truth. The first Airfix Tiger Moth was made to the A.F.P drawing as were a number of other early kits.

 

The Aurora Me 109 was made from the Wylam books as was the Airfix Hudson.

 

John

 

 

[Ed Russell]

5 hours ago, Uncle Pete said:

 the more colourful elements of my vocabulary

Pretty much always a feature of my builds! 

 

I went back through my WIP pictures and even cut some picture sections out in an attempt to stimulate my memory but I can't think of anything. They look as though they went together okay........

 

 

 

The cowlings are not permanently attached in this picture.

[John Aero]

I know it's a thread drift, but this might be of interest.  The Aurora and Airfix first Spitfire kits.  The dimensions will be hard to read, but section KK is shown as 3' 2" (38") tall by 1' 7" (19") wide. My measured from life (tail off) is 33.74" by 16.25". The OA length on the drawings is 31' 4.5". Published in 1940 by Air Age Inc,  Model Airplane News. photographed as a drawing in my collection.

 

John

 

[Ed Russell]

8 minutes ago, John Aero said:

I know it's a thread drift, but this might be of interest. 

Certainly interesting but nobody would find it in a thread about Wellingtons - probably best in a new topic.

[John Aero]

Yes I agree but it's in answer to several earlier posts and which did start as a Morse code inquiry which just happened to be in a Wellington.

 

John

[Work In Progress]

True, it;s not a thread about Wellingtons, it's a thread about protecting mould design

[Uncle Pete]

35 minutes ago, John Aero said:

a Morse code inquiry

I don't care where it drifts... It's all been fascinating stuff so far.