Meanwhile up north...

[Capri3]

All my research so far has indicated that only 4 crew members were on board at the time of this aircraft's demise. As mentioned they are buried in Old Dyce Kirkyard, opposite the allied aircrew. I seem to remember that there are a couple of other German graves but these are from later in the war. It's a while since I've been there but I can check next time I'm passing.

[Dandie Dinmont]

20 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

My first posting in the RAF, way back in 1972 was RAF Buchan, 20 miles or so North of Aberdeen, I was back with an Aberdeen postcode at Lossiemouth from 88 to 95 and my second son was born in Aberdeen Infirmary.  Still didn't understand it. 

RAF Buchan! I visited there many times during the mid to late seventies since I was in the Air Cadets and the wing held their annual parades at Buchan. The seagull pie served in the airman's mess was both renowned and feared! I should have probably checked whether you had anything to do with the catering side of things before I mentioned that.

20 hours ago, Retired Bob said:

Any way, I'll put my Mr Color paintwork out there, this is their RLM 70 and RLM 71 greens over RLM 65 light blue.

 

That is one good looking Stuka. I'll be delighted if the Heinkel comes out looking half as well!

 

Craig.

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/17/2020 at 11:09 PM, Troy Smith said:

 

 

Both will brush wonderfully, put some in a palette, get a mini syringe, , I have a 1ml, suck up 0.95 ml distilled or deionised water,for Xtracylix 09.ml and the 0.05/.1 ml of flow improver.

add this drop by drop to the paint,  it's right when it liquid enough to flow but is still opaque, use a flat brush.  It flows,. does not drag or lift, and can be overpainted again amazingly fast

 

Thanks Troy, you're a mine of information as ever, and that Spitfire looks fantastic. I'm hoping to avoid brushing large areas but I'll certainly give this a try if it turns out that I have to make widespread use of the old hairy stick.

 

Craig.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Dandie Dinmont
Missed a word out

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

Hi Craig,

 

Now you mention it the title of yon book rings a bell but I've never actually seen a copy in person. Is it any good?

[Capri3]

I've never seen that  book at all but will hunt down a copy I think. Loving the front cover illustration,

[Dandie Dinmont]

Ah, don't you love the first few moments of a build? The pristine plastic laid out in front of you unsullied by your cack-handed mistakes, the instructions opened at step 1 and full of potential, a fixed idea of how wonderful the finished article will look in your head and the heady smell of Tamiya Extra Thin in the air. Stung by a friend's suggestion that my habit of persevering with dulled blades was "perhaps a little too Aberdonian", I even stuck a new no. 11 blade in the old Swann-Morton handle.

 

Somewhat unorthodoxly, construction started with the wheel wells and the main spars.  All went well for a few moments and then I did this:

 

 

Yes, a big gluey fingerprint. That TET gets everywhere. In some ways it's a relief, like when you get the first scratch on a new car. You don't have to worry about it happening any more because it already has. Clever of me to get it out of the way so early in the build really. And no-one will see it. I hope.

 

Pressing on, I noticed that some of the parts appeared to be acquiring a colour not unlike Humbrol 60. Investigation showed that this was because I had sliced a fingertip open at some point without even noticing. Maybe that new scalpel blade wasn't such a good idea. Still, the claret was soon staunched. 

 

 

 

With the main framework complete, it was time to start adding some detail, namely a circular item that looked like a large doorbell and a fire extinguisher to either side of the access hatch through the rear spar. ICM's suggestion that the fire extinguisher be painted blue made me realise that it was in fact an oxygen bottle  (you wouldn't want to get those two mixed up) and when I came to fit the doorbell, an inadvertent twitch of the tweezers, doubtless due to blood loss, sent the doorbell arcing across the room. Thanks to my reasonably sharp eyesight and laminate flooring, I don't lose too much to the carpet monster but there was no sign of the missing mystery object. I told myself that no-one would be able to see it anyway once the fuselage was closed up but as usual, I didn't listen to myself. Finally, I was forced to resort to the nuclear option, running the vacuum cleaner over the mancave floor and sifting through the gathered detritus. This wasn't a complete failure, I found a drill bit I didn't know I had lost and the nose light from a Gnat that pinged out of my tweezers 6 months ago but of the doorbell, there was no sign. With a sigh, I decided to call it a night. 

 

One other thing I did do was to cut the fuselage sides off the sprue so that I could test fit the spars. All looked well but I did notice that my kit had the same feature as @Greg Law's, the locating pins on one fuselage side were too large to fit in the holes in the other side. Some careful drilling will be required before I go much further.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Craig.

  

 

 

[Retired Bob]

2 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

RAF Buchan! I visited there many times during the mid to late seventies since I was in the Air Cadets and the wing held their annual parades at Buchan. The seagull pie served in the airman's mess was both renowned and feared! I should have probably checked whether you had anything to do with the catering side of things before I mentioned that.

 

When I was at Buchan I worked "down the hole" as a radar operator, lots of interesting intercepts of Russian aircraft.  I did that job for the best part of 5 years then changed trade and became an armourer so I could work on aircraft rather than watch them as blips on a radar screen.

2 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

That is one good looking Stuka. I'll be delighted if the Heinkel comes out looking half as well!

 

That's the Hasegawa 1/48th kit, I built that for the Stuka GB.  Nice kit.

[Retired Bob]

2 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

Yes, a big gluey fingerprint. That TET gets everywhere.

Easily done, and as you say it's not in a visible place, not like when I was holding the wing halves together and capillary action took the Tamiya extra thin and left my thumbprint on the wing underside. 

 

2 hours ago, Dandie Dinmont said:

One other thing I did do was to cut the fuselage sides off the sprue so that I could test fit the spars. All looked well but I did notice that my kit had the same feature as @Greg Law's, the locating pins on one fuselage side were too large to fit in the holes in the other side. Some careful drilling will be required before I go much further.

Careful drilling indeed, remember Gregs warning that the plastic is rather soft.

[Greg Law]

Yes careful drilling and patience.  They are easy to do. Just take your time. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/19/2020 at 12:22 AM, Greg Law said:

Yes careful drilling and patience.  They are easy to do. Just take your time. 

Thanks Greg, As I shall be revealing in my next update, I have managed to get the fuselage halves to come together. 
 

Can I ask another question about your build of this kit? You mention that you have found the correct decals for the aircraft you’re building. Looking at the action reports for 15th August, it looks like both I.KG26 and III.KG26 lost an aircraft in the sea that day with all the crew being rescued.  Which one are you building? And where did you find the decals?

 

I’m finding @Ozzy and your builds a great resource to consult. Many thanks!

 

Craig. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/18/2020 at 8:06 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Hi Craig,

 

Now you mention it the title of yon book rings a bell but I've never actually seen a copy in person. Is it any good?

Yes, I thought so though it depends what you’re looking for. It’s a collection of reminiscences about Aberdeen during the war by people who were living there at the time and it contains a lot of interesting stories, photographs and contemporary newspaper articles and adverts (‘buy the Acme water pump and extinguish incendiary bombs effortlessly”). I enjoyed it but some of the figures and dates are a trifle approximate, hardly surprising I suppose when people are remembering events from 50 years ago. 
I have no idea how I came to own it, I think I must have got it from my mum or auntie in Aberdeen. 
 

Craig. 

[Greg Law]

I'm doing 1H+MH 1/KG26 I made a mistake saying I had the decals. I had one that was close, but I will have to make the "M" myself which isn't a problem. The kit decals have the rest of it.

 

[Lawzer]

Not model related but I only looked at this GB today and happened to be speaking to the Mrs tonight and her friend is tracing back her family tree.  Her grandad (Francis William Fisher Pirie) and quite possibly great grandad were killed in the raid. They were in the boiler makers club.....

[Lawzer]

Further to this (I haven’t actually asked him) but Mrs Lawer’s friend’s dad was in school,in Seaton (aged 7) in 1940 and saw a “nazi” plane almost at rooftop height. Now it’s a couple of miles as the crow flies to the harbour so there may actually be an eye witness to this....

[Capri3]

My late next door neighbour back in the early ‘90’s was a very young police Constable on the day this incident happened. His patch was the Castlegate/harbour area so he was in the immediate vicinity when the Heinkel flew overhead and released its bombs on Hall Russell’s shipyard and the nearby Neptune Bar. He didn’t see the actual crash as this happened a few miles to the west but he was one of the first on the scene at the Neptune. I’ll spare you the grisly details but it obviously upset him greatly, even 50 years after the event. 

[Dandie Dinmont]

On 7/20/2020 at 10:55 AM, Greg Law said:

I'm doing 1H+MH 1/KG26 I made a mistake saying I had the decals. I had one that was close, but I will have to make the "M" myself which isn't a problem. The kit decals have the rest of it.

 

Pity, I've been searching in vain for the right decals as well. Luckily the characters I need, 1, H, F and T, are probably the most easy to create stencils for!

The other problem is the yellow KG26 shield but I'm hoping to revive my long dormant photoshop skills and do something with the white version that comes with the kit.

 

Craig.

[Dandie Dinmont]

23 hours ago, Lawzer said:

Further to this (I haven’t actually asked him) but Mrs Lawer’s friend’s dad was in school,in Seaton (aged 7) in 1940 and saw a “nazi” plane almost at rooftop height. Now it’s a couple of miles as the crow flies to the harbour so there may actually be an eye witness to this....

Hi Lawzer, thanks for this. This would make sense if the Heinkel did approach from the North, it would have passed close by to Seaton on its way to the harbour. I'm hoping to talk a bit more about the route it took over Aberdeen when I eventually get around to modelling its bomb load. Any other snippets you can gather such as whether it had a machine gun or cannon at the front of the gondola would be very useful (or do you think that might be asking a bit much)? 🙂 Amazing to think, there are still eye witnesses to these events around.

 

Thanks again,

Craig.

[Dandie Dinmont]

22 hours ago, Capri3 said:

My late next door neighbour back in the early ‘90’s was a very young police Constable on the day this incident happened. His patch was the Castlegate/harbour area so he was in the immediate vicinity when the Heinkel flew overhead and released its bombs on Hall Russell’s shipyard and the nearby Neptune Bar. He didn’t see the actual crash as this happened a few miles to the west but he was one of the first on the scene at the Neptune. I’ll spare you the grisly details but it obviously upset him greatly, even 50 years after the event. 

Yes, our generations are truly fortunate that by and large, they haven't had to endure or witness horrible events like these. I sometimes find it hard to reconcile my enthusiasm for these war machines with the suffering and misery they have caused.

 

Craig.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

On 7/20/2020 at 8:36 PM, Capri3 said:

My late next door neighbour back in the early ‘90’s was a very young police Constable on the day this incident happened. His patch was the Castlegate/harbour area so he was in the immediate vicinity when the Heinkel flew overhead and released its bombs on Hall Russell’s shipyard and the nearby Neptune Bar. He didn’t see the actual crash as this happened a few miles to the west but he was one of the first on the scene at the Neptune. I’ll spare you the grisly details but it obviously upset him greatly, even 50 years after the event. 

 

Just on the tangential subject of Hall Russell's yard, the last thing I finished was a minesweeping trawler built there the following year to this, if anyone's also interested in locally built ships.

 

Does anyone else have a copy of A Separate Little War or Luftwaffe Over Scotland?

[Roger Newsome]

44 minutes ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

Does anyone else have a copy of A Separate Little War or Luftwaffe Over Scotland?

Yes, I have A Separate Little War, an excellent book. 

Roger. 

[Capri3]

A separate little war is an excellent book and does a great job of covering the Banff Strike Wing and its operations over Norway. Loving that minesweeping trawler too.

[Dandie Dinmont]

12 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Just on the tangential subject of Hall Russell's yard, the last thing I finished was a minesweeping trawler built there the following year to this, if anyone's also interested in locally built ships.

Yes, that was a really interesting build to follow.

12 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Does anyone else have a copy of A Separate Little War or Luftwaffe Over Scotland?

I've got Luftwaffe Over Scotland. Despite a couple of obvious errors (such as a caption identifying a Dornier Do-24 as a Do-18), I found it very interesting and a useful reference for this build. I'll have to keep an eye out for a Separate Little War.

 

Craig.

[Greg Law]

On 22/07/2020 at 06:09, Dandie Dinmont said:

Pity, I've been searching in vain for the right decals as well. Luckily the characters I need, 1, H, F and T, are probably the most easy to create stencils for!

The other problem is the yellow KG26 shield but I'm hoping to revive my long dormant photoshop skills and do something with the white version that comes with the kit.

 

Craig.

You are lucky it is an H-3. At first I thought it was part of the 15th August raids which were mainly  H-4's and used external racks. It was only after i read the story that i noticed it was an earlier raid. 

[Angus Tura]

Craig,

 

Affa affa fine.

 

I was not going to join in with this GB thinking I've got too many on the go already. But I'm a bit homesick having read this thread and I'm going to have to have a go at a Drem Hurricane,

 

Thanks for the Caledonian inspration,

 

Alan

[Dandie Dinmont]

47 minutes ago, Angus Tura said:

Craig,

 

Affa affa fine.

 

I was not going to join in with this GB thinking I've got too many on the go already. But I'm a bit homesick having read this thread and I'm going to have to have a go at a Drem Hurricane,

 

Thanks for the Caledonian inspration,

 

 

Thanks min,

 

though I’m really enjoying building the Heinkel, I’ve got a real hankering to build a Spitfire or Hurricane as well.  I’m looking forward to following your build, especially as I can look down on the site of Drem airfield from the end of my road. 
 

Craig.