A flash of clean light hope (1/72 J F Edwards Kittyhawk I)

[AliGauld]

Fantastic to see the boys getting stuck in .

 

Cheers,

Alistair

[The Spadgent]

Oh boy. When they get the painting bug. (That was always my favourite bit as a kid) you’ll be able to see that realisation in their eyes that they need to paint the little man and seat bits before the canopy goes on.  Over and over and over. 🤣 All my kits had grey plastic men flying them. 
 

Bravo on the camo fix by the way. 😇

 

 Johnny.

[jackroadkill]

6 hours ago, Procopius said:

 

Winston has inherited his mother's disease of dangerously high self-esteem, though the universe is doing its best to do to him what it did to me and squeeze every last drop out of him.

 

Well, that's....bleak?

[Procopius]

4 minutes ago, jackroadkill said:

 

Well, that's....bleak?

I have a very sunny disposition, everyone says so.

[jackroadkill]

Just now, Procopius said:

I have a very sunny disposition, everyone says so.

I think you and I may share several of the same personality traits, Edward.

[Procopius]

6 hours ago, jackroadkill said:

I think you and I may share several of the same personality traits, Edward.

 

My condolences.

 

A few years ago, before her obvious talent was recognized and she went off to write for the wildly-successful email newsletter Morning Brew, my deputy social media manager said to me "Everyone here is an Idea Man. I too have ideas. But I will never have time to bring them into this world, because I'm busy making everyone else's happen." I think about that a lot. I -- although I did my best to not burden Matty with this -- am more of an Idea Man myself, in that I'm pretty good at standing at Point A and envisioning a really cool Point B, but not so great at getting down the long line betwixt them. Anyway, today at work was a very long day of struggling midway along the path between them. Some big changes and improvements are within reach, but not yet within my grasp, and honestly, the unglamorous work to get there is really boring and it's hard for me, a grown man who should function a lot better, to stay focused or interested in the slightest. 

 

Anyway. The boys wanted to model outside when they got home, so that they could use the "toxic glue" -- even small children know TET is the finest chemical going. Grant had meekly suggested maybe he could build a Spitfire, but amazingly, I'm fresh out of Airfix Spitfire Is, and all I had that I was willing to offer up was the mostly-done Meng F-102 Cookie sent to me. I felt like since it had been given to me in a generous gesture by the Senator himself, I should honour the spirit in which it was offered by coming out of my selfish, hateful self and offering it up. But it hurt a little when he told me he just wanted to put the decals on and not paint it -- after I'd gotten the nice New Wave mask set, too! -- and he asked me to add all the subassemblies I'd carefully set aside to paint.

 

 

I know the simple joy of a child is supposed to be worth a lot, but on the whole, I'd rather have the kit back. I'm sure my dad did lots of things like this for me as a kid, but all I can remember is him screaming "why can't you be normal?"* at me, so I know it's just so much wasted effort. 

 

Winston delegated putting the lifeboats on the Hood to me, but I note he installed the pom-poms and what I believe to be the directors for the secondary armament. I got out R A Burt's British Battleships afterwards and he built a rather impressive lego replica of Hood referring to the plans in the book.

 

I eventually, far too late, made it down to the grotto and built the spinner.

 

 

I then attempted what is known in the biz as "light weathering", using oils and pigments, which I still struggle with.

 

 

 

It's late, so more tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

* A very fair question, to be honest.

 

[Hook]

21 minutes ago, Procopius said:

I eventually, far too late, made it down to the grotto

And with pretty decent results, by the look of the P-40. 

 

Cheers,

 

Andre

[Ngantek]

There's being a good dad and then there's letting the kids have at your stash with your pair of dspiae super snips!

 

Deeply envious of that flawless gloss finish you've got over the colourcoats.

 

Andy

[Hook]

Just now, Ngantek said:

There's being a good dad and then there's letting the kids have at your stash with your pair of dspiae super snips!

There were moments when I lamented my sons total lack of interest in all things model (I mean, what the hell is wrong with the guy, right? Right?), but this thread made me thank Cthulhu.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

[AdrianMF]

1 hour ago, Procopius said:

"light weathering"

Spot on! Very nice.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[perdu]

9 hours ago, Procopius said:

I have a very sunny disposition, everyone says so.

Having had the absolute pleasure of our hero's company (at Telford, before the Panpanic hit us) I can categorically state that he really does.

 

It will not be that same without you guys this year.

 

As me old dad used to say when we'd sat mellowly gazing into our glasses "Will ye no', come back again?" as G and I were packing to nip home after one of those happy evenings we used to enjoy.

[perdu]

The Kittyhawk is looking excellent without over emphasised mucky bits in its weatherings.  👍

[Steve Coombs]

2 hours ago, Hook said:

There were moments when I lamented my sons total lack of interest in all things model (I mean, what the hell is wrong with the guy, right? Right?), but this thread made me thank Cthulhu.

My daughter never showed any interest in actually building kits, but boy, could she mask and paint the things.

My elder stepdaughter's partner has a son, and I hope to lead him into temptation soon.

[Procopius]

7 hours ago, Ngantek said:

There's being a good dad and then there's letting the kids have at your stash with your pair of dspiae super snips!

 

I have a second pair, but even so, I had very strict operating limitations imposed on them, which Grant in particular did not care for. 

 

7 hours ago, Ngantek said:

Deeply envious of that flawless gloss finish you've got over the colourcoats.

 

It started out a little pebbly, truth be told, but I spent the better part of a protracted bureaucratic battle in Sandbaggers (IE most of an episode) gently and slowly polishing it with 8000-grit micromesh, and for once it seems to have worked for me.

 

8 hours ago, Hook said:

And with pretty decent results, by the look of the P-40. 

 

6 hours ago, perdu said:

The Kittyhawk is looking excellent without over emphasised mucky bits in its weatherings.  👍

 

7 hours ago, AdrianMF said:

Spot on! Very nice.

 

Regards,

Adrian

That's very kind. The line between enough and overdoing it has always been almost imperceptible for me, in this as in all things.

 

6 hours ago, perdu said:

Having had the absolute pleasure of our hero's company (at Telford, before the Panpanic hit us) I can categorically state that he really does.

 

It will not be that same without you guys this year.

 

As me old dad used to say when we'd sat mellowly gazing into our glasses "Will ye no', come back again?" as G and I were packing to nip home after one of those happy evenings we used to enjoy.

 

Ah Perdu, I have such fond memories of the dinner everyone had together, and getting to meet so many great people from Britmodeller there. As I told Troffa a day or two ago, this really is one of my favourite places on the internet, and almost all of my happiest memories involve a concentration of forum denizens of this site. 

 

7 hours ago, Hook said:

There were moments when I lamented my sons total lack of interest in all things model (I mean, what the hell is wrong with the guy, right? Right?), but this thread made me thank Cthulhu.

 

Cheers,

 

Andre 

 

4 hours ago, Steve Coombs said:

My daughter never showed any interest in actually building kits, but boy, could she mask and paint the things.

My elder stepdaughter's partner has a son, and I hope to lead him into temptation soon.

 

So my biggest fear is rejection. Shortly before I ran away from home, my parents called my other three siblings downstairs to excoriate me in front of them in pretty explicit and harsh terms before having me exorcised (as one does). Every child, I think, fears that their parents will stop loving them, and for me, in that awful moment, it happened. It doesn't feel great! I mention this, because, I think, whenever introducing your children to something you love, when introducing anyone to something you love, you give them a chance to hurt you -- the Hedgehog's Dilemma: you must have warmth, but to do so you risk being pricked -- and I had already known this long before my contretemps with Procopius pere et mere, because as a fourteen year old in a college class with those giant, worldly-wise eighteen year olds*, you suss out pretty quickly how small and vulnerable you are on every single level that can be imagined. 

 

And that's the true terror of being a parent, maybe only for me: you're creating someone who is in a position to know who you truly are, and to hate you for it. Mrs P may someday decide she despises me and leave me, but in my heart of hearts I have never believed any adult could truly love and care for me, and I know I can take it. But someday Winston may despise his name and namesake and excoriate me for choosing to give it to him, which is of course his right, because his namesake existed and therefore it's only our choice to despise him, and not merely mandatory. Grant could walk down to the basement one fine day when he's sixteen and smash every kit in there with a hammer, and that's not even the worst or cruelest thing a sixteen year old boy is capable of, and I would have to count myself lucky. Everything I am, and everything I believe in, is laid bare to them, and they can ridicule me for it and there's nothing I can do. Winston's was too young when it happened to be able to remember when he concussed himself and we thought he was dying of a skull fracture, and there was no time to wait for a lead smock for me, so I held him down as he screamed and screamed and above me that big CT detector array made a sound like the end of the world. And maybe he'd be right to not care, even if he did know, because being a parent is every day, forever. You don't get to win at being a parent so hard one day you can just stop then and relax. It's never over. You can be rejected at any time. 

 

Walter Hill, famous for directing 48 Hours, which has not aged well, and Streets of Fire, which managed the double feat of launching and torpedoing the career of Michael Pare, said about directing that ""You are very privileged...There is a great quote I'll get wrong of Samuel Johnson, the English poet and essayist, that: 'We come to the arena uncalled, to seek our fortune and hazard disgrace. That's the game, those are the rules.'** So I say to you...if you wanna feel sorry, feel sorry for the people in Syria, but don't feel sorry for [me]." So too of parenting, I suppose. I chose this***. 

 

 

* I now know, based on lengthy exposure to them then and since, that they were and largely remain, quite stupid, even by my very generous standards. Shimer was not a very good school. 

 

** The actual Samuel Johnson quote, from his Life of Pope, by the way, is "An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace." But I think Hill's version might actually have bettered the good doctor.

 

*** Indirectly, but if you'd seen Mrs P at 28, you could understand why I wasn't thinking super clearly.

[perdu]

More good, dear friend.

[Brandy]

Be sure to let us all know when you will next be able to attend SMW. 

I for one will be sure to do my damnedest to get there that year.

 

It was a rather good dinner too, wasn't it!

 

Ian

[Procopius]

Also, having looked into oil dot weathering more, I think my issue is I'm being far, far too parsimonious with my dots of oils. 

 

[Stew Dapple]

7 hours ago, Procopius said:

... I think my issue is I'm being far, far too parsimonious with my dots of oils. 

 

 

I've never done it, so I may not be the best person to listen to... but those sound ominously like the words of a man who's about to find he's been much, much too generous with his dots of oils  Careful now...

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

[Procopius]

12 hours ago, Stew Dapple said:

 

I've never done it, so I may not be the best person to listen to... but those sound ominously like the words of a man who's about to find he's been much, much too generous with his dots of oils  Careful now...

 

Cheers, 

 

Stew

 

Yes...I tested it on a Hurricane I'd built earlier, for this exact reason! 

[Procopius]

This morning before work I nipped out to the Fort Sheridan cemetery to make my small contribution to the day.

 

 

 

[Procopius]

So, test mule! 

 

On the left side (the starboard wing, puzzle that one out in your minds), we have red, yellow, and blue "Oilbrushers", a product I've never gotten the hang of, blended together. On the right side/port wing, we have yellow, ochre, and a sort of pale blue-grey oils blended with a brush and light use of thinners. Verdicts from the judges?

 

 

Anyway, the landing gear is on and weathered.

 

 

"Why didn't you clean up the seam, Edward?" Well, life is difficult, and I feel I achieved quite a bit today merely by dint of getting the groceries, thank you very much. And actually, not to toot my own horn -- you'll go blind -- I was quite pleased with how the tires turned out.

 

 

I also added the white patch the decal guide shows but in no way explains. 

 

 

I expect now that this is done, someone will turn up with a contradicting piece of photo evidence, but we come to this arena uncalled etc.

 

 

At this point, the aircraft is pretty much done. I don't know if WDAF Kittyhawks carried bombs or drop tanks or nothing in Summer 1942, or which of the several drop tanks they'd use if they did. Any assistance is appreciated.

 

That aside, all I have to do is the pitot, and for that...

 

 

 

I have some pretty graphic, not to say explicit, suggestions as to what our pals at Special Hobby can do with an instruction like this. 

 

 

 

 

[Stew Dapple]

Hello mate, with reference to the Hurricane mule; the port side looks more convincing to me, I appreciate the subtleties are sometimes lost in photo's but I can't really see any effect on the starboard side (the Oilbrushers bit). If you think that side looks better in real life, then go with that  

 

As for that pitot tube? What? They couldn't provide a separate cranked one? But they can provide two types of joystick? I'm guessing your suggestion for Special Hobby regarding this involves cramming it full of walnuts?  

 

Cheers,

 

Stew

[Procopius]

1 minute ago, Stew Dapple said:

As for that pitot tube? What? They couldn't provide a separate cranked one? But they can provide two types of joystick? I'm guessing your suggestion for Special Hobby regarding this involves cramming it full of walnuts?  

 

Possibly a live grenade.

[Cookenbacher]

Well, at least they give the dimensions for the pitot tube you have to scratch, so you don't have to divide by 72.

[Procopius]

9 minutes ago, Cookenbacher said:

Well, at least they give the dimensions for the pitot tube you have to scratch, so you don't have to divide by 72.

 

Yeah, that seems like an awful lot of math for someone who's notoriously bad at careful measuring.

 

Happily, Master makes the L-shaped pitot style used on exported aircraft, since if there's something a proper modeller would do out of hand, the odds are someone in eastern Europe is selling it to lazy, imprecise people like me, so one should be in my hands later this coming week.