John Symmons

Hi Ratch I did this one about a year-or-so ago, and I must say I was very pleasently surprised. I feel this kit still holds it's own with the modern toolings, and should be kept in the Airfix catalogue. All it really needs is the triangular stays inside the cowling, & maybe some more detail in the cockpit, although with the pilot in place I'll all be hidden anyway. I found it almost clipped together. Some camo options would also be a good idea, I did mine in a winter camouflage. (See my post Bully Boys) Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Trip to MRRS today came home with 6 more Vallejo colours & the Eduard weekend Nieuport Ni-23. Small plane and kit in a huge box. Eduard must be shipping by volume & not weight. Remember we do this for fun John the Pon

Hi Heather & T2B About the only one you might find really usefull for you airfield dressing is the Blitz Tanker or refueler. The Blitz truck was used by the Lufftwaffer but you'll have to find your own scheme simulary with the busses. The tanker is possibly the easiest of the lot and as the engine is closed up there's little point of adding all 14 parts. I've just finished it and it makes up into quite a neat little model once you've sanded the bonnet pieces to fit the chassis. just be very wary of the front wheel assembly, I've found after doing four of them that it's best glued solid right from the start. Actually the artwork for the Maulter is correct the front wheels often come off the ground over rough terrain and crossing ditches. The drivers were instructed to cross diagonally to not damage the front wheel suspension and bearings. If anyone tries the Maulter you'll have to strech the tracks to 108 mm as mine had shrunk and I managed to glue them with a contact adhesive. It also makes up into quite a nice unusual model just that the running gear is very fragile. maybe I can post them poised with an Aitfix blitz truck and an Airfix Fw 190, maybe the moderators will allow that. If you like the unusual maybe the 88 mm anit aircraft gun mounted on a Vomag buss / truck chassis by the same manufacture would be up your street as would the WW1 4WD lorry. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi mHeather. My; you are lucky, mine is a Smer release of the old Heller moulds with absolutely no interior. Should make up into quite a good model. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Heather. You calling it quits at the Breguet 693? What about the Morane Saulnier MS 406, Dewoitine D 510,or the fighter prototype that refused to take-off the Bloch MB 152 & the Portez 63-I or 63-II. As you already have the Amiot 143 whyb not try for the Amiot 354, that's going from the most ugly to beautiful, another real beaty is the Liore-et-Olivier LeO-451 1941 and finally there's the Bloch 174. I believe Heller has done all these aircraft in 1/72 scale an I saw a newHeller catalogue last year that had most of these in there, so maybe they're available again. The Breguet 693 isn't a bad kit just that again there's no interior at all, I built one many years ago, and was quite impressed with it even with no interior, in fact I've built most if not all the above and the most impressive was the Portez 63-1 and that has a full interior, and I mean full it even had the oxygen bottles and fire extinguishers but sadly no pilots. Pity Airfix don't do any French airrcraft, as then you could possibly sneak a photo for your Frebch builds like your one on the RAF air-field support vehcles. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Paws You're kidding of course about the Jaguar SS of the 1930's, if not I can only shake my head in disbelief, and horror at what this new wave of political correctness has come to. Maybe I should be grreatful that my parents didn't call my Simon as then my initials would have been SS. Remember we do this for fun althought I'm having trouble with the fun bit for the above. John the Pom P.S. As this is a modelling forum and not a debating forum I'll not say anything more on this subject. JtP

Hi Ratch. You are a busy man. I'm building two Roden Opels the Maulter and Command Staff bus, and having trouble keeping track of just two, and here's you doing five totally different models. Wow; how do you do it, I know I did five models recently but they were all Stukas. Good luck you're a better man than me Gunga Din. Rememberv we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Ratch WOW! That's a lot of plastic, Hope you haven't given up or got bored on the HP 400. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Kanyiko Ditto to what T2B said above.I can't believe someone has censored a decal sheet, isn't this taking political correctness to the ultimate madness, or being hyper-afraid/sensitive of others hyper-sensitivity, Seems like someone needs to get a life, actually there's a name for it it's called co-dependency or it's a part of the co-dependency mental illness, and maybe they need to go to a CoDa meeting. Swastikas I can unbderstand. I had a nieihbour who lived through the Walsaw uprising and wouldn't even come into our house if I I had one of my Luftwaffer books open. But SS number plates in a plastic kit????? ---------------- End of rant. Just finished assembling the furniture of the staff /command bus and those chair legs are super fragile, only managed to remove two without breaking them, fortunately the four broken ones are easily mended. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi T2B I'm building the Roden Maultier at present Good luck with the rear drive train, looks OK on the instructions, but acually building it is a right female-dog. Drilling out the holes in the gear-bok & Diff to 1.2 mm will help and if you manage to get the staff bus use those instructions to assemble the engine; much clearier than the maultier instructions. Actually it might be better to use the bus engine in the maultier if you're leaving the engine covers open as I found that the bus engine is better moulded than the maultier. in the bus the engine is hidden so i'm not bothering with most of the detail. just adding the exhaust manifould. Would be interested how you would glue the tracks, mine seem about 10mm short. Goog luck with both kits. They can be built, even though half way through you'll be wondering why you desided to build then. Oh; and re-enforce the front axil as its very fragile and all those tiny steering bits don't help, best assembled solid with the wheels posed. I did that on the blitz truck and tanker. Both very nice if ultra fiddely, and fragile. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Kaniyilo Welcome to the forum. you don't say if you're in Japan or the UK. Thats some selection you've aquired and welcome to the ever growing stash club. I'm at present making the Roden Opal Blitz Staff/Comand bus. A couple of words of advice don't try to make the front wheels rotate or steerable you'll drive yourself bananas, also I'd re-enforce the frount axil before removing from the sprue. I found that trying to remove that part on the Blitz truck impossible without it breaking, so now I re-enforce them with very thin piano wire bent to shape and epoxied to the axil part. Also made the tanker version. Good luck with the engine although on the bus it can't be seen. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

5 Swan-Morton No 11 scaple blades, these are a bit like hen's teeth in Cape Town. Had to pay premium prices at a surgical chemist. /media/tinymce_upload/57be1d696cf6cb4bb362094c68134fc4.jpg Also picked up another of these. Just finished one and I was so impressed I wanted to build another, maybe in winter camourflage. If you ever open these boxes you'll here a strange sound, like the grinding of teeth or the licking of lips, but it's just the carpet monster getting ready for a feast. Loads of ultra small parts that are almost guarented to go pinging in all directions. Luckily on the first one I didn't drop a single bit. Remember we do this for fun Jpohn the Pom

Firstly welcome Wicky0570 and JohM. Welcome to the forum nice to see something new. I wish you all the best in your endeavour to generate some interest, as plastic modelling has many facets and it nice to see a new one. Good luck. This sounds again like Airfix not thinking out-of-the-box, the same could apply to model ships and cars. These models are still sort after, even though most modellers have already made them, usually several times. If you look at the old Airfix catalogue the variety of Airfix subjects is simply staggering. Now unfortunately they seem to by stuck in a rut with aircraft and bigger scales or aircraft related subjects like airfield set, even the airfield figures seem to be like hen's teeth these days to say nothing of there other figures, I'm still looking for the WW 1 British infantry set but so far unsuccessfully, So come on Airfix we modellers can't live by aircraft alone, we do really need some variaty, and if you're really stuck for ideas just look through your own web-site.. Remember we do this for fun. John the Pom

Went to a local-ish LMS for some new and replacement Vallejo colours and ended up with 9 and the Airfix Focker E-III Eindecker, which is exactly the same as the E-II except that it uses the other propeller in the kit, and has a different colour scheme and decals. The two should look good together and with the old Revell Morane Saulnier-N I made recently. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

He Heather. The Amiot 143 kit you have is the old Heller kit re-issued by SMER. I have the Breguet 690, often refered to as the baby Beaufighter, aslo by SMER, and the kit hasn't changed from the original Heller issue, so I suspect your Amiot is the same. I made this kit way back in the 60's. The only thing I can really remember was I had NO interior what-so-ever not even a pilot, and with all those windows it really needed something and the kit was some-what basic but as it's the only one available I suppose we have to take what we can get. The Amiot 143 dates back to the mid 1930's, and believe it or not was first intended as a multi seat fighter, a sort of flying fortress. At that time the French were guilty of producing some of the most ugly aircraft to fly and the Amiot was one, another being the Bloch MB.200. ( Google that one ) What is quite amazing is that after Amoit built possibly one of the most non photogenic aircaft ever built, the 143, they went on the produce possibly the most photogenic aircraft of 1938/39 the stunningly beautiful Amiot 350. this was also issued by Heller. If you ever get to buy one do so as the two aircraft side by side is quite a conversation piece. The beauty and the beast. One thing the old Heller kit did capture very well was the uglyness and heavy-ness of the aircraft. Thanks for showing this old kit it brought back some fond memories. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Ratch. That's a really fine build, and look just as I remembered the real thing. Well done and thanks for showing this vintage kit. Make one realise just how great the old Airfix range was. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Gorden. Don't be sorry it's nice to see some of these old topics re-surface every once un a while. As for trolling V trawling; we've been down that rabbit hole once before and I'll not go there again. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom PS. It's just like shelling peas. JtP

Hi Gordon. I see you've been trolling though some older postings. I was quite surprised tomsee this one re-appear after two years hope it gave you a chuckle. lately been listening to Cafe-De-Mar and Vangells. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Ratch. This should be interesting and I'm interested to see your take on the kit. The Deutschland was the first of the three built and was in many way quiote different to the Graf Spee. Later the Deutschland was refitted with a revised tower bridge and renamed the Lutzow but I'm sure you already Know that from reading you reference book. Anyway good luck with your build and looking forward to seeing the result. I've purposely not replied your post above about me being over-critical maybe your correct. I was just saying that when I first build the Spee I felt dissappointed with the result, and this second build left me feeling the same even though I did try to "dicky" it up a bit, anyway it's only my opinion and other builders might feel differently. I'm at present doing the Academy Graf Spee and even though it's a much better kit with a wealth more detail, (as expected being 350 scale) it's still far from being perfect, somehow Academy have got both masts wrong; to just mention one of several things; the masts were telescopic so she would pass under the bridges of the Kiel Canal and it seems Academy like Airfix has modeled them retracted. I'm using the build as a sort of dummy run for when I build the Premium Edition with the Photo Etch etc. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Karl. You'll want one that goes to at least 15 lbs per sq inch pressure and with an adjustable pressure release, also a water trap is recommended, a reservoir is also useful but not essential, unless you live in a very humid area like Durban. If you can find a good supplier of compressors or air equipment they should have every thing you’ll need, I found a supplier of medical and industrial compressors in Cape Town, and they set me up very easily including connections for an old (1960 piston) compressor, and a double connector so I can run two airbrushes without changing hoses. If you look through this forum and the techniques forum you’ll find other answeres and related answers that might be helpful. Good luck and hope to see some of your results. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Heather I'm very envious of your Do 17E find, I've been looking for one locally for the past year or so, so-far without any luck. I do have one but want a second to graft the wings of a second Monogram Do 17Z wings onto it. Maybe I'll get lucky soon. Those Millicast look like metal kits, look forward to seeing them in a diorama sometime. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi James. After your 1/24th builds I can't help thinking you're going from the sublime to the ridiculous with the E.III. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom.

Hi ARfan Very interesting set of photos and a good read. Another good British idea that didn't seem to go anywhere. Only the British could do a Brown car and expect it to sell, you model really shows the retro style of the original car. Thanks for posting, and hopefully we'll be seeing a few more cars in the near future. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Heather See you're continuing with your new found interest, the French Air Force. this could be the old Heller mould in a new box. Hobby-Boss also did the D-520 also with very few parts and with the wing and lower fuselarge moulded as one peice. Good luck withb the painting, I take it you're not going to try the one with the red and yellow nose, pity you can't show it on this forum unless you can sneak it in with some Huricans or Blemhiems seving in France in 1940. Remember we do this for fun John the Pom

Hi Paul. The picture is worth a thousand words. Hopefully we'll be reading a review in the not to distant future. Remember we do this for fun. John the Pom P.S. I see the forum is now modulating photos over the week-end. JtP