Pretty Mediocre Modeller

Very nicely finished John, even down to the creep marks on the tyres. Did you hand paint them or are they part of the decals? I bet even in 1/48 that it's a small model, I made the 1/72 version and that was tiny. Jason

Nice bit of scratch building there Ratch (referring to thread in general discussion!). I'd almost forgotten about your Long Taxal layout, how's it coming? Jason

I think you mean the Airfix 1/600 Free Enterprise, not the Spirit of Free Enterprise, which was a sister ship of the Herald, and was renamed Pride of Kent by P&O, who did a very bad job of stretching her (I know I worked as crew on her). After stretching the ship was so under-powered that if the bow thrusters were being used we were not allowed to operate the coffee machine in the club lounge! I thought it was a windup at first but it was straight up.

Thanks Discostu, but I always like to think that I have plenty of room for improvement!

The next step in my Zero construction was painting. For the main colour I used Xtracolour IJN Grey, which has a slight greenish tint. The colour provided in the set was Hu90 Sky Type S, and when I compared this to the 'official' colour they were both practically identical, apart from one being matt and the other gloss! Pretty soon I was ready for the decalling. /media/tinymce_upload/009fdec0a17c281608326b712ce9ecc7.jpg As I had changed the markings slightly the blue carrier bands were masked off and painted by hand. I wasn't sure if the decking under the canopy should have been in the airframe colour or cockpit colour, and after some research I came up with examples of both, so went with my gut and cockpit green. /media/tinymce_upload/8e5acb84affed8544c8e723ee298a934.jpg You may think the wheel wells are a strange colour, but apparently A6M's had their natural metal wells coated in a blue/green anti corrosion compound which I've tried to replicate, although I might have got it a bit bright. /media/tinymce_upload/229cb524c6ade72f2ee9f1befeb68406.jpg Decals applied, mostly from the kit. The tail number was written onto clear decal film with a permanent marker. I wasn't to happy with this attempt and later removed it and had another go which has come out a bit better. I might have also left to large a gap between the blue bands, but to late now! After the decalling the last few bits and pieces went on like undercarriage and prop (which does not turn I'm afraid to say). I used a fine drill bit to open up the wing gun ports and hole for the pitot, then it was a coat of varnish and a little weathering and I have a pretty colourful addition to my collection. /media/tinymce_upload/66140334da9ec58067d52cef023a9193.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/0a74291e5f961009dc827defedb6bc93.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/3ee1495cc07fd0efe3c606929fb65f64.jpg /media/tinymce_upload/903a9e2f27aa4f5ad06494f27cf636ca.jpg Seen with it's Dogfight Double partner the P-40B /media/tinymce_upload/295617c357d9a1291056736abacb3e90.jpg With the 'Kate', how about a 'Val' Mr Airfix to complete the line up? This may not be the very best 1/72 A6M2 on the market, but it is well up there. The Airfix kit is a straightforward build and results in a nice looking model, and for value for money it can't be beaten in this scale, compared to competition from Japan.

Hello again everyone, Now that the P-40 has been finished, I've moved onto the Zero from the same set. Again I've already build this kit once, back in December 2011, for the 60th Anniversary of Pearl Harbour, and had no problems then, so anticipate none now. The kit has good cockpit detail, with moulded on sidewall structure, a good seat, containing representations of lightning holes, and floor detail as well. Be careful with the joystick though as it is very fragile. The surface engraving is a little on the heavy side, this being one of Airfix's older new tool kits, but is fine for me, as I brush paint anyway, and that fills the panel lines. The only problem I have is that I have already built this scheme from the gift set boxing, but I have found a similar scheme on the internet, that only requires the coloured carrier bands to be changed, and the code and formation markings on the tail to be altered. /media/tinymce_upload/a80232233cba9622e09d995bef109ec8.jpg The kit contents. For the most part well moulded, except for a little flash around the engine cylinders,and some heavy mould seams on the one piece, slide moulded engine cowling, but these were easily cleaned up. /media/tinymce_upload/207fd2e391e933ccdf8c5f23f19aece5.jpg The fuselage and cockpit parts painted and ready for assembly. I used US interior green, dry brushed with light grey, details picked out in black. The instrument panel has three separate decals. The two part engine was painted black with a aluminium dry brush, and looks the part. Finally the part on the right is the top deck from in front of the cockpit,this is a separate part so as to include more detail, and also another part with the machine gun breaches fits on the bottom, and when assembled pokes through the cut outs in the instrument panel. /media/tinymce_upload/7b10fdebd21ce5e8a2666d0f3f137258.jpg Before cementing the wings together I painted the inside of the top wings black around the area of the spent cartridge case cut outs in the bottom wing to prevent naked plastic showing through. I also cut out the slot for the fuel tank. /media/tinymce_upload/6dbf6af957d6c481fda219d33f53572b.jpg The fuselage and wings assembled. The instructions would have you install the top deck piece in front of the cockpit after fixing the halves together, but I found during a dry fit that this was very problematic, so I assembled it to a fuselage half before joining them. That was the only fit issue I had. /media/tinymce_upload/3d92697175ef7cb8a159c9d39a56f0a5.jpg The basic airframe assembled. Again no fit issues, the only place a little filler may be needed is the underside join to the rear fuselage. That's it for this instalment. I'll post again soon with an update. Ps sorry about the image sizes John the Pom, I've had some issues reducing them.

Never Apparently! The last one was well over 18 months ago.

Sorry, the AEW version IS based on the 60's/70's moulding, and it's pretty worn by now! An option would be to take the new sprue and decals from the AEW kit and marry them with the new tool HAR2 boxng.

These craft kept on going with HoverSpeed at Dover until about the mid 90's, I remember them as I was a seaman on the conventional ferries at the same time. I lived in Ramsgate and also remember than the Pegwell Bay base was used as maintenance after HoverLloyd pulled out. There were two out of service SRN4's on the ramp slowly being stripped for spares, sorry don't remember which ones. The terminal was left unguarded and just abandoned when they finally left, I recall as a teenager having a look around in there just after they went. All the offices were fully furnished and computers and other equipment was just left around the place. Didn't go near the hulks of the hovercraft though as they didn't look to safe propped up on old oil drums! The terminal is now long gone, but the ramp remains, as does a smaller concrete ramp in Ramsgate outer harbour used for the original SRN1 tests, I think, very close to where Hornby were going to move their visitors centre.

Have you tried using a razor saw?