Hello everyone, this is my first post. This year of lockdowns and restrictions eventually gave me the time to make my first plastic kits for about 40 years! I’ve several long-term friends who are very good (IPMS exhibition standard) modellers and, although their skills have ensured that I have never lost interest in kits, their expertise also given me an excuse to stay away from kit building ‘as my skills would never match theirs’! However, with more time on my hands in 2020 I finally stopped talking about making models and actually got round to doing a couple! I decided to start where I had in the late 60s, with an Airfix 1/72 Spitfire, which, this time, was quickly followed by the Bf109 that came in the same Dogfight Double set. As you will all know, the modern kits are streets ahead of those from yesteryear, so building a ‘new mould’ was a different experience to those in my distant memory. With all my new-found enthusiasm I decided to try and do a little bit more than just build and paint them, by attempting a little weathering too. However, I made a dreadful mess of them both, accidentally chipping the Spitfire’s canopy and then somehow losing the rear section of the 109’s canopy! I also put the paint on too thick and then, trying to make good my errors, added further layers which just compounded the problem. Overall, they are a mess but, you know what…despite my lack of skill, I really enjoyed making them and my enthusiasm is undiminished. It is a 1/72 Hurricane next and I have yet to decide what will follow that; there is plenty to choose from! I am pleased to see Airfix is expanding its Vintage Classics range as several of them are the kits I made between the end of the 60s through to 1980 and I am tempted to try some of them again. I am also looking forward to what the 2021 release programme will have to offer in a few days’ time. No doubt I will develop more ideas from the skills posted on this forum. Keep up the good work! Ed
