Dad Paul B

The Airfix Sea Hurricane model uses the same tooling but with a metal wing with either Machine Gun or Cannon armament options (the arrestor hook needs a section cut out of the original fuselage). I finished the one from the 'Operation Torch' Club kit as a metal wing hurricane.

Pilot figures are becoming rare in all scales. If you want to have a pilot sitting in the cockpit there are plenty of aftermarket suppliers so I am sure you will be able to find something suitable in nice crisp resin.

I favour fishing line and drawing pins. For small models I first tie a loop of monofilament with a double reef knot. This loop is then tied to creat a pair of loops - these can be different sizes if you wish to show your model climbing or diving.I wrap sellotape around this knot and push a drawing pin through one of the loops if possible. This is to stop the line slipping out from the pin. It will also cover errors in positioning so the model will not fall. For larger models I use multiple loops on separate drawing pins; again using sellotape to prevent slippage. Usually 2 but the Victor needed three. One around each wing root and a third around the rear fuselage due to centre of gravity issues. Go with whatever feels most comfortable.

Nice work. This was a lovely little kit which I built back in the 70s. The first time I managed to get the gun free moving. The extra detailing really adds to the look.

Eduard are the company for die cut masks. You can get them from Hannants.

Thanks T2B The backdrop was really easy. Just foam board sheet, printed photos of a trip to the RAF Museum at Hendon enlarged to fit (hence overscale - I needed panoramic images really) stuck on with double sided tape, square section balsa wood on the joins for reinforcement and stability then paint the base. The chocks were just cutoff corners of the balsa rod painted yellow and the information board was just plasticard and a self printed decal. I saw your cutaway build and was very impressed. I ended up with less view of the interior visible than I hoped (even after deciding to leave out the Flight Engineer's panel from the photoetch set. A lot of light is needed to illuminate it. I really needed to file the holes out more and sand the outside more but stopped when I started to feel it flex at my comfort limit. This would be a great subject for an aftermarket company, either resin or clear styrene.

Excellent job smoothing the seam lines on the wing joints, tail cone and fuselage sides. This is a great Vulcan build.

You will need to put on a primer. Humbrol 1 is OK, especially when you use the Acrylic Thinners rather than water. However the Gloss Red is very hard to work with. Its opacity is weak and I struggle to get a decent finish (either use Matt Insignia Red - 174 if memory serves - or Arrow Red which seems to give a better finish, especially over a white primer like Tamiya extra fine). As Ratch says keep applying thin coats until you are happy.

Nice work so far Ratch. The racks on the stern definitely look like Depth Charge racks. The charges would run along the length and look like Oil Drums. They were just rolled off the back. Later on they got launchers which allowed them to be fired forwards which meant you didn't need to steam straight over the sub (losing ASDIC signal as you did) to attack it. Oerlikon are an armaments factory specialising in small, rapid fire cannon. Probably either 20 or 37 mm Anti-Aircraft guns. I am not surprised they are tiny! Looking forward to seeing the completed build.

Looking fantastic Martin.Very impressive detailing and paintwork inside the undercarriage bays. I think there is one error in the kit detail set as most potos show a second cradle guide (the black line running under the missile) near the canards. Most preserved missiles do not seem to have these. Now all we need is a V-Bomber Resupply set.

Lots has been said about the superb new Wellington kit. This was my birthday present this year and has taken me a few months to complete. Other posters have shown the amazing levels of interior detail before so I won't repeat the shots of the cockpit and fuselage compartments or the lovely moulding of the geodetic skeleton on the insides of the fuselage which gave me my idea for the concept of my build. The Wimpey is a tricky build as the tolerances are very tight and some of the alignment tabs and pins are limited in places - notably the engine cowlings and front and rear bomb bay bulkheads. The latter might best be fixed after the bomb racks. There are also some fragile features, like the bomb bay doors which cannot be left off till later in the build which means care is needed when handling. I added Eduard internal Photoetch control panels and seat belts and used their paint masks for the quite complex glazing, especially on the turrets (see the 'interior revealed post for pictures of these). As mentioned in one of the reviews the waist inserts are best fitted before closing the fuselage. I also ended up with mine sitting in a slightly sunken position relative to the fuselage - however night black hides a multitude of sins. For this build I took inspiration from one of the kit schemes - the Loch Ness monster now in the Brooklands museum. Recovered from the Loch where it ditched in 1940 it is now partly restored. I was thinking of marking it up as OY-F for Freddie, as flown in the wartime film 'Target for Tonight' but my stock of large letters was insufficient as the 48 inch set did not contain a full alphabet. So I went back to the original plan of the Brooklands aircraft. Since this was a museum exhibit I didn't add any weathering and used satin varnish to give it a well scrubbed sheen which looked good on the finished model. One nice feature is the moulding of the fabric wing surfaces showing the skeleton underneath. These were highlighted with white preshading on to of the struts and dark grey in the dips which did show through the bruch painted surfaces. Some shots below. /media/tinymce_upload/095f026020e36de22fbcef7bc32602a0.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/200d4e99e80252cabb547105589c2450.JPG Now for the twist. The Brooklands Wellington has large parts of the skeleton visible. I decided to replicate this exposure by drilling out the fabric infill on the starboard fuselage, filing it down to something approaching the strut width and sanding back the surface detail on the exposed skeleton. This was hard work and I think it was a mistake to try to open up the rearward parts of the fuselage where the holes get smaller. I also failed to get the struts narrow enough as I was starting to get concerned about the strength of the resulting structure. It also proved to be less revealing of the internal detail than was hoped, though strong or internal lighting might improve visibility. /media/tinymce_upload/0b43f1185399fa0c0f45d1b5872316ff.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/c57e4984e44706b9bbed7571b12049bf.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/6fdcc425935824c2b76a2e6d86a38f6e.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/1ac417fb48d4e9d14d93db6f6dee4532.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/4f62762da091f0ad142e4b53b2ca77f3.JPG All in all a very satisfying build. Finally I scratch built a museum set using pre-refurbishment photos of the RAF museum in Hendon. Unfortunately expanding the photos to fit the width of the wall panels resulted in overscale images - I needed panoramic photos to get the width. Still the final result is pleasing. The information panel was scratch built from plasticard and the panel created in powerpoint, turned into a JPEG and put into a new PP slide where it was shrunk and printed onto decal paper. I can definitely recommend this kit to those seeking a build with options. Finally the complete aircraft in situ. /media/tinymce_upload/81ee8d26aa6628842e34f68e581e9b94.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/607a4f618954f0736519e1a50e1b481d.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/4fb9c073e98d47e4aa2fd8bc8c5af94a.JPG /media/tinymce_upload/560fec75c5ae4cedbbcfaddb055c01ef.JPG

The main reason for mixing in tracer is to see where the bullet stream is going and correct your fire, hence the mixes known to Peter, although incendiaries were originally devised to attack hydrogen filled Zeppelins.

Strictly speaking HMS Churchill belonged to the Valiant Class, the first indiginous UK nuclear submarine (Dreadnought was essentially a Skipjack class) and a significant improvement on all contemporary SSNs. The design was later stretched to form the basis of the Resolution class Ballistic Missile subs.

Impressive work John. I have tried Halford's car primers (other modellers here also swear by them) whcih seem to work OK, although I haven't done enough wargaming to determine durability yet. One reason for the soft plastic is that the figures have a lot of undercut detail which need to flex as they come out of the mould - this is 1960s plastic technology and things have moved on. As to gluing - I ended up using PVA to stick them to bases as superglue found the one thing it couldn't stick to.

This is really impressive so far Martin and the PE enhancements are stunning. It is a shame that all that interior detail gets well hidden, though there is quite a bit of glass so it is possible to see the rear instrument panel. This is a great kit already and the detailing really adds to it. Also although not designed for it I was able to convert it to 'in flight' with easy (my version is somewhere on the forum from 2016). Enjoy the rest of your build.

I think Airfix share CAD data with certain manufacturers of detailing products so they can be released along with the model. The recent James May programme showed that selected model makers get sent test shots to make up for shows ahead of announcements and the regular contributors at Airfix Model World also get their build projects ahead of release so the exclusive builds see print ahead of the release. So they do circulate ahead of time

There is a post on this subject and I think the British vehicles came out of the factory in Deep Bronze Green (there was a Humbrol enamel for this - I use Vallejo bronze green for UK aircraft until the 1970s when a more olive shade was used) and the black was applied at the unit level in West Germany - I think from the 1980s - leading to a lot of local variation.

The other thing to bear in mindis that starter set paint schemes are adapted for only 4 colours so compromises are often made. Reverse surfaces of prop blades would be painted black to guard against dazzle from reflected sunlight on otherwise metallic blades. As Ratch says,colours are a complex subject. Zeroes are usually depicted in film as white (well, probably an off-white, hence the light grey in the set scheme - mind you I haven't seen Tora, Tora, Tora! for years) but I know the bluey-green is common as well. I haven't studied this theatre so am not up to speed on IJN and IJAAF colours. The other thing to remember is that paint doesn't stay its original colour in the field. UV light tends to fade colours so lighter options are always plausible and drab colours (khaki and olive) tended to turn brownish over time and this shows up in period photographs and film. The conditions during painting, such as temperature and humidity, can also have an effect. So there is no canonically correct paint shade so go with whatever you think looks right.

I have run into this on a few models (Spitfire, Hurricane, Lightning, Sea Harrier FRS1). You need to trim some plastic off the pilots behind to lower him in the seat.That will keep his head from fouling the canopy. This is something which is always worth testing before gluing.

You would need an organic solvent. In the old days Trichloroethane would have been the first choice but is no longer available- bad for people and the environment. Possible options, though I have not tried to do this so cannot guarantee that they will work, could be Acetone or possibly Methyl-Ethyl Ketone (this is the solvent used in polystyrene cement and at its most concentrated in Liquid Poly Cement - the precision and tube stuff contains dissolved styrene so will not be of use). Isopropyl Alcohol won't dissolve the PVA but may weaken the bond by dissolving material trapped on the surface, enabling you to peel it off more effectively.White Spirit or Turpentine may do this as well.

I am looking forward to the 17, but my favourite was always the 21 Fishbed.

When I last built this backin the 1970s the display base was round and there were 2 astronauts included in the tooling. I am definitely planning to get this and always wanted the Saturn V. I suspect a spray can for the white will be the order of the day. Just need to get some gold coloured foil.

A new Anson would be welcome (the one that ended up in the River Eden for preferencehaving bombed a 'U-Boat' very early in september 1939 and got hit by the shrapnel. The first 'Blue-on-Blue' of WW2 and self inflicted to boot - the submarine turned out to be HMS Seahorse and was undamaged). I also need a Mark 19. A 1/72 Sea Vixen and/or Buccaneer would be nice to go with the Phantomand maybe a new Tornado to mark its departure from RAF service. For 2019 the only clue on the AMW calendar is the Concorde Prototype in the Vintage Classics range. Saturn V and Lunar Module ought to appear to mark the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 11.

Nice work as always Tomek. I am still amazed at how you paint detail which I can't even see on the figures. New figure sets, especially in reasonably hard styrene would be nice but I suspect they are not a big enough Market for Airfix as other firms have the field pretty well covered, especially since the design process is very different to vehicles. At HO/OO (1/87 or 1/76 I think) scale they are possibly small even for 1/76 so can look incongruous with 1/72. The biggest problem I have with them is the plastic which is very difficult to clean for painting, doesn't carry detail all that well (not helped by the age and many uses of the toolings) and has a tendency to bend and crack the paint. I would still like to see new sets, including 1960s Royal Marines to go with a Wessex and US troops to go with a Huey which would be an interesting project.

New subscriptions were halted back in May and they intend to relaunch in the new year. They are open to suggestions as to what members would like to see and there is somewhere on the website to register interest. I don't have the magazine to hand right now but you may be able to find it through the menus.