Clunkmeister

That it is.

Just looking at this now, and my old eyes missed it on the Trp kit, other than saying “it looks off but I’m not sure why”. Crazy!

I'm worn out, Martin, yes, and you know it. My employees and family always come first, and hobbies after that. We'll figure it out

My wife turned to me as we left Church and said "honey so you want to go to lunch or go home so you can install the right door glass in your pickup?" The showers were forecast for 6, we got home at 3. There was ONE single super cell within 500 miles, and it parked over my little town. At 4:45

We'll try, Hubert. But the worst thing is how I let my friends here down. People look to me for certain things, and here we are, and I finally got petrol for my internal motor.

It is. This last, well, almost 2 years has been 1 thing after another. One thing gets solved, and next comes something else, and on and on for almost 2 years. I lost my way after a year and a half of nonstop assaults, to where I just said f++k it and gave up.

It’s been the worst year of my extremely long life. Betrayal, thievery, attacks from all sides. Did the turtle thing and tucked up inside. Now, it appears the demons have been vanquished, and all is good. I thought September was the end, and then, BANG, a supercell parks over my town and we get gold ball and baseball hail on a Sunday afternoon for 20 minutes straight. The forecast was for possible intermittent light showers, so I had my 1956 Meteor outside after a detail job for a show, and pulled my pickup in to replace the right side door glass. Yep, then the storm hit. We lost the roof on our house, our gazebo, Joy’s Ford Flex, my Focus,… and our 56 Meteor. The Flex was totaled but I’m fixing it, the Focus is trashed, and the Meteor suffered 28 thousand in damage. It’s getting fixed. Our roof finally was finished 2 weeks ago. So, im going to check out all the super cool builds that happened in the last 10 months, and just go from there. your newly humble once upon a time helper around here. E

It sure does, doesn’t it. Hubert would know more, but it was a Bréguet 941 that was licensed to McDonnell Aviation. It was a pretty decent STOL design from the early 60s with a wingspan of about 75 ft? It used the same ida as the Dash-7, but 20 years before the Dash-7. 4 large low speed props to augment airflow over the wing. It was practical and worked well, but just like the Dash-7, it was only economically viable in a very small number of places: London Center, Toronto Island, and similar. Places where space doesn’t allow runway expansion. The Dash-7 was well received but only sold what? 110? And number of those were to the US Army and RCAF, so they don’t count. the Bréguet had the same problem, but in the early 60s, there were no takers. I think they only sold 4 or 5.

Some French designs were no doubt peculiar, with the theme generally being towards flying solariums, but nobody can argue that the French, when they put their minds to it, deliver some extremely beautiful aircraft Peil Emeraude and Super Emeraude, the Robin series of light aircraft, Sud Caravelle, Concorde, Mirage lll and up, and on and on. And then there was this little cutie:

A bit of an update, y’all. I’m proceeding with the cockpit, and I want to point out some amazing things regarding this kit. A box arrived about 3 weeks after my kits arrived. In this box was a Mk.1a main gear set with new tail wheel as well. Apparently Peter received some reports of early completions of this kit getting decidedly splay legged on the shelf. The resin used for the gear and other high stress areas is a special much stronger resin, which didn’t hold up as well as hoped. So, Peter provided, at ZERO cost to purchasers of this kit, new redesigned gear legs with hollow legs to precisely insert small steel rods. That oughta hold it! Also, he sent along cockpit rear view mirrors. They are not in the kit from what I can see, so they are a brilliant addition. I can say this about this model: it is superbly engineered. There are rumblings of it being a difficult kit, but having dry fitted almost every component already, (the fit is spectacular), just test fit, trim edges as needed, and assemble. Approach it like a molded resin kit and you’ll be golden. There are quite a lot fewer parts than you may think, but Peter has printed critical areas as 1 piece parts. Some modelers don’t like that, but I do. I’m more a paint and finishing guy, and if the U/C can be done in 1 part, GO FOR IT! I love this kit so much, that if I hadn’t come off the worst year I’ve ever had in business, I’d have a dozen of these lined up in my model room. It’s THAT nice! The biggest challenge to a successful build is going to be getting the parts off the runners without damage. I already blew the turret guns part into a crumbly mess, my fault, not the kit. I dropped the spinner cone, looked for it, and didn’t see it, but sure felt and heard it when I stepped on it. Peter is very clear to purchasers: “I want these models to be successfully built”, he understands that a full 3D Print kit is new to many, and he will provide at no cost, replacement parts as needed. Not all of us are Peter Castle caliber builders, but we’re all competent enough, and everyone here should be able to competently build this model. Airscale started as my savior AM Company: almost every model I build gets Airscale panel updates. Then they did the updates for the Devastatingly nice Devastator. Now we have a Defiant. Then a car door Tiffie! I’m hoping a Blackburn Skua, a Hawker Henley, and maybe a Vickers Wellesley or Fairey Battle might come along. Oh, and an actual on-scale P-39. A properly proportioned P-39 would be truly glorious. This morning, I’m on the bench. I thought about being a real Smart Alec and rebuild an Airscale kit’s panel with Airscale instruments. 😂. But honestly, the panel is, as I said before, positively brilliant. The Defiant was a long, LONG time coming. But I’m definitely a Brit plane fanatic, so these are good times!

Truer words and all that…

The Goblin certainly looks like it’s been gobbling alright,… an entire truckload of marshmallow puffs and chugging Coca Cola by the 2L bottle. per day

If the British accidentally designed a good looking aircraft, (despite photographic evidence to the contrary, one did occasionally sneak past the Ministry of Ugly), the addition of a radar pod in the nose generally fixed the issue. (See Sea Hornet vs Mosquito). I expect early on, the British had the problem covered with the Defiant. The almost vertical heavily framed windscreen, and the bloated pimple of a gun emplacement left very little additional design work required to satisfy the quotient of ugly necessary for immediate serial production.

Underneath my seat. And I know where each and every wire goes! I now run aftermarket sparky box and pickup coil, so no chasing obsolete parts. The box is crammed in there in front of the battery, and nobody has a clue how much wiring is involved in a modern bike. Harley does it so neat, and me? Kinda looks like it was worked on by the Unabomber on an acid trip.

I guess we just can’t leave well enough alone. I love old cars and I love old bikes, and an old customizer’s touch was to install 59 Caddy tai.ights, so for me, why not? The Heritage Springer was ostentatious when new, looking like a brand new 1948 Harley in 1997, so I’ll just go one step further. Cheap brainless therapy, but it certainly looks different. Starting to look like a Tijuana Terror! A real “Garbage Barge”. That’s what we called loaded down bikes when I was young. We were tearing all that crap off them back then, and now as oldsters, we slam it all back on. That cheese grater rear bumper is a genuine 1948 Harley rear bumper. Yeah, it’s a bit much, but a sign of the times. NOBODY in the US leaves their Harley stock. Nobody. I think Europe is the same way. A Harley is a blank slate, and I think Harley makes more money selling bits for them than they do on the bike itself. There’s a fundraiser for a local musician who’s a recovering stroke victim, so she’ll be out and about after Sunday Worship. Took the time to set belt tension, align the rear wheel, and shine it all up. Saturday I’ll wire up the new lights, put the bags and seat Mack on, and go for a rip. Then, back on the bench