DocRob

Looks like how I would have expected it for my Karas, thanks for the test shot . Cheers Rob

Beautiful finish on your Grünherz. The F is a nice rendition of the 109 series and you nailed it. Cheers Rob

Nice John, I guess you can build them blindfolded . Cheers Rob

Exactly, like Phil says a Jawdropper. It would be great if you'd comment on your rigging, when time comes. I have a FE.2b waiting to be built and like to see how you tackle yours. Cheers Rob

Today I added the sides of the hull, with gluing the primary brass painted windows in. The top parts of the hull are not glued yet, but are inserted to give the correct shape. In front you see my dummy Panther hull with rubbed on and sprayed on metallic Colours for testing. Against my primary idea of using wax like True Metal Colours to rub on, I decided to airbrush the hull with Extreme Metal Colours, from the AK range. All of them look really good and the polished wax has a very realistic shine after polishing, but, after closely inspect the parts, there might be areas where the wax will be hard to rub in and tests showed, that they are a little bit more 'vulnerable' to washes in later stages and I haven't tried to seal them. Another problem with polishing might be the abrasion of colour/primer on raised details like rivets, ... Cheers Rob

Before you get rid of your son try one of the Meng tanks, you'll share a lot of fun then. The only real Egg Plane though is the so called 'Kraftei' or 'Power Egg' Cheers Rob

Thanks for filling the gaps on this build. Lots of fine work to be seen beside the mishaps and I agree with Hubert, that the result may be unwanted but anyhow very appealing. If you are still not satisfied, why not going totally wild and do something like this. Cheers Rob

Your interior is looking great, these open top vehicles have lots of eye candy. Can't wait to see the final setting. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gus, helped myself to a couple of selfmade Martini cocktails and everything is back to normal . Cheers Rob

Or maybe half a FE.2b . Cheers Rob

You have these field days in modelling and you have these tasks, you just want to get done. I had three hours of the latter today, masking windows of the Nautilus. It was boring to get almost 200 tiny masks aligned, which makes masking the glasshouse of, let's say a FW-189, seem like a walk in the park, but stenciling jets still tops my personal 'most hated jobs in modelling list', who would have thought that. I used masks made out of thin black vinyl by Aztek, which seems to be better than the laminated paper ones, which were provided with the kit. With so many panes I would opt for the best masks available and fit and pre cut (thanks god) were good. The windows got a hefty dose of primer afterwards, to hinder unwanted light emission. Cheers (blurry eyed) Rob

I think you both mean the same and it is the same like I used. Cheers Rob

I experimented a little with my first WNW rigging job. In the end, I used Bob's buckles and like he suggests Maxima Chameleon fishing line with a diameter of 0,12mm. The fishing line is much stronger than flexible thread and gives some stability to the airframe. Bob's buckle tubes have an inner diameter of 0,3mm, I believe, therefore you can sling the fishing line through after fiddling it through the anchor point or eyelet glued to the wing. The second pass through the tube is not so easy, its a tight fit and you need good tweezers to push the line through, but it has the advantage, that you can pull the line taut without gluing. Therefore it's possible to fix all the connections with CA as one final step. The Maxima Chameleon line has coppery brownish Colour, which I really like, historically correct or not. It can be well seen on the kit, but is not so prominent like white or silver line. I use Bobs new aluminum tubes, because the look equally good and realistic without paint. But that's of course German round rigging, but I will use it on British planes too, if my Prym attempt fails The good thing about rigging is the enormous relive when you did your first and the result is satisfying. Like you Phil, I spent lots of thoughts and research before starting, like a big bow wave ahead of me. When you sit at your bench and you see the first results is where the grinning starts and then, the former dreaded step is actually fun. Cheers Rob

Lucky you, yesterday Spain announced the prolonging of the very strict house arrest until the 26.04. and there will be further extensions with conditions to be adjusted depending the figures, whew, we are in stasis since three weeks, with three more to come. A micro brew would be great or food which is not home prepared (no take aways allowed to serve here), or at least biking, running, surfing or swimming, which I mostly do alone even in normal times, due to the small population on my island. Cheers Rob

Thanks Carl, the kit is well designed, the fit is very good and the parts count is moderat, but there are tiny details, some fragile PE and the window masking . I believe, that it will be hard to convince your son to have build it on his own after you did 80%. One of the mentioned dinosaurs might be more rewarding and like you say, this Squid is nicely detailed, being made of vinyl. To have a Nautilus kit stashed is not the worst idea. It definitely is something different and because of that it's a mojo enhancer, when you got bored of planes and tanks. Cheers Rob

I own the same one, it's Meng labeled, but identical. They work great, but not much better than the good Tamiya nipper, which is a bit more sturdy construction wise and fits better into a bigger hand. The idea of DSPIAE is to use one blunt side to counter the sharp bladed side for cutting (not squeezing) the plastic. Because of that design, it still is necessary to use some scalpels or grinding tools on the cut, not better than the two-bladed Tamiya for me . But as a tool nerd like Hubert mentioned, the DSPIAE is just perfectly manufactured, has a leather cap, … Sorry for being OT Cheers Rob

Very nice little dio with some dynamic in the setting. One little thought, the uniforms should be matted a little, then you have a nice and realistic contrast between helmets and equal coloured tunics. Cheers Rob

They paddled from Germany, because the Dinghy guys weren't available from other sources nearer to my tiny island. They will be saved in my little Walrus dio, including a gull. Cheers Rob

Thanks Gus, the fine rendition of the kit makes it easier than thought. Cheers Rob

Today I closed the interior of the Nautilus. A lot of micro painting was necessary and I mean micro, it's 1/144 . The floor was masked for two Colour appearance as where the bookshelves, which were painted red brown and then varnished with clear orange to get a noble shine. The etched railings, heraldics and ceiling ornaments where burnished. I chose warm Colours to enhance the comfy effect with the lighting. Not much will be seen trough the multi facetted windows though, which were treated with Future to get a better transparency. All inside areas were painted with black primer to hinder unwanted light emission. Cheers Rob

I have a veeeeery sloooow internet . Cheers Rob

Ernie, as I'm no scientist, I actually can't tell you. There appears to be a correlation between availability of testing and the quota of infections. Some people far more educated than me mentioned exactly that, when they spoke about the enormous death quotas in Italy and later here in Spain. The quota for at least one reason might only be that high, because testing was not widely available and many infected where undetected. I think there is a lot to be learned of the statistics, but given the way the numbers were gathered and the luckily still low numbers (they still use per 100.000 people), it's hard to give meaningful statistics. With improved algorithms and more founded databases (as an ex big-data-analyst), we will learn a lot, but it takes time. Clearly not everything can be extracted from statistics, specially not when the interpretation of results is subjected by different interests. Cheers Rob

And he is save for sure Cheers Rob

Great attention to the detail concerning used materials in reality and the concerning effects reproduce them. I second that, what a great fake translucency. Cheers Rob

In normal times I may haven't posted this, but without mail for more than two weeks this arrived my bench. Some 08/15 for my Fokker D.VIII, a Sherman barrel and British pilots, some of them in a dinghy for my planned 1/48 scale Walrus dio. Cheers Rob