HubertB

Wow ! What an update. Chris Watton is really a master at designing these historical ships, and you’re doing his work justice, Jim ! Keep it coming Hubert.

Gotta love Mustang racers. I’m 200 % with you on this one, John. I was lucky enough to fetch Fisher’s Red Baron, and an even rarer resin « Voodoo » (in the purple livery with the checkerboard trim). And I got the ZM Mk IV for converting it to a racer. Whilst not as « good » as the Tamiya one, it has the benefit of 3 different canopies, and 2 props (well, at least I think I recall this correctly) Hubert

Hubert

Nowadays, I try to store the AM in the relevant kit box. That way, it a) saves some space b) gathers everything together for the time comes when I want to build the kit, and c) make sure I know where to find it, as the issue is more to remember that I have already bought the item (see ? You’re not alone) Just yesterday, I was trying to remember where I had put the Kagero decal sheet for the 1/32 Ar-196. I knew it was not in the box, but where was it ? I finally found it, in the original Kagero book, but that was not an instantaneous find. Another day, I was about to hit the « purchase » button for a Master probe for the EE Lightning, when I had the idea to check the box first. An extra expense avoided ! Oh well, all the doubles will make for great gifts in the Christmas draw Hubert

Looks like a modernized SG-38 Schulgleiter Hubert

Great rescue John ! Mine’s buried in the middle of a palet I have no intention of unstacking until the next move, but I am really tempted to dig now 👍 ! Hubert

Well understood, Martin. Still, that this scheme was included in the draw is a real lack of political sensivity. Mind you, I was reading that Reedoak has never sold more Russian pilot figures than in the last 6 months … Hubert

Great job, Peter 👍 ! And it’s good to read you are getting over the after-effects of the chemotherapy. This is a medical area that has made tremendous progress in the last decades. But, whilst less overly debilitating than old chemos, the new ones are not (yet ?) without side effects. Living with a wife who has overcome 5 cancers, 4 of them with chemotherapy, I have a first-hand experience of what it can be … Hubert

Nice job, Martin. A pity the chosen scheme was one of a Russian invader. Hubert

I believe Peter lost interest in this one … And frankly, it’s ugly as hell … Hubert.

What they said ! Hubert

One last word about this strategic subject: blunt blades are the surest way to get hurt. You add pressure to achieve the cut, et voilà, the blade slips into an unsuspecting finger, ouch … Plus, new blades will not always prevent you from the occasional slip, but the cut will be much cleaner, and will thus heal better and faster than a cut with a blunter blade … Morality: change blades as often as possible, and even more frequently than that. Also, the Swann-Morton blades are wrapped individually. Use the wrapping paper to rewrap the old, discarded, blade. You do not want someone emptying your waste basket to spill blood on it, do you ? Hubert

Air bubbles are an inevitable by-product of resin, where you mix two viscous components, and, in doing so, you introduce air in the mix. Two solutions to get rid of the bubbles: pour the resin mix slowly from high up. You get a very thin filet of resin, and a number of bubbles will be eliminated in the process, but unfortunately not all. Better, and more professional: first get your resin pot in a vacuum tank, to extract the air bubbles. The mix will foam, but most of the air will be thus evacuated. Then, during the curing of the part, get it under pressure in a pressure tank, like a pressure cooker. The remaining small air bubbles will be « pushed » and compressed into the core of the part. That’s probably what Paul was doing Hubert

I honestly can’t remember, but not much. Surgical scalpels are really mass-produced items … Plus, being stainless steel, they have a better, « beefier » feeling in the hand compared to X-Acto’s aluminium handles. Hubert

One of the benefits of the shape of the Panther, and of Fisher’s kit design : the gaps are placed where they will be « easy » to fill. Great job, and glad this one will keep flying to Toko-Ri, rather than back to the SOD … Hubert

+1 ! it’s like comparing a spoon and a knife for cutting a steak. You can find large packs of Swann-Morton blades on the net. Just go for the « non-sterile » ones to save some pennies … Hubert

You are being harsh on ZM, Kevin. Although the sheer complexity of the kit, typical of ZM, makes it prone for building mistakes, as Gary and Bill have shown, it is still probably the best 1/32 109 you can find on the market (and I say that whilst I will never ever buy or build any Nazi model). It’s no secret the kit was designed for ZM by Radu Brinzan, who knows his trade, both modelling and real aviation. Definitely not a « B » team there. I respect his work immensely, even if I am not a fan of the character he too often displays on LSP … Hubert

And I’ll buy one, of course 🕺 ! Hubert

YEAH ! IIRC, it was first announced in 2006. So that’s a 17/18 years development at least Hubert

I’d use plastic shims. And yes, epoxy glue is the way to go … Hubert.

FWIW, most PU resins have a standard 3% shrinkage spec. Finding a resin with less than that is really hard work. But what’s worse is that the shrinkage factor is not constant and reproduceable … So factoring shrinkage in is a dark art rather than a mathematical formula … Hubert

Well done, Gary. Of course, you would have preferred not to have this work to do, but the fix seems relatively easy for a proficient modeller like you. Hubert

Good news is you believe you were thinking … Just my Hubert

Sorry, but you can’t really be stuck in traffic when driving a tank. Just get into first gear and move on (and up, and above) … One of the reasons I do not want to drive in Paris anymore is that no car-rental company offers a Leclerc for rent … A pity, because it would make my driving there a lot smoother. Plus that MG would help keep a number of annoying scooters, bikes, mopeds and motorcycles at bay Hubert

I’d test it on a non-transparent part of the canopy first (like the rear portion which is painted over in GSB on the aircraft), but ordinary white-spirit is excellent to remove the glue goo from old tape. Whilst this would be sure to mar a polystyrene clear canopy, it may be different on the resin used for Fisher kits, hopefully PU based. Acetone is also good, but probably far too agressive for resin. As for alcohol, I never really had any success on this type of glue, where removing the glue was more a result of the physical action of rubbing than the chemical interaction with glue residents. HTH Hubert