HubertB

Ok. I stand corrected on the tank type. My apologies for the wrong information. Hubert

Airfix had 1/600, Heller 1/400, Hasegawa 1/450, Revell had anything between 1/96 and 1/540, and there were the odds and ends of Lindberg, Aurora , Renwall. I remember a friend of my father had scratchbuilt a fleet in 1/500. His son is today a respected (French) author of historical books on ships. So, yes there was no standard at the time, as far as plastic models were concerned. But paper models had already standardised on 1/250 for the largest battlewagons, and sometimes 1/200 for ships like destroyers. The « historic » scales by Airfix and Heller were wiped out by Tamiya’s 1/350, and their subsequent followers. And 1/700, half of 1/350, overtook 1/600. All arithmetically linked to a box-size tank kit. Good marketing by Tamiya and a testament of their strength on the market. But they could have done 1/300 just as easily. I personally believe the « right » scale for big ships is 1/200. They have a real presence. Trumpeter revived 1/32, and they are also getting it right for ships now IMHO. Just my two cents, of course Hubert

Tamiya’s first tank kit, a Tiger (of course, some Nazi stuff, what else ?) was more like battery- and box-sized. Later, they found out that the scale was close to 1/35, so they carried on with it for the following kits, and it became a (frustrating) standard At least 1/32 was based on the weird Imperial fraction ratios... To compound the nightmare, they then « invented » 1/350 scale - 10 times smaller, in one dimension, so 1000 times smaller volume-wise - for ship models. And now, some smart @#&&es thought helicopters should be 1/35 to be consistent with armor kits, although I have yet to see a diorama mixing a helo with some armor or even soft-skinned vehicles As you can guess, I am a great fan of Tamiya San’s abomination Hubert

Very nice one Harv ! And congrats on finishing it so fast ! If I may, the tracks look a bit too clean when you went to town on weathering the hull and wheel-train. Hubert

Happy B’day+1, Ernie ! (and whatever « special » you do with Joy that day is none of our business ... ) Hubert

Before we speculate whether this kit, or others, are legitimately produced, let’s remember a few facts: - Molds, aka toolings, are generally produced by a specialised company, and paid for by the ultimate user. They belong to this end user, as long as they have been duly, and completely, accepted by the end user after trials, and paid for in full. Only when the tooling has been paid for, after acceptance trials, by the end user, is property of said tooling transferred to the end user. I remember reading somewhere that the Pegasus 1/32 Spirit of St Louis was never released because the Korean mold-maker and Pegasus were in conflict and the final payment never made. Maybe it’s just another urban legend, but it illustrates my point. I also believe the B-25 story is in the same vein. - When injection-molding is subcontracted, the tooling belongs to whomever paid for it. Sometimes, end users subcontract injection and ask the injecter to pre-finance the tooling, and recoup its cost in the cost-per-part until the nth production run. A contractual agreement, between the two parties, will settle who will be the end owner of the tooling and after how many parts. Until the contractual terms are reached, the toolings belong to whom paid for it, then the ownership might be transferred. - WnW have announced they were going to dispose of their assets. So, there are plenty of legitimate or legal reasons why Meng might have ended-up with WnW’s Dr-1 tooling, without going into « unlawful-Chinese » speculations. As pointed above by Carl, we just are not privvy with the details. Just my Hubert

I love meat balls, but not the point of crossing half an Ikea store to eat them Hubert

I have three tricks to resist the Ikea brain-washing system (which must be called something else in Swedish, like « « brøenwetstag », or something close ) : 1) spot - and use - the shortcuts to avoid the twenty-mile long crawling through the store, 2) prepare your shopping-list on internet before going to the store. Their system is so good you know the store-stock, and the position of what you want to buy, 3) last but not least, and that’s my most efficient trick, refuse flat-out to go there HTH Hubert

Until the same individual takes a brutal economic driven decision and lays off overnight the talented team that helped him live his dream Just my Hubert

Gotta say that, although the Dr-1 was an obvious - and long-overdue, like French fighters - choice for WnW to do, I was personally never hyped-up about it. Good to see that the molds seem to get a deserved second life, though. Hubert

Yes, be extra careful, Ernie, Texas stats are not looking good, especially if you add the extra "pneumonia" deaths in the state (funny, they have quadrupled, but nooooo ... they are not Covid-19 deaths ) Masks do not protect yourself (at least those which are not FFP-2), but they protect all the others. So, if everyone wears a mask, then each one is protecting all the others. Simple logic, but the example has to come from the top ... I stop here, because this post is veering too much into politics already. Hubert

You guys mean the "LanciO StratUs" of course ? Hubert

I just love the « Swidish » Hubert

I could volunteer, once I get mine, but then Harv would be even more right Hubert

Keeping on the cardboard model side, found this for you : https://modelik.pl/0905-jupiter-p-432.html https://sklep.gpm.pl/modele-kartonowe/kolejki/1/45-43/hcp-1-6-2-bulgar-145 One is streamlined but not American, the other American, but not streamlined. Both shops in the links are worth exploring more. O scale is 1/43 - 1/45 IIRC. Here is a more general link to train cardboard models : https://modelik.pl/pojazdy-szynowe-c-25.html Hubert

So do Trumpeter. And IIRC, Revell had some HO steam locs, and Airfix has some old HO kits as well, some of which can be found on eBay. I am sure there are a lot more models, including in resin and brass in O Scale. Probably if you check on Kalmbach’s dedicated magazines and forums you will find more than what is suggested above. Last, but not least, there are some absolutely spectacular cardboard/paper models from Polish companies, like Orlik, and others I can’t remember the name of, in 1/25 scale. Good news is they require far more guts than bucks to get an outstanding mantelpiece eyecatcher. Bad news is exactly the same , but then for someone who tackled rebuilding an old muscle car, the guts must be there aplenty HTH Hubert

So it seems we are back to Dr Freud’s conjectures for why one chooses this length of stick Hubert

Most likely, but the total answer is, from others’ experience, you will never have your antenna tensioned identically twice in your model’s life ... Hubert

i hope everything turns out OK for you in the end, CAT. A word of warning about using hair for aerials. Hair are sensitive to ambient humidity. Which means your antennas will sag if the atmoshpere gets a bit humid, as the hair gets longer. So it's definitely not as good as other materials like stretched sprue, monofilament or elastic yhread Take care. Hubert

Very nice Albatros. And don’t worry about the long time. I still have an unfinished Aichi Hansa (a Hispano-powered, Japanese licence-built, W-29). I started scratchbuilding it in 2008, BEFORE WnW launched its kit, and also before it went OOP with WnW Hubert

Tuning Vespas is a thing for teenagers in suburban dwellings, Ernie. Talk about a 40s’ crisis Hubert

So the lesson seems that, when the plating is well done (i.e. a primer varnish and a -rather thick- homogeneous metallized plating) like in these old 70’s truck kits, the traditional cleaning methods will struggle ... You need to break through the surface tension on the metal plating, and for this you need micro-asperities, that will give a « bite » to the paint stripper. Just like champagne : you need micro defects in the cristal, or dust particles, for the bubbles to form ... Lesson stored for future use Hubert

Hubert

Don’t hesitate to make me an offer . It’s a nice kit, not without its fault, but it turns out into a nice result everytime I have seen one finished. The AM I bought can contribute to making it even more stunning. I was thinking of kitbashing it with the Revell kit to correct the slightly too blunt wing-root radiators, and the Revell kit is a (free) part of my package If i can remember where I put it, I will add the Tasman vac-form transparencies, I KNOW I have, but where ? And there is no beating the slender looks of a glass-nosed Mossie Hubert

On its way ... Now in the hands of the Portuguese, then Canadian Post Office, which is a lifetime adventure in itself, I understand Hubert