BlrwestSiR

I decided to jump on the Tamiya chemicals bandwagon and picked some up from my LHS. It was easy as they had a sale on. The lacquer thinner with retarder is Tamiya's version of Mr Color Levelling thinner, which has gone up in price by a third since last year. On a per 100ml price the Tamiya worked out cheaper so I went with that. The other purchase was a Gundam kit. Oddly, I don't have many of these in the stash even though I have a fair bit of mecha. To make it more interesting, this is in the Super Deformed ("Egg plane") style.

Jimmy felt the same way...

Martin, you could try using Mr Surfacer to replicate the framing. Mask off the inner and outer edges of the frame, then apart Mr Surfacer 500. You'll need to thin it and it'll take a few coats to build up. It won't be as proud as the original but at least won't be flush.

I haven't had as much time at the bench over the last couple weeks as I thought. When I have been there, I've had a bad case of the squirrels and worked on other stuff. Like a Su-122-54 and then a Jota SVR... So I finally did something ,even if it was a little bit on the Vosper. I got the rear cabin wall mostly done so sprayed a coat of primer on it to see how things look. I'll add a coat of white to the primer to make it opaque and then add some wiring to it. I'll still trying to figure out the best approach to the windows and how to paint things.

Like Peter said, a nice start. I built this kit years ago. I had the Alcock and Brown version which came with replacement seats and wheels cast in white metal. Carl

Nice job on re-contouring the fuselage. Definitely less bloated looking.

I still can't believe I sent the wrong spinner and back plates to you. I'm glad you've been able to work around that. Still feel bad though for making the extra work for you.

That is one big pair of glasses. Absolutely stunning diorama.

A very detailed 1/12 car model of the Jaguar that raced at LeMans in the early '90s. Multi-media kit so resin, white metal, machined aluminum, PE, rubber and vac parts.

Nice work Peter. The main seams all look good overall. The glass looks fine and the sprue attachment point isn't as bad as the one on Tamiya's 1/32 F-4 kits. Can't wait to see what it looks like under a coat of paint. As for the Barracuda bits, I wonder if Roy has several moulds that he uses and some may have shrunk/degraded. I have two of the Tempest nose corrections and one is way off dimensionally while the other is almost a perfect match to the fuselage.

Here's the link to the how-to I did.

Nice! Our house is way too small for a man cave. I'm lucky to have the space I do in the basement. Great collection of diecasts too.

Very, very jealous. Nobody around here has them much less second for cheaper.

I've used lots of Montex masks and they generally have worked very well and I've gotten great results with them. Masks are my preferred way to do markings in 1/32, especially things like roundels and large codes. I think I posted a how-to on here. If you have any questions about how to do them, just ask. This is my Tamiya Mossie with painted on roundels and fin flash. Code letters weren't available at the time so I had to use decals for those. One thing though. Like all masks made from vinyl, they can deform with age. Mostly due to shrinkage after cutting. Here's a set of Montex masks for the Trumpeter P-40. I bought them for the Hobby craft boxing of the kit so they're fairly old, probably about 10 years. I can probably make these work if I take my time to line things up carefully but they won't always fit together perfectly. Carl

We ended up with thunder snow and I got to watch lightning and thunder as the snow came down. Definitely an interesting phenomenon. There's about 15cm of snow so only about half the worst case estimate they gave in the forecast. Time to dig out.

I've got a hair dryer relegated to my bench thanks to the handle being held together with tape. That's what I thought you had as well.

Glad to hear you're both okay. The same storm is due to hit us any moment now and drop 10-30 cm of fluffy white stuff on us.

Nice start John. I'm a bit surprised about the gunsight and that ICM missed it considering they did so many new parts for this variant.

Peter, don't forget Mark is in Europe so what he has may not be available in North America. Home Depot in Canada has LEDs where you can adjust the wavelength from 3K to 6k depending on the use. I imagine they should have those in the US as well. I'm using a pair of 48" work lights over my bench I got from Costco. They give off way more light than I used to have and were fairly inexpensive too.

The Catalina is progressing along nicely Chris. If I recall, the main wing is a fairly solid fit and I didn't have any alignment issues with it. For the tailplanes, it may be a good idea to run a brass rod and pin them to get a more solid mount. Revell did a boxing of Cousteau's PBY in 1/72 along with his Calypso.

Been wanting to see a Counter Invader build so this will be one to follow. Carl

A friend has a Series III 110 pickup. The ride was always incredibly stiff. One time a bunch of us went mountain biking and when we were done we all piled into his truck at the trailhead. 8 of us and our bikes crammed in. As we drove down the trail road, my friend commented that the Defender had never ridden so smoothly before due to us all loaded in there. Meantime my colleague's husband traded in one of the last Canadian Defender 90s sold here for the new one. I didn't say anything but that was a trade down in my eyes.

It's easy at the LHS near my work. I'd say more than 2/3 of the shop is dedicated to paint, tools and supplies with just the front section containing kits. Their Gunze section is almost a full aisle 15 ft long.

More Bond, James Bond stuff. Except it's the bad guys this time. Nicely done conversion for the recent Revell Land Rover.

Never built the Hasegawa one but I completely botched the Eduard version. Unless that was a Tempest?