All change

I've had a change around at home. My normal room to do my modelling is at the back of the garage in the spare room but with the cold weather now here it was time to move back inside for the duration. It's looking very tidy at the moment.

During the last week or two i have brought some new kits, namely the new Airfix releases. The FA.2 sea harrier looks like a very nice kit and so does the Mk IX spitfire . I also got the Corsair , i know it's an old kit but it's an aircraft i like .

The only problem at the moment is that i have had to leave my compressor and airbrushes outside in the other room for now . I have seen quite a cheap spray booth so i may get that after Christmas.

Kits on the go at the moment are the first of three Javelin's and the Corsair. The corsair is a very basic kit with lots of raised detail but is does include (in my opinion) some nice marking's.

Javelin

I'm not normally a lucky person but whilst on the long journey to Telford last month i happened to mention to my friend that i was looking for an Airfix Javelin. He said to me that he" may have one in the loft if i was interested", "oh yes " says i . A few days later at work he asked me if i would like to buy a special package consisting of two 1/72 Javelin FAW9/9R and a 1/72 Javelin T.3 plus some reference material as well all for £10.

I BET YOU CAN'T GUESS WHAT I SAID TO HIM ?

About time too

I have managed to finish the Tamiya FW190 F9 at last. I made a few mistakes on the way but it looks good to me and that's all that counts. Amongst the few problems were, The mottle went wrong (my fault for not following people's advice), gear retraction arms put on upside down (my fault for not looking at instruction's properly) and whilst cutting off the final part from the sprue(the step) it snapped in half and was lost forever on the floor (not my fault). I did enjoy this one , well i must of because i wanted to keep going back to it which is more than could be said for the Xtrakit spitfire XII. I keep looking at it and it just doesn't seem right, the gear doors are either too short or I've put them on wrong (quite possible), anyway it has just been put back on the shelf for another day.

State of play

Right !

At the moment everything is on hold, my wife is in quarantine with swine flu and i have been trying to sort the kids out and juggle my shift work. With some help from the in- laws i think we may have pulled it off.

My normal reaction when i can't get to do some modelling is to go and get some kits out of the stash and have a good read through the instructions and work out which paints I'll need for the job. If you were to look inside the lid of most of my kits now you'll find lots of numbers, i tell my daughter they are secret codes, i think she has now realised that they are just paint numbers.

A picture at last

This is a the Spitfire Mk XII that i have finished painting and decaling. At the moment this kit has it's undercarriage legs on and awaiting the rest of the sticky out bits and then the canopy and varnish coat.

A bit too far

Oh well i managed to make Telford this year but to be honest i wasn't that impressed. I think the journey up there took the edge off of what should have been a good day out.

It was great to see the Airfix 1/24 Mosquito and some of the other Airfix bits. The Revell 1/32 Typhoon looked stunning and so did the Tamiya 1/32 Spitfire.

The only thing i bought was the Kinetic 1/48 F-16 Nato kit, with over 450 parts it's a very heavy box and it only cost me £23, that's' a bargain to me. The only problem i see with this F-16 at the moment is that i think I'm going to want all of them.

Hmm what will i run out of first, money or space ?.................

Telford favourites

side by side

Last night i started my next two models, both are 1/72 and both are from WWII.

The Xtrakit Spitfire XII and another Revell Fw190 F8. As the Spitfire only flew with two squadrons (41/91), my options are a bit limited, but the Fw190 is open to a few choices at the moment. I had painted the interiors on the sprues a couple of days ago so again it it was time to cut them free, tidy them up and stick them together. Even though the Spitfire is a sort of limited run kit with no locating pins it has still gone together well, the only bit of filler i am going to need will be at the wing roots. The Revell kit on the other hand seems to have slipped together, the top cowling went into place so well that i forgot that i hadn't glued it after dry fitting.

Tamiya have recently started to sell their metallic colours again and i used them last night for the first time, i must say I'm impressed.

I must be ill !

Yesterday on my meal break at work i had a little walk around Romford, i went into Modelzone and came out with nothing and then went in Hobbycraft and came out with nothing. I don't think i even picked anything up, What's the matter with me ?.

I've managed to talk one of my fellow modellers into a trip to Telford on the 8th November, Perhaps i am subconsciously saving my money for that.

HOLD ON !

I did buy something yesterday, i bought some paint online (phew).

That's more like it.

Ok, the Hurricane has been worked on for a couple of days now and it looks a bit better, i got a coat of 'klear' on it last night so i can hopefully get the decals on tonight. The Fw190 has just had the undersides and sides sprayed with RLM 65 because that's what the instructions said. I have gone back to one of my books and it says that RLM 76 was the underside colour for most of the 190's, I'll be honest and admit that i can't really tell the difference apart from RLM65 looks slightly more 'blueish' than RLM 76. Oh Well !

I only have these two on the table at the minute so i have been starting to look at my next model it's going to be either the 1/72 Me262 or 1/72 Bf109 G6 both from Academy, in fact i have started to get all the bits that are RLM 66 painted up. At the moment I'm swinging towards the 109 only because there is an article in one of this months magazines.

That time of year

I have just started to compile my wish list for christmas. I know it's a bit early but if i start it now hopefully i will have got the kits i want before then and so i could start a new list.

• Hasegawa 1/32 Fw190 A-5
• Airfix 1/72 fighter collection
• Dragon 1/48 Focke wulf Ta152c

Really enjoyed this one

Not an aircraft that would be in my top ten but certainly a kit of it that would. A very nicely detailed cockpit and choice of canopies made this into one of my favourites in the cabinet. The only problem with it was of my own doing and that was the two black stripes on the tail went on a bit wonky.

My place of worship !

Just a few pictures of my Model room. The Fw 190 on the mat was the one that i started last night.

That'll teach me

I was trying to rush painting the Hurricane and it's all gone horribly wrong. I tried spraying the final colour without fully masking it up, and boy what a mess !

On the plus side it got me started on the 1/48 tamiya Fw190 F8/9, i can't believe how good a fit everything has been so far. Last week i had painted all the bits i could whilst they were still on the sprues, so it was just a case of dropping it all together.

For this project i am going to try and replace the gun barrels with some brass tubing and see what it looks like.

One of my Favourite kits ever

The 1/72 Revell Fw190 R11 (i think, can't remember now), it really is a great little kit and for under a fiver you can't go wrong.

My work station

This is my desk / workstaion call it what you will (the wife calls it a mess). You can see the 1/48 airfix spitfire Mk 22/24 sitting there in it's primer.

My little baby

I have just recently bought a compressor for my sins. Although i have 3 airbrushes the Aztec seems to to suit me well at the moment, i know some people can't stand them but i think it's a decent airbrush. I got mine for a decent price so i'm happy with it.

What's on the table

Well at the moment i have a 1/72 Revell Hurricane that is just waiting for it's final coat of paint and I'm just adding the final little bits to an Italeri Mirage III in Royal Australian colours.

I have just started my long weekend today so i should be able to get a couple of nights of good modelling time in.

I will post some pictures soon.

Hello

This blog will be about my love for model aircraft. Millie is my 20 month old baby who tries her best to stop my modelling time.

I mainly do 1/48 aircraft but i will go smaller and sometimes larger, as long as it doesn't require any sort of rigging.