Nobody Significant

OMG, that's just beautiful work. Very, very impressive! Question: Are the same Vallejo flanker colours the good for use on a SU-34 Fullback do you know? I also use Vallejo Model Air (along with good old Tamiya) paints, and I happen to have the Hobby Boss 1/48th Su-34 in my stash... 😉

My blessed father passed away in 2016 aged 88, and I miss him every day! Just typing this is making me "well-up"..... I keep trying to think of ways to honour his memory. He was an armaments fitter in the RAAF 1948-58, was posted to several units all over Australia in his time, and had tales of bombs, guns, and turrets that I can still (mostly) remember to this day, and that would make any modern Health & Safety-conscious person weep! I wish I had written them all down! I could have a book? If anybody is interested, he worked on the following aircraft (in no particular order): North American P-51D Mustang (Dad called it: "the armourer's dream") Avro Lincoln Bristol Beaufighter De Haviland Mosquito Consolidated PBY Catalina Lockheed P-2 Neptune Gloster Meteor De Haviland Vampire North American F-86 Sabre English Electric Canberra

Indeed. That was the very last time I ever try to sell anything on eBay. I can only hope somebody is spreading the word on social media about Mr Paul Jenkinson of Felixstowe being a scammer.... I hope he chokes on the bl**dy kit, I really do. Not that I'm bitter or angry at all you understand... 😡

Underside done and looking good to my eye. Now on to the epic masking job in readiness to start the camo. When it's upside-down, got to be extra careful not to damage the refuelling probe that sticks out just above the cockpit - hence it's balancing on an old chinese takeout container.

Made a little progress. When it comes to pre-shading, it's a big aircraft! Even in the tiny 1/72nd scale... (that's an A3-sized cutting mat) This also makes me wonder if I might have parkinson's my lines are so wobbly...

I too do stuff that only I'll know is there in the end. See my Shinkai 6500 submersible in the ships gallery, or any of my TIE Fighters as just some examples....! I don't know why I bother? But I do. But I don't care if they're 100% perfectly accurate, just so long as they "appear" accurate/realistic/insert-your-adjective-here to my eye.

I started this a couple of months ago, but have done nothing for at least a month now. I know.... I know.... I did tell you guys I was a slow builder. It all depends on my "modelling mojo", which fluctuates wildly throughout the year. I need to extract the proverbial digit from the proverbial orifice! The intention is to build the 1982 "Operation Black Buck" variant as supplied in the box. I love a nice camo-job. I have added the Eduard cockpit PE set, and am using the Eduard masks out of sheer laziness, but that's it. In all other respects this is an OOB build. I'll add updates here as I (eventually) make them. Drilled out the holes in the airbrake hinges. Was surprised at the amount of flash on such a recent new-tool kit. Liquid gravity in the nose (both sides!) to stop it being a tail-sitter.

Personally I swear by Vallejo 28518 Acrylic Matt Varnish. Thin 50/50 with plain tap-water and it goes through the airbrush lovely. Dries quickly. Don't worry too much about pooling (as long as you don't go crazy), as it seems to settle and self-level nicely giving a great smooth matt finish that really seems to "finish" the model perfectly IMVHO. But as the saying goes "your mileage may vary". This is just what works for me. I had a horrible calamity with Tamiya X21 flat base once, and wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole. That's why I now use the Vallejo matt varnish, and I have never ever had any issues with it myself.

New information as the story progresses. Now that they have both the kit, and my money, the scammer now has the kit for free. But I discovered recently that, and this just double-confirms that they are a scammer, they have closed their eBay account! So be warned, double-check your buyers if you sell through eBay. The buyer's scammer's (now closed) handle in eBay was "Marssojourner97", although they are actually the following real person: Paul Jenkinson 352 High Road Trimley St. Martin Felixstowe Suffolk IP11 0RT I'm not on FaceBook or any other social media, but if somebody who is wanted to spread the word to avoid any business transactions with this scammer, please feel free...

Build number 22, completed in March 2020. This was a quick-build I did as a filler between bigger projects by simply grabbing something at random from the stash. Completely OOB except for replacing the tips of the gun-barrels with brass rod just because I wasn't sure how study the supplied super-thin plastic things would be. I can be pretty cack-handed when I'm not paying attention, and they looked likely to snap in transport. Oh, and I painted most of the markings rather than using the supplied decals. But otherwise an OOB quick-build. And this brings me up-to-date with all the kits I have built since I re-discovered the hobby in 2011. From now on, my (super slow!) build-rate means my projects will probably get posted in the relevant in-progress sections rather than the galleries. But don't hold your breaths. 😉 Gun barrels replaced with brass rod purely to increase their resilience to snapping. BB-8 on the top of a cocktail stick.

Build number 21, completed in 2019. I replaced the solid-plastic sample baskets with scratch-built mesh ones for a more realistic look, and I completely removed and replaced the simplistic two-LED lighting system supplied. Instead this little sub now has a new cool-white 3mm LED "headlight", a new warm-white 3mm interior cabin light, and six 0402 SMD-LED spot lights, all powered from a couple of AAA batteries hidden in the hull. I also replaced the moulded-on grab-handles on the front, and the moulded-on cages over the sticky-outy-things on the top with new ones made from bent wire (paper clips are great for this sort of thing). Fantastic detail in the pressure-sphere... ... Which you cannot see AT ALL once the sphere is closed-up. I don't know why I bother, I really don't....! Replacement sample baskets under construction. Not perfect, but better than the solid-plastic things supplied in the kit. New grab-handles from bent paper-clips, and wiring for the new spotlight LEDs. Fake fish-tank rock from a pet store. If you look carefully, you can just see the interior cabin light through the tiny portholes.

My 20th finished kit since re-starting the hobby, completed in 2019. The only extras for the kit itself were the GreenStrawberry PE landing gear baffles and engine exhaust vents. I also scratch-built some pipe-detail to hang down from the landing gear bays. For the base I must give a shout-out to 3D-print designer AgeOfPlastic on the ShapeWays web-site. In the movie “The Force Awakens” when the audience see the Falcon for the first time as Rey and Finn run towards it (“…The garbage will do!…”), the ship is sitting in a junkyard on the planet Jakku, partially covered by a couple of ripped tarpaulins. Surrounding the Falcon in a neat circle are about twelve vaguely-triangular concrete thingies. They seem to be used as tie-downs for the old tattered and ripped tarps, and so I went onto ShapeWays looking for something that I could use or adapt to act as rough representations of these tie-down concrete thingies. I was just hoping for anything that was vaguely the right size and shape - I’m no rivet counter! In my searches I got chatting via the web-site message boards with AgeOfPlastic on a slightly different topic and, long-story-short, he ended up researching and custom-designing the exactly correct tie-down things for 3D-printing by ShapeWays! So a big Thank You to AgeOfPlastic, whoever and wherever you are. Whilst I was there, I also bought some tiny 3D-printed Star Wars crates and Moisture Vaporators from ShapeWays to act as more location set-dressing for the junkyard. I was not going to try and make an exact replica of what was seen on screen as a display base for my little Falcon, but I did want it to be close enough to the real set that it was recognisable for what I was aiming at. 3D-printed parts are not cheap however, and even at this tiny size, that little lot cost me almost as much as the original kit did! Unfortunately, the top “aerial-thingy” on the Vaporators was far too thin and flimsy at this scale, so I had to think of replacement options. I had some 0.5mm brass rod that looked like a sturdier replacement. However, after cutting the “aerial” off, I discovered that plastic used in the 3D-printing process was far too brittle because, when I tried to drill a hole to accept the brass rod, the plastic just started crumbling! Lesson learned. So I had to cut off the whole top-section of both vaporators, and replace with styrene rod, into which I could drill a hole into to accept the brass rod. Harrumph. After spending all that money, I wasn’t happy, but the parts were extremely tiny. Cockpit painted. All this was practically invisible when the cockpit was closed-up, so I don't know why I bother! GreenStrawberry replacement PE landing gear baffles. Adding battle damage. GreenStrawberry PE engine vent grills. 3D printed moisture vaporators from ShapeWays. Template for placement of the 3D printed concrete tie-down thingies. This model was also to be seen displayed on my club stand at Scale Model World 2019 in Telford, as noticed by a YouTuber in his video. Blink and you miss it....! Skip to time code 6:49...

Build number 19, completed late 2018. These were bought and built simply to add a little verisimilitude to the my Sea King build from earlier in the year. My intention had been to include them on the base with the Sea King at my club's annual end-of-year competition. Only to be told that doing so would change the Sea King from an "Aircraft" into a "Diorama", and hence into a different category competing with the AFV dio builders, and completely out-classed (pun intended). So it was only At telford could I normally display the two together as intended! Harrumph! Anyway, here are the little U.S. Navy Tractor and "Spotting Dolly" that were used by the USN from the mid-1950's until the late 1980's.

Build number 18, completed in 2018. After the Sea King, back into my Star Wars phase. This was done mainly to complete all of the various TIE Fighters that I had in my stash. There is one other Force Awakens TIE Fighter available to buy, but I wasn't fussed as it was so similar to this I didn't see the point. This version had some red panelling to ad visual interest, and a rear-facing gunner to operate the belly-guns. But apart from the red panelling, you would need to squint to spot the difference... This was build completely OOB, but painted a mix of Tamiya X-10 Gunmetal and XF-1 Black, as I thought plain black wasn't right. These are actually difficult bu**ers to get the colour right on as the metallic sheen means they look completely different colour in different lighting conditions. The solar panels were XF-2 White with just a few drops of XF-16 Aluminium to take the edge off. I was actually after a white with a metallic sheen, but failed? The red panel was hand-mixed by eye from various Tamiya colours, so I couldn't give an exact match. Still not completely happy with the overall colour though? I wanted an "almost black" with a metallic sheen, but as a quick-build it was "satisfactory" is as generous as I'll be.

Build number 17 in my re-discovery of the hobby, completed in 2018. I took a break from my Star Wars phase. For this I went to town a bit. The full "Big Ed" set of PE and masks etc from Eduard, of which I used most, but not all, of the stuff supplied. Then for extra bling, I also added a RavenScale Models Beacons Lighting kit. This gives the port and starboard red and green nav-lights, a red blinking beacon on the tail, a flashing strobe under the chin, and the white nav lights in the nose. All powered from a couple of button-cell batteries hidden up the sonar buoy tube underneath. A magnetic reed switch turns it all on and off hidden in the fuselage, you just brush a magnet near the switch. For the last few pictures below, I also added build number 19 the Skunkmodels tractor and spotting dolly vehicles, which are correct to the mid-1960's period scheme the Sea King is painted. See the vehicles section for more details on these two little support vehicles. Hope you think this glue-bomb isn't too bad. 😉