RWG686

I'll hold you to that! Looks quite a beast.

I'll take a seat and watch if I may? The big Sukhoi is one of my favourites. If you need any info just shout as I have a few books on the subject.

Windows came out not to bad. They have still to have the 'rubber' surround added. A start made to the many bits and bobs stuck to the airframe, the door made and a brass rod inserted just to show my intentions for the sponsons.

Mach Says he in a nervous whisper 5 new windows in place and masked. They have since been filled. Tomorrow will show if that worked. You may also notice that I have removed the sponsons. On the real machine they are not flush with the fuselage and there is a noticeable gap. I scribed a trench between them and the fuselage to try and save me some work but it didn't look right so off they came.

I see that the famed Scottish generosity has been well and truly removed by your new masters on the wrong side of the wall. Hopefully the package (of most likely well squished contents) crawling its way to you will help restore some of it.

I met these fellows this afternoon

True Also true but as there was talk of a car group build I salted it down until it appears. Capital letters please! Save your energy for the Wessex or Sea King to go with your next lifeboat.

I had hoped to get to Malta when they were working there but never did. Same with Israel so the only ones I've seen have been French Navy ones. Only ever saw one fly unfortunately.

This isn't really a work in progress as it is a renovation of an already competed kit which got broken in a house move. I had already stripped the paint and started to make corrections to the kit before I lost interest about 5 years ago. I think I built the kit around 1997. Here is what I am starting with. First thing I will be doing is attending to the windows. They should all be the same size. The front window on both sides is correct so I will cut up the last of my CD cases and fill the holes. Add some tape cut to the correct size as masks then get on with the filling and sanding. You can see that I had already started to sort the wrong size of the door but that still needs much more attention. The big hole in the tail boom is where earlier today I started to sort out the shape and oversized frames for the mesh before I remembered I was supposed to photograph the work. I'm going to do this as they were after the first update so I will be keeping the radar nose. and most probably painting her in the overall gris bleu fonce. Again a slow build (is there any other kind) as I will continue to work on the Canberra and the Shavit.

Fortunately there are no new books that I fancy at the moment so I still have some dosh left from the stash sale. Failing that I could try this crowdfunding malarkey. Seems to work elsewhere

No idea as I haven't done any research. I'll be cannibalising an Italeri HAS 3 for undercarriage and rotors anyway. As you have no doubt guessed I'm going to play with Mach's representation of a Super Frelon until the new kit comes along.

Ah yes..the top coat. About that. This was to have been be my first ever totally airbrushed model. (apart from the cockpit interior) Note the tense there. My plan was to mark out the squiggly lines of the camouflage in a light pencil then mask off for spraying,starting with the dark sea grey. I wasn't going to make masks and trying to tape rpound it was going to be worse than Sea King rotor stripes so I came up with the idea of using maskol. Maskol is basically Copydex and as I had neither I settled on PVA glue. Out came an old model and a few wriggly lines were applied using a brush. A couple of hours later when they were dry I carefully started to peel them off. Great,no problems whatsoever. Duly applied to Canberra and dark sea grey sprayed. First coat looked good so left overnight to dry. This morning I tried to peel off the stuff. It seems to have reacted with the enamel paint and set so hard that even a scalpel has difficulty in getting it off. A few hours spent chiselling and sanding then a coat of primer was brushed on. I've just looked at it and there are some bits needing more attention and as I can't be arsed doing it,I abandoned until tomorrow. I also forgot to say that a problem has developed in the airbrush (I'll not bore you with details as I'm sending it back after using it 3 times) a sign if there ever was one that I should stick to brushes.

I see you've been to their sale then. On the subject of targets. tanks. That awfully nice chap @BlackMike Models sold me a Takom Merkava Mk1 hybrid. That was three years ago and I've got the hull built. PM inbound.

Very nice result from all of your hard work.

That was a sideline using surplus Irish linen which nobody was supposed to know about. If they had been caught by management they would claim a typo.