noelsmith

A sadly missed friend of mine, the late Professor John Tilley shared many hints and tips on the FSM forum.

If building a ship with the sails stowed away all the yards above each of the lower fore main and mizzen are lowered. Look at the photo of the Constitution in Ed's post. Probably this would be common practice with furled sails when in port.

I have not visited this thread for a while. But in the meantime I was looking at the website of a company named RS Components, who supply vast quantities of electronic components to industry in the UK. I do not know if they have warehouses in the States. However, on their site I came across their own powerful 3D CAD program that they have developed and can be downloaded and used for free. I think it is named Mechanical Spark 3D or something similar and can be used to create 3D solids for machining and also a sheet metal development program. I believe that they have a PCB CAD design program available as well. Maybe some of you guys have come across it and used it...……………..so comments please!

Sad to hear about the loss of another long established hobby shop. Same thing happening over here in the UK to the remaining ones. A number of years ago we had at least one good privately owned model shop in each of our towns until a conglomerate named Beatties started buying them all up like there was no tomorrow in the eighties and early nineties and then went bust taking over 50 per cent of the nation's model shops with it in one fell swoop. Most of them employed assistants that did not have any specialist knowledge that did not help either. Another venture by the Amerang group opened up numerous model shops that sold kits and die cast model vehicles named Model Zone. They went the same way as Beatties did before. There are some independents still left that should be cherished but gradually disappearing by attrition. Apart from the remainders we have large warehouse type shops named Hobbycraft that sell limited modelling items along with all the art and craft stuff that is the core of their business. Great for artists materials and other items that could be used in our hobby however. I guess it is the same Stateside, the large warehouse type of operation. On line mail order is OK, but not the same as looking at what you intend to buy for real. Fortunately as the UK is very small compared to the distances you guys have to travel in the states I can get around to a few shows each year that have a fair share of specialist vendors from the cottage industries. I tend to take a shopping list to Telford each year as nearly all the UK specialist traders are there over that weekend...………….Needless to say I have a very dented wallet by the time I go home each year!

I think you may be right Michael. Probab!y the only one is the Airfix Quickbuild kit. I can but still hope!

Well it finally got aired! I was so looking forward to the story being done in period. Unfortunately it nowhere came up to my expectations. Besides running out of steam half way through, it was too much about a love story to me with the invasion theme being of secondary importance, plus the flash forwards made the whole thing a bit disjointed for me. It failed to show the Martians being wiped out by microbes. The three parter looked promising to start off, but when the sphere started to levitate, and giant machine, far bigger then the sphere started to come out of the ground (as in the Spielberg modern setting movie) the original novel plot was completely lost! If we want to see a proper version made, I reckon Peter Jackson who made Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Mortal Engines ad King Kong could do the novel justice. As he is the owner of Wingnut Wings maybe he could be lobbied through his company to get a suggestion through.

Latest is that 206 finally made it to print! A contest issue of just photos and captions I believe. Any auto modeller interested in what has been going down at Model Cars Magazine needs to have a look in the Scale Motorcars website in the general section. Lots of interesting discussion to read up to the point where a moderator stepped in and blocked further posts.

Lawrence, as an addition to your Cutty Sark requests, besides the kit instructions you are looking for there is a fine set from George Campbell from the Cutty Sark itself

Any one know if there is a new Bugatti Veyron kit about to be released? Heard a rumour, but not sure if it is fake news or not. Only plastic kit I can think of is the Airfix Quick Build that goes together in Lego fashion.

WOTW (3 part drama) will be airing at 9PM UK time this Sunday 17th November (immediately after His Dark Materials which is two weeks in and fantastic.) BBC has a catchup service named I player on the web that should be available to the USA. Bear in mind this catchup service only holds a programme for a week after airing. No ads on the beeb so good for a weekly download to make up the series. I will have to look up Stephen Baxter's book that ewahl recommended.......sounds good.

Subscribers can look fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooorward to the next one?

The BBC have recently been running a slightly longer trailer for WOTW. Still no firm aiingr date given, so still guessing this Christmas perhaps,

There have been 3 recent enquiries about issue 206 on the MCM forum, and all were locked very quickly and posters referred to contact the editor Gregg Hutchings directly instead.

Mark and Ron, Thanks for the feedback. Kind regards Noel

As for lightening up colours, maybe the paint manufacturers should be taking this into account for scale realism. As a car .modeller plain real car colours are ok to use by me straight from an aerosol, they go off hard quickly and I do not have to mess about with an air brush and all the after care clean up.