Ron Bell

Beautiful build and fun to boot. A real win-win situation.

I dragged this out of the stash to have something to do while paint/glue dried on another project and I just got sucked into it. It's the old Airfix Matilda II from a blister pack. It's not terrible, especially considering it's age, although the ESCI one was much better although in a slightly larger scale. But, like I said, I was basically just killing time and it was on hand so I went with it. I back dated it to a Matilda II from the. BEF in 1940. That meant a different armored coaxial MG sleeve, the 'mud flaps' on the ends of the fenders and a different exhaust system. I also drilled out the lifting eyes on the turret just to make them stand out more. The original tracks in the kit were so stiff there was no way they would conform to their proper run, so I cheated and used some much more flexible tracks from another Airfix kit that fit fine, look ok and I was able to make them conform better. You have to guess what kit I took them from. Decals were from the spares pile. So, it's done and I was kind of surprised how well it turned out.

Here's my run at the same kit.

Given that the adhesive is puddling, I would guess there is some sort of coating on the foil to keep it from sticking to the candy that won't wash off. It's also keeping the adhesive from sticking to it. Try the adhesive on a normal piece of thin aluminum foil and stick it to a scrap piece of plastic just to see if you're applying it correctly. If so, you may need to find another source of 'gold' foil, but stay away from food wrappers as they may have similar coatings. Try a Google search for "gold foil". I found lots of listings, mainly in craft stores.

I built that when I was a kid. It as a huge kit for back then and was molded in several colors. As I recall, the containment building was in halves and could be posed showing the reactor core open or closed as it would have normally looked. There were several moving parts and I recall having a bit of difficulty just getting everything together as fit was problematic for a young modeler. It came with a paper 'diorama' base to set it on and had a little booklet about how atomic power worked. I played with it a bit, but it wasn't as fun as zooming an airplane model around the room or pushing a tank model across the floor. It wasn't even that fun to blow up, of course that was before The China Syndrome or Chernobyl.

Not being privy to all the discussions, I would venture an uninformed guess that by putting an aircraft diorama, say, in with the other aircraft it would have aircraft judges judging the aircraft. Same for mil.veh, etc. I know there are other aspects of a diorama to be judged, but those, such as theme, story, composition, etc, could be judged by any judge. However I know if I look at an aircraft diorama I can judge all those other aspects of it but do not have the expertise to judge the main object in it, the aircraft. Just a thought.

Welcome aboard, Eric. Glad you got involved with a local chapter. I look forward to seeing your work.

Any chance that the red indicated they are inert rounds? They could be used to test loading/weight distribution/aerodynamics/etc. or for photo ops. Just a shot in the dark, so to speak.

Here it is. Its a little rough in spots, but I'd wager it's one of only a few models of this failed prototype around.

I have always wanted to do this vehicle but could never work up the courage to make a start. Then along comes the 1/72 Roden Rolls Royce a/c kit and I decided to take the plunge. I could only find a total of two photos of the vehicle and no drawings and both photos, while from opposite sides, were from the front, so it was not possible to see what was going on behind the cab or see any real detail in the engine area. I posted a question to the automotive forum here and asked what would be the automotive guys' best guess as to what all those lines were that ran to the back of the cab and what would be back there. They had some good guesses and it did help, but there's still some "imagineering" used in this model. I started with the kit chassis and hood, but reshaped the radiator to look more like the Sizaire vehicle. The back fenders had their bottom rear part cut off and reversed so that it flared back and not down. An engine was cobbled together from various spare parts and the hoses and lines are aluminum and copper wire as is the prop guard. The cab is scratch from sheet plastic and the radiator grill is from the spares box. I have no idea what the prop is from, it was just in my spares box of leftover/salvaged props, but it had the right clipped off tips look. The Roden kit has solid wheels but the Wind Wagon had spoked ones, so I hollowed out the kit wheels and inserted some WW I aircraft wire wheel hubs from Eduard. There's a long way to go yet, but I think this is a good beginning.

Stuart, PM means Private Message. It's a way of 'talking' that does not appear on the Forum. Theres a icon at the top of this page that looks like an envelope. Click it and then you can send a message.

I may be alone in this but I use stretched sprue. You can stretch it to any thickness you desire and if you use an appropriately colored sprue, you won't have to paint it after installation. If you want more info on how to stretch sprue, PM me as it will take up too much space here. Before you start construction, determine the location where each piece of rigging ends and drill a small hole/dent there large enough to accommodate the sprue being used. Then when ready to rig, measure the length of the piece needed with a pair of dividers/calipers. These come in many shapes and sizes and I have several for use in difference spaces. Use the length from the dividers to cut a length of sprue. Cut it a little longer than needed. Now test fit the piece to make sure it's not too short/long. You want it to bow a little and I explain why later. Put a small dot of ordinary white glue in the end locations of the piece and insert the ends. It should bow, as I said. The beauty of white glue is that it is so forgiving. Screw up, and you can easily remove it without damaging anything just with water. Do several pieces at a time. I try to work all the pieces in the same plane, vertical or horizontal or otherwise. Then let the white glue dry entirely. This usually only takes an hour or so. Now, and here's the magic, Get a small piece of thin wooden dowel. Light a candle and put the end of the wood in the flame until it's lit. Let it go until there's a slight red ember. Now blow it out. It will smoke and that's what you want. Arrange it so that a section of bowed rigging is in the smoke. Too far away and nothing will happen. Too close and you'll melt the rigging and have to start again, which is easy using white glue. Get the range just right and the plastic rigging will shrink taut. Sometimes slowly, sometimes all of a sudden. It will take practice to get the distance just right, but when you do it will all go quickly. For longer lengths of rigging, you may find it necessary to jury rig some sort of support to hold the piece in place while the glue sets. This method is cheap like practically free, relatively easy, requires no special tools (other than the dividers), and is very forgiving of mistakes. The photo is of an Aurora 1/48 Spad rigged in this way. In larger scales, however, rigging wires may not be round, so other materials may be called for.

Great looking aircraft and nice job on the camo. Good to see something different.

Excellent work. Assume that's 1/48? Here's the ancient Airfix 1/71. Primitive and basic, but still looks good on a shelf. I always liked the looks of that aircraft.

Here's the complete collection of the Palmer Plastics/LifeLike/Encore artillery models. I'm sure the scales vary from gun to gun, but I think they are around 1/12. Kits are ancient, like 1959, primitive, rough, etc. I did them mostly OOTB but filled in open spaces, sanded off bulky detail, etc. etc. Interesting voyage into modeling history and something a bit different. From left to right they are a naval 24 pdr, revolutionary war cannon, civil war cannon, Gatling gun and WW I 77mm. The 24pdr is red because the Brits painted all their below deck guns red to hide possible blood, the revolutionary war gun is light blue because Washington decreed that all US artillery be painted that shade to honor their ally France, the civil war gun is bright green because there was no standard color and I had some on the shelf, the Gatling is white to simulate one I saw in a turn of the 19/20 century photo of a US battleship's deck that had one stowed on board probably for landing parties, and the 77mm WW I gun is in camo typical for that era.