Ron Bell

Here's one and half more. Half 'cause only the bottoms of the Magister's wings are yellow. The Airfix DeHavilland Tiger Moth. And the Frog/Air Lines Miles Magister. Just to keep me honest. see the bottoms are yellow.

Another resource is model rail road decals. There are thousands of sheets. Some are specific train markings, but many many others are generic lines, numbers, etc. You can also get sheets of solid colors and cut out your own lines of any thickness you want.

Yes,the hull was modified using a cut-off wheel in a Dremel tool.

That makes a lot more sense. Thanks for clearing that up.

Tim, did I hear right. It takes four cups of liquid to clean your airbrush after each color? That's a quart of liquid.

That is one can of worms. I think you'll find that 8th Army troops wore whatever was at hand. I've seen them with puttees, and without. With jerkins and without. Long pants and shorts. Tin hats and slouch hats. And like you said, then add in the South Africans, ANZACs, Indians, Gurkhas, Jews, Poles, French, Czechs and every one else. I have an Osprey book titled Monty's Desert Army and the illustrations show all sorts of variations of green, light stone, tan, brown, whatever. If you're just doing generic British troops, you could get away with almost any combination. And from what I've been able to see, with the exception of kit specific to armour, arty or some other specialty, there wasn't that much difference in dress. So. a search that yields conflicting colors may be more right than wrong.

Here's the Monogram halftrack with dual M/G turret. They bill it as an M-16, but the M-16 had a quad mount. This is more of an M-13, which was a dual mount. The kit went together surprisingly well, but you did have to pay close attention to the instructions to get things in the right place/alignment. The figures were sort of in between the early deformed variety and the later nicely molded ones that came with the various German MkIV variants. However, the three seated in the halftrack needed modification unless you wanted to build the vehicle around them, because they weren't going in after assembly the way they were. The two in the front lost their feet and the guy in the turret was considerably slimmed down to slide into that thing. Now, on to the M-4 Hedgehog.

I emailed my UK contact this week asking for the final itinerary, cost and how to make reservations. I'm just waiting for an answer. Being it's the holidays, I may not hear until next week.

The dates the exhibition will run are not listed, but if it's still there in the fall, the tour we are working on is going to that museum, so we may be able to see it first hand.

If you have an "industrial" vacuform company in town, carve/make a new nose section and have them vacuform the entire thing from clear plastic. Cut off the "offending" part of the model and mate on the new section. Since it's all clear, just mask off what you need to and paint the rest. Scribe in any missing detail. And if you do get them to do it, and many will if you just ask, make a lot of them and sell them as conversions to make back some of the cost.

A quick Google image search for Operation Musketeer turned up several pictures of Wyverns in this scheme. They may help you scale it out.

Well done, that man. A man after my own heart. I love "doing up" these old kits. You really test your modeling skills and get a feeling of satisfaction when they're done.

What you see is what I got in the kit. I did not replace the nose piece. I've seen a photo of another completed kit and it, too, does not have those antennae.

Noel, You'll find a cafeteria type list of things such as Convention Registration, Banquet Tickets, various tours, T-shirts and all sorts of what-not. Unless listed with a separate price all seminars, Convention Registration and the contest entry fee (with an unlimited number of entries) are covered by the one Convention Registration Fee. The "goodie bag", which contains a schedule, convention souvenir pin, convention decal and assorted catalogues and flyers, comes with Convention Registration. Tours, due to cost, are almost always extra as are T-shirts. A Banquet ticket gets you into the banquet, big surprise. However, the awards presentation, which immediately follows the banquet, is free, so you don't have to purchase a banquet ticket to attend that. However, seating may be limited (it depends on the venue) and a banquet ticket does at least guarantee you a seat. Other differences are that we have a separate room for the contest and others for the venders. There will be upward of 2,000 models entered in the contest. IPMS/USA does not have the rich tradition of chapter displays that IPMS/UK does, however, so just about all the models to look at are in the contest room. I hope you can make it and do some 'touring' as well. There is so much to see in that part of the country.

That pilot looks an awful lot like Robin Olds.

These are the last two Revell 1950's SAMS in my collection. The first is the Homing All the Way Killer, or Hawk. I have read that this was actually the old Renwall kit that Revell took over and released under their name, but I couldn't swear to that, although I did swear AT it while building it. Several times as a matter of fact. Adams also did helicopter and tracked transporters for re-loads. I don't know how much all these kits were "related", but this one was a HIstory Makers re-release. And the final one, the piece de resistance if you will, is the Terrier. This kit is super rare and I may have broken several laws in actually building it, but I don't care. I found it on Ebay and paid a pretty penny for it, but not as much as I thought I might have to. It's a Terrier Mk I complete with shipboard launcher and seaman fiddling with some gauges in some sort of rack that would never be on deck as far as I can tell. In looking for color references, I found very few photos of the Mk I in use and the Mk II differed significantly. And to complicate matters, the Terrier was soon superceded by the Talos, which used the same launcher. The Terrier was never re-released under any guise. It might be one of those models with damaged molds, etc. Anyhoo. here it is.

All small scale armored cars. Staghound Humber Mk II Daimler Mk II Marmon-Harrington M-20 Saladin AEC Mk III

Welcome, Paddy. A good friend of mine in IPMS/UK is from Ireland, Paddy McGannon.

As long as you are a member of any National Branch of iPMS, your can enter the contest. No, you can not enter your models in advance. However, you will be able to download the entry forms you need from the conventions web site, which will go live after the preceding show. With these filled out in advance, the actual registration process only takes a few minutes, depending on the number of models you have. As you may be use to SMW and how things are done there, unlike SMW the IPMS/USA National Convention is not free to IPMS members. You will need to pay the registration fee. However, there is no extra charge to enter the contest and there is no limit on the number of models you can enter. It should be a great show and if you combine it with some sight-seeing, could be a great trip for you and your family.

As to flights from the UK, you'd need to check individual airlines as to who flies where. You might even consider Richmond, VA or even the Washington D.C. airports if you're thinking of renting a car as they may have better/cheaper service. The convention would only be 2-3 hours, I believe, from D.C. by car but a "local" would be a better source for this info.

Here are two more Revell SAMs, the Bomarc and Talos. I always thought the Bomarc was particularly cool. I replaced the flying surfaces as by the time I sanded off all the molded in decal placements, rivets et. al. I could see through them they were so thin. Similarly with the Talos, except I even had to replace the missile's fuselage with some styrene tubing. The fins were made to be moveable so there were these big cylinders the fins fit in to rotate that just didn't fit well. The nose and rocket motor ends fit perfectly, however. It's unique in that it's the only one of all the missile kits that is not on a launcher. It sits on what I assume is a maintenance rack. Its painted as it would have been in later life, as a target drone. The Talos also has the distinction of being the only SAM to get two a/c with one missile. Off Nam, one went right through the first MIG and detonated near a second. Now who's a target, eh, aircraft guys?

I always love looking at the flats at a show. How you guys get all that depth into a flat piece of tin is amazing. It truly is a painter's medium.

Yes. I did the Snark some time ago in SAC markings. Also did the Redstone in OD. Both have been sold off however. The Bomarc makes an appearance in one of the next installments along with the Hawk, Talos and Terrier.

Nice pair? Not the kind of thing one guy says to another. With the exception of the "concrete' bases, they are OOTB. As to clean up, I had to use a snow shovel to remove all the plastic shavings and sanding dust from my work area after I was done.

Yeah, what John said. But the tour is for 2013.