king derelict

Some of those tail sections were getting impressively warm. Those blue bands suggest they got over 900F if thats the titanium showing. Alan

Well two weeks seems to have disappeared forever. Work is currently on a noon to midnight pattern so not much else is getting done.. A little progress is being made at the weekends but its slow. I'm finding the usual Flower problem; very little information on individual configurations. I have found one (IWM) photo of Spiraea and that shows the bridge and mast configuration to be as the Mirage kit and not as in the profile in the Lambert Flowers book. It also shows a number of ventilators that aren't present in either model or book. The paint scheme doesn't match either. Zinnia will be harder (or easier depending on how you look at it) as I haven't found any images on line and she is not shown in Lamberts book. I'm at the stage of fitting the PE and small details. The PE is binging the model up nicely although the interface with the kit is a bit dodgy in places. The PE 4 inch bandstand sits too high and had to be cut down as did the 2 pounder gun tub. There is going to be a lot of unused PE in the WE set. Some parts are for different standards of Flowers and others are too fiddly to use (4 inch ammunition clips) or are too flat to look good (secondary weapons). As noted elsewhere there is a risk of using PE just because its there. No photos today. I'm writing this at work (Shhh) and can't upload photos. The next decision will be whether to add rigging. Its an easy decision to not do it at 1/700 but at 1/350 I need to think about it, at least in a simplified form. Alan

Mike As I am working through this (slow) build I am finding I rather like the Mirage Flowers. They are more accurate than I initially expected and with some aftermarket bits mixed in they are coming together nicely in my eyes. Work is slowing me down more than I would like unfortunately Alan

I'm thinking its heat effects and the striations are caused by varying metal thicknesses and structural memebers. Its a whole new aircraft for me so I have no idea what the back end looks like inside so this may be totally wrong. Interesting airvraft and I'm looking forward to the build. Alan

A beautiful model Craig. Congratulations. The finish is superb. I'm starting to think about attempting a metal finish after seeing your results. Alan

Looking very nice Jack Alan

A masterful build. That is such a beautiful delicate model. It crosses the line into art. I think I would end up with a bundle of broken wood and string. Absolutely excellent Alan

That looks very nice and neat Jack. Some lovely detail there. This is a new AFV to me so its great to learn about it. Alan

I’m sorry to hear about the loss of a pet. That’s the hardest part of having them. Hopefully you have a stack of great memories. The dio just keeps getting better as the figures get added. The Rifles are really nicely posed. Fit my Sharpe images perfectly. alan

Very nice Jacket. I like the shading on the clothes alan

Looking forward to seeing it

As always the figures look terrific. Beautiful painting sir. It seems to me that there are two areas where figures fail in scenes; probably due to their relative inflexibility. Dead figures don’t slump into that final relaxation and it’s difficult to crowd the figures together. I think you have resolved both issues masterfully. The smoke generator is intriguing Great work Alan

Great work Jack. I know how you feel about the vision. I am using +3.5 lenses and am constantly having to lift them to find stuff on the workbench. Alan

A beautiful model. Well done Dan Alan

Amazing. That’s going to look realistically crowded alan

Came out very well Jack. I really like the base too Alan

It’s lovely to see the figures again. They really are terrific. The smoke is tricky, the breech smoke looks great in the first picture but not so impressive from the other side. I’m sort of following along here because I have sea spray in my future and I think smoke and spray are extremely difficult things to model. It’s probably easier modeling a cannon battery firing than the delicate musket smoke Alan

Thank you Mike. I was a bit nervous of the Mirage kits but they are really quite nice with decent detail. I wish they made a short forecastle version but I suppose it impacts the tooling and costs. I have the four ships that they make, some have PE for railings others not. The White Ensign PE is good for the later bridges and different radar lanterns but quite a bit of it won’t get used. Alan

Thank you very much OC. It sometimes feels like I’m learning all over again. The razor saw is a very useful tool, I’d be breaking the fine parts everywhere without it. Alan

Lovely cockpit Dan. Great work Alan

Work resumed its busy schedule and long hours so no progress was made last week. Then on Tuesday we managed to set fire to the back of the test cell and now I have a ten day rest period while the welders get busy. No damage to the engine or crew thankfully. I've been starting to work on the details. I'm starting to like the Mirage kit; the plastic is quite robust even in the thin sections and the detail is nice. Removing the parts is a bit of a challenge. See the galley chimney in the fret below I decided to keep the kit plastic mast and yardarm, its better than the 2D PE offering. I made two investments to help ease the thin parts off the sprues. A decent razor saw replaces the nasty thing ay right. The teeth are too large and it really drags at the plastic increasing the risk of breaking the part. The new ones are very smooth and cut quickly A fine nipper has also been a great help I also dipped my toes into the world of resin aftermarket parts. The kit 4 inch gun is actually quite good. The 2 pounder is okay and the 20mm Oerlikons are reasonable but I decided to get resin replacements for the 4inch gun and the 2pdr These make the Oerlikons look clumsy so I ordered some resin parts to use there too. These are all Black Cat parts and I think its going to be hard to go back to PE after seeing these. Naturally the aftermarket stuff reduces the cost of the kit to a small part of the whole experience. After priming and adding the light grey to the guns I finished weathering the hull. I have also painted the PE structures in light grey and I think I am at the point of being able to add them to the hull and start building up teh detail. Thanks for looking in and the likes Alan

This is a superb scene Richard. The landscape especially the hedges is so realistic and the Archer blends into the scene and the story instead of dominating it. Great Work Alan

The second planking finish looks very nice. Alan

Wow Andy; that looks really good. It shows the Wellington off beautifully. The variation in the grass colouring stops it looking like artificial turf. Alan

Yup, I was at Home Depot this weekend buying mulch, fertiliser and new plants for the rabbits to eat. Alan