The Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum

Somehow, this week, I have to identify the opportunity to participate in the ‘Blitzbau’, my week is quite full, as are my evenings and I have only this week available!

Having attempted and rather ignominiously failed at my first ever ‘Blitzbau’, the finishing work will continue here. That said, I don’t have much opportunity to get anything done before the weekend and then I am off. I will try and add some photos tomorrow.

I look forward to seeing you work your magic on the little Sherman.

That Sherman looks fantastic. Terrific work on the PE

OK everyone, I am not going to be able to proceed with the Sherman for a little while, due to other commitments. I shall, therefor, whet your appetites with this:



The background photo is the one which inspired me to model 'HIGHWORTH' and I am planning to visit the RWY TA barracks where they have lots of photos, so perhaps there is another shot of this tank. What is really frustrating is that I produced some 1/35th decals for 'HIGHWORTH' using CorelDraw and I usually keep any such drawings - can I find then so that I can scale them down? No, of course not!!

There is no change to the 3 main components, but the running gear has been assembled and I only made a couple of errors in fitting the wheels the wrong way round or the idler wheel/skid the wrong direction! All errors corrected but, boy, my fingers are not as dexterous as they used to be and these units comprise 5 parts. There is some painting errors on a couple of suspension units whereby the outer arms should be 'Light mud' and not 'Blue/black'. I am also now wondering if the tyres should be re-painted as there is no discernible difference between the 'tyre black' (grey) and the 'Blue/black' - perhaps I will leave it, that smacks of 'modellers OCD'!!

Totally agree, a cracking build that just may get copied.

There is one. somewhat frustrating, aspect to building British/British-used armour (especially for the version of this tank I am building, concurrently, in 1/35th) - finding crew members! Now, if I was a builder of Axis armour I could simply buy the crew members by name!! Well, OK perhaps not quite to that level, but the range of Axis figures must be 20x easily (and that is an extremely conservative estimate).

Here is a photo of the 2 'HIGHWORTH' tanks, there are some detail differences but model for model they bare scrutiny well. The little Heller has nearly the same 'parts count' as the Dragon and the level of detail, within the limitations of 'Gentleman's scale' is pleasantly good. The last Sherman I built was the Airfix model about 4 years ago!!




If the Heller had not been scheduled for the Blitzbau I daresay I would have fabricated the various 'lifting hoops' out of fine wire.

A great pair of "little and large" Shermans coming together, Tony. It is true of WW II armour modelling that Axis subjects tend to dominate kit/accessories releases.

What a comparison in size! Great detail on such a little kit. Amazing photo etch work. You do such fine detail work.

It has been a while! Since my last post I have been on holiday in Cuba and spent 8 weeks on my canal boat. All in all, I’ve not really done much in the way of modelling however, I have broken out the Airfix MiG29A which will add to my ‘Cuban’ collection. Photos to follow.

On a recent visit to my son, I popped into a ‘Games & Models’ shop. Once an emporium of secondhand models it now has a vastly reduced stock, but some interesting and difficult to find kits at, generally, quite reasonable prices. Whilst browsing the ‘not yet for sale’ stock, I spied an Airfix Canberra B(I) 6, it is an ideal candidate to convert to an E15, the type I flew on 100 Sqn. I had to wait a week before it was valued, they wanted £25 for it but, when a content check was carried out, the previous owner had slapped some paint on the cockpit. I was asked if £15 was OK, begrudgingly I accepted, paid the money over and ‘ran’ before they changed their minds!

The Airfix 1/72 MiG 29 build has started, I am awaiting a resin ejection seat so the forward lower fuselage half has yet to be fitted. I've yet to encounter any significant issues with fit although there is a bit of a gap between the rear face of the lower fuselage and rear body - filler or a shim? That is the question.

A long time ago I flew the chase-plane (a Hawk T1) alongside MiG 29's firing missiles in the Range off Llanbedr. (Late 1990 / early 1991 - I think)

Now that's some expert clampage!

It's always a delight to see your models come together.

The Great Auk

I have continued to work on the MiG and have reached the situation where the aircraft is looking very MiG-like. With such an unrestricted view of the cockpit, I felt it necessary to fit a better ejection seat, the Quick Boost seat is very detailed (almost too detailed!) but required extensive surgery to the cockpit tub and upper fuselage in order to fit. In truth, I think Airfix mis-positioned their seat and bulkhead. Perhaps that is why Ivan (the pilot) is missing his lower legs? The cockpit is finished in grey (primer from a rattle can!) with the instruments picked out with a very fine black marker pen, a QB MiG29 control column fitted and the QB seat painted and fitted. I guess the cockpit should be a bit more comprehensive, but the Aires after market unit would have required a great deal of butchery to fit and no-one makes anything for the Airfix version!









There is some cleaning-up and filling to do round the forward fuselage and the panel lines for the radome do not line up, the engine pods require some filler and need some fiddling to get them to sit in place, otherwise it isn't too bad a kit, for its age.