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Non-railway modelling


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Tom,

The DC3 and Pembroke are lovely clean builds,well suited for the type of aircraft,is the Pembroke built from the Special Hobby kit?

 

Malcolm

 

Hi Malcolm.

 

It is the SH kit. It's not too bad overall, but the wing to fuselage joints were a bit of a fighter! I have another one to build as a Sea Prince, with copious amounts of Day-Glo!

 

Cheers,

 

Tom.

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Tom,

The DC3 and Pembroke are lovely clean builds,well suited for the type of aircraft,is the Pembroke built from the Special Hobby kit?

 

60091

Congratulations on the Felixstowe I assume you used the Roden kit? from what I've heard it's a beast to build.

 

In reality I am now more of model aircraft builder than railway modeller. I am a member of the local IPMS club and concentrate on building 1/48 scale aircraft,at the moment I've a 1/48 Special Hobby Fiat G55 on the bench.As far as my stash is concerned I am not telling as my wife might be reading this! :O

 

Malcolm

Hello Malcolm,

Yes the Felixstowe is the Roden kit. Not an easy one to build. Mine's far from perfect but it was a challenge which I enjoyed. The engines in particular are beautifully detailed. My first attempt at rigging a bi-plane and I used 10thou micro rod. Easy for me to work with but it looks too big on the finished model.

A couple of years ago I saw this in my local Modelzone and couldn't resist buying it.....

 

post-13274-0-97526700-1326038742.jpg

This is probably a case of "biting off more than I can chew"! When I opened the box I couldn't believe it - the entire camouflage scheme is supplied as decals, designed to cover the whole aircraft. :O Just the thought of applying them all correctly is going to give me a few sleepless nights...One of the reasons it's still in the box, under the bed, with no plans to start building it in the near future.

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Hello Malcolm,

##########

This is probably a case of "biting off more than I can chew"! When I opened the box I couldn't believe it - the entire camouflage scheme is supplied as decals, designed to cover the whole aircraft. :O Just the thought of applying them all correctly is going to give me a few sleepless nights...One of the reasons it's still in the box, under the bed, with no plans to start building it in the near future.

Don't wait too long though.... the decals on those are not easily applied when old........

Just a pointer. :-)

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Don't wait too long though.... the decals on those are not easily applied when old........

Just a pointer. :-)

The trick is to cut the decals into manageable sections and take care lining them up, and use a sharp knife!

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The trick is to cut the decals into manageable sections and take care lining them up, and use a sharp knife!

That may be all well and true, but an old decal will not be as elastic and easy to work with....

Many a kit has been ruined by old decals......

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Don't wait too long though.... the decals on those are not easily applied when old........

Just a pointer. :-)

Hi M Graff

I know very old decals break up when you try using them after many years. Is there a particular problem with the ones in Roden kits after a much shorter time? I've had the kit for 2 years at least, and have decided it's probably time to start work on it. Maybe I'll build up the fuselage or tail section then see how successful I am at applying the decals to a small area. This will also be an opportunity to see if they've deteriorated at all... Many thanks for the information.

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I've built another one, the 1:72 Albatross, with decal-camo, and I found the Lozenge-decals were a bit fragile after a few years in storage.

I re-coated some of them (with some product that Micro-Mark sold...) just to avoid problems.

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I am even more impressed on hearing the Felixstowe was the first biplane that you rigged. The Staaken looks an interesting build, :O I seem to remember Ray Rimell wrote an article in Scale Models (I think it was around 1980) about scratch building one,it was enough to bring on the vapours.

As far as Roden decals are concerned,I built a Roden Gladiator not long after the kit was first released,the decals were terrible they wouldn't release from the backing paper,were brittle and wouldn't settle down, they were like cardboard,decal solutions had no effect,I ended up using aftermarket decals. Having spoken to other modelers about them I would say this appears the general experiance.

I admit I have virtually no knowledge of WWI aircraft but are there any aftermarket lozenge sheets available that you could use in place of the kit decals? Maybe because of the size of the Staaken none are available. Where any Staaken's finished in a plain scheme which you could use as a fall back if the kit decals are a problem?

As far as decal life is concerned I think it depends on the printer and how the decals have been stored. Last year I built a BPF Corsair and used some decals from a Modeldecal sheet which would have been around twenty five years old and had no problems with them. I think it can be the luck of the draw as kit manufactures seem over time to change decal suppliers and hence the quality of their decals change. Therefore different production batches of the same kit may have decals from different suppliers and handle in different ways.

 

All the best,

Malcolm

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I've built another one, the 1:72 Albatross, with decal-camo, and I found the Lozenge-decals were a bit fragile after a few years in storage.

I re-coated some of them (with some product that Micro-Mark sold...) just to avoid problems.

There are substances available to 'soften' decals making them easier to apply. Whether this would work on old decals I'm not sure.
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There are substances available to 'soften' decals making them easier to apply. Whether this would work on old decals I'm not sure.

Micro-set and Micro-sol are very much a must on these decals!

I used some spray made for making your own decals and just re-coated the decals, as the ones I had tried to use, had a tendency to break up into small pieces.....

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  1. I have a Tornado ADV corrected and shown with the foxhunter radar (Guess what I worked on)
  2. A green Goddess awaiting correction and then a repaint (me again)
  3. I need to Scratch build Radars type 84, 88/89 and SSR750 (me again)
  4. I need to build A TSR2, Canberra, and Shackleton (Dad),
  5. I have an ever increasing pile of kits of tanks 1919-1953 (Granddad)
  6. The railway layout GWR EX MSWJR (other granddad and an uncle, great uncle, great grand father and great great grandfather).

you could say I like making things with a family connection!

 

The Q

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Micro-set and Micro-sol are very much a must on these decals!

I used some spray made for making your own decals and just re-coated the decals, as the ones I had tried to use, had a tendency to break up into small pieces.....

Despite having other work lined up,I'll probably do a test build on part of the Staaken. If things go wrong I doubt if there are any replacement decals available. I'll definitely use Micro-sol/set and anything else the shop wants to flog me, if it makes the job easier!

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  • 3 months later...

T'is to glory we steer!

 

A friend of mine recently wrote a set of naval warfare rules for the Napoleonic era and knocked up some ships from balsa and cocktail sticks. I reckoned I could do better but couldn't get on with balsa and reverted to good old plasticard.

 

HMS Mars (74) a third rate line-of-battle ship. It's 1mm to the foot scale and entirely scratch built. I'm quite pleased with it considering it's the first ship I've ever built.

 

Clear for action and run out the guns!

Man-O-War-007.jpg

 

Engage the enemy more closely!

Man-O-War-006.jpg

 

The hull is plasticard, the masts and spars are plastic bar, as are other details such as the anchors. The rigging is cotton and the sails are handkerchief. The figurehead is an N gauge figure that has been altered somewhat.

 

On the first outing on the war games table she destroyed one French frigate and another struck its colours and was taken as a prize. :D

 

Man-O-War-001.jpg

 

Man-O-War-002.jpg

 

Man-O-War-003.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...

Sure do. Started in Model railways (HO scale NSWGR Prototype, Australian), then dabbled in 1/32 scale slot cars, using modelling/landscaping skills from the railway modelling, now back to model railways...post-14327-0-89221200-1336266126_thumb.jpgpost-14327-0-85161600-1336266187_thumb.jpg

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Here's the 1/24th Trumpeter Hurricane Mk1 I have been building for 5 years - still needs a few fragile parts added, and some upper-body weathering, then it's done.

 

post-6720-0-51173900-1336394931.jpg

 

post-6720-0-45180700-1336394953_thumb.jpg

 

It is quite a big kit, but oddly it looks smaller now that it's painted and decal'ed - or have I just got used to its size over the years?

 

Just finished this Tamiya Panzer II - still have to make a little base/diorama for it:

 

post-6720-0-96893100-1336395049.jpg

 

post-6720-0-50253300-1336395066.jpg

 

I went a bit gung-ho with the weathering, but it is nice to be able to do that occasionally.

 

And finally - not weathered at all, and in need of some toning down - a 1/72nd Revell Stearman trainer:

 

post-6720-0-39671200-1336395135.jpg

 

It's a slippery slope, this non-railway modelling, but very addictive... and yet another reason to spend time in model shops - what's not to be liked?

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Despite having other work lined up,I'll probably do a test build on part of the Staaken. If things go wrong I doubt if there are any replacement decals available. I'll definitely use Micro-sol/set and anything else the shop wants to flog me, if it makes the job easier!

 

Microscale does sheets of lozenge camo in 1/72

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MD&Product_Code=MS72-908&Product_Count=&Category_Code=

 

Adrian

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Having done aircraft to death(since I was 10) and made just about every WW2 piece of armour (on all sides except Japan) I'd like to try modern Naval Vessels. Anyone have any suggestions (I'm in the USA)?

 

Best, Pete.

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Having done aircraft to death(since I was 10) and made just about every WW2 piece of armour (on all sides except Japan) I'd like to try modern Naval Vessels. Anyone have any suggestions (I'm in the USA)?

 

Best, Pete.

 

Trumpeter or Dragon kits are quite nice. 1/350 is the typical larger scale (1/700 is the normal smaller scale). You should have no trouble finding a selection of modern vessels to choose from.

 

Tamiya has also done some in 1/350 - USS Enterprise and USS New Jersey (1980s) for sure. Airfix has done HMS Illustrious in 1/350.

 

Adrian

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Thanks, Adrian. Just needed a kickstart! I started modelling kits when I was very ill at Primary School age. That devolved into Railway, courtesy of my late brother, then I went back to is when I was seriously ill again in the eighties - you can, just about, do it in bed....

 

Thanks, Pete.

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