railroadbill

Thanks Dan, 3 foot!  That's a brilliant model, well done. Also interesting how you fitted the lights.  I like the idea of "film prop" scale, just the amount of space they take up!  However...

MTFBWY indeed.

Bill

Just to add this article has some pics of various Millenium Falcon sets/models being built/filmed.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a30210061/history-of-the-millennium-falcon/

On 10/05/2024 at 22:42, froobyone said:

I don't know if I ever posted my Falcon build. If I did, sorry for repetition. 

 

 

 

 

I'll take this hunk of junk over a Constitution class any day.

Best

Dan

That's brilliant, Dan!  The lighting and the interior really stand out.  Judging by the size of the items and the tools around, it must be enormous!  What kit did you use?

Great stuff!

Patience you must have had my young Padawan!

Bill

On 10/05/2024 at 11:03, Ben B said:

Looks good, particularly the weathering on the panel lines!

 

(Back to Gerry Anderson again, but... Star Wars gets a lot of credit for the whole used/battered/weathered science fiction angle, whilst it has to be said Derek Meddings and his team were doing that back in the 1960's).

 

Will be interested in seeing how your X-Wings turn out, I have one in the stash which I keep being tempted to build, but don't seem to find the time...

Thanks Ben, you can't beat GA!  Ah, the great Derek Meddings!  Actually those older TV shows and films that used models rather than the later CGI were very innovative.

Various videos on Youtube about the early designs for Starwars sets.  Apparently the original Millenium Falcoln was intended to have a long, squarish cross section body  with a cockpit on the front. It had a 2001 vibe to it. When Space 1999 came out while Star Wars was in the initial planning stages, the Eagle was on the same lines as the initial MF design drawings. So the MF was changed to be more of a classic flying saucer shape  with the cockpit of a B-29 stuck on the side.  Which as it turned out worked well for them as it's a memorable shape that stands out well among loads of other space craft designs as it blasts in to the rescue!

(if you look at a photo of a mange mite, that foxes etc can suffer from, it's a remarkably similar shape to the main body of the MF but I doubt they used that as an inspiration!)

* re the Space 1999 Eagle, it does look like a Sci-fi spaceship that would have actually worked!

Bill

It's done the Kessel run in 12 parsecs, meet at Docking Bay 94 and don't get too cocky, kid. 

Revell 1:241 scale (apparently, but can you be sure with a space ship that's taller inside than outside?)  Very well detailed little kit  and fits together beautifully.  It's 100mm long. It actually includes Solo and Wookie (don't annoy it) figures for the cockpit but they don't actually show when it's all together. The original film set cockpit doesn't have glazing (so they didn't get reflections while filming) and the "flying" models have the glazing painted black. (At least in the earlier films).

Despite having seen these films many many times over the years (starting in the Odeon Leicester Square in 1977, 70mm print with dolby sound), one issue, which I had never ever thought about before, is what colour is the Millenium Falcon? Revell call out 371, Hellgrau, that I managed to get after I'd sprayed the thing with Halfords grey primer. It did get a wash of that before a flory wash. As far as I can make out, the ship's main colour looks a warm grey when flying over the sands of a desert planet but a darker grey when in deep space. The sets are a darker grey with more weathering.  So not too consistant.

I found a Revell X wing fighter and  Tie fighter kits in the same series on sale in Hobbycraft, so...I've got a bad feeling about this.

Don't forget now, Greedo shot first.

Re-run of Great Railway Journeys series on BBC4 at the moment, I picked up this episode with Fergal Keane on I-Player. It's made in 1999.  Older Shinkansen trains running, 2 preserved steam lines operating, and an early  test run of a Maglev train.  Plus shots of Keane in the cab of a Shinkansen at full speed.

25 years later the world generally has moved on (perhaps not for the better) but Keane's take on the Japanese psyche is interesting. 

Anyway there's lots of trains in the film.

There's also some more in this series, including Michael Palin in Ireland.  On I-Player.

[Talking of Michael Palin, there were a series of programmes he'd made on various art subjects on Sunday 5 May on BBC4, totally fabulous, but no trains though!].

I've also been in there a long time ago while working in central London.  Bought various bits and pieces in W & H (including wheels and fittings  for a couple of Jameson locos I built I think). I very very vaguely remember they had some O gauge coaches on display as well.

W & H were I believe Walkers & Holtzapffel and had a really good W & H catalogue as well.  I could also reach Kings Cross models in my lunchtime as well!

Came across this on Youtube, It may have been flagged before but it's interesting not just about the Fell and its short lived concept but some nice period loco shots as well, including standard locos like Britannia being displayed at Marylebone. 

One thing is the lack of safety gear like hard hats and visors in the works sequences, a lot has changed! Still it was only 5 years after WW2 so a flat cap and a long coat gave you all the protection you were likely to get...

Also film explains the way the transmission worked.  As that meant only one of the 4 main engines powered the loco from a standing start, with the others being progressively added as speed built up, that seems a major flaw.

Anyway, a bit of railway history. If they'd just electrified everything...

13 hours ago, JZ said:

Who cares? Modelling is about enjoying what you do, not what others think.

A friend of mine is also a very big Gerry Anderson fan, so I sent him a link to this.

Re Gerry Anderson day, there was a 12 hour (!) live feed on YouTube of various interviews, documentaries and episodes relating to Gerry Anderson's shows. I only came across this half way through a making of Stingray documentary that was the last item. However a recording of the whole lot was then available on YouTube so you could pick and choose what you wanted to watch....it's  probably still there.

The opening segment goes through absolutely everything Gerry Anderson made, some more obscure than others.

F.A.B. Virgil.

1:72nd  F16 AM  Royal Danish Airforce serial  E-191 in Danish national flag display colours.  The actual aircraft  was painted in 2019 to celebrate 800 years of the Danish flag.  The aircraft carried out a tour of Denmark to "show the flag".  I'm told it still had the paint scheme last year at the RIAT display.

The kit is a Revell F-16  (cat. No. 03860). It is retrofitted with Quickboost F-16 block 5-10 elevators (cat. No. QB 72 196) as Danish F-16s haven’t all got the larger elevator upgrade that other F-16s did). The markings came from Syhart Decal 72-118 which also includes masks for the red/white paint scheme.

This is the last of my Covid projects, (not that it's the last of pre-Covid projects of course).  :-)  It had really dragged on, for reasons explained below!

An aircraft with a complicated livery. The Syhart decals and masks made it possible, particularly markings like the tail and you do get an option to use either masks or decals (or in my case both in places) for some of the trim lines. There are a lot of stencils to be applied, some very small.

When the basic airframe was assembled I sprayed an undercoat of Halfords white primer (which became the white coat). I then applied the masks from the Syhart set and airbrushed Tamiya XF-1 red. So far so good, I removed the masks and applied Johnson’s Clear to give a gloss coat for the decals. Some of the lining can be done with decals supplied with the set, and I ended up using a combination of masked paint, touched up in places and in some places the decals. I thought I’d apply another gloss coat over another coat of clear, and used a spray can of Humbrol gloss varnish over it. This is where things went wrong.

I’d used the Humbrol gloss varnish before and had a nearly empty can that had given good results and so I used the new can, thinking it would be the same. Alas, the top coat of Clear didn’t protect the underneath red paint and it started to melt and run in places! The Humbrol varnish (acylic) had obviously reacted to both the Clear and the Tamiya acrylic paint. There was nothing for it but to leave the model to one side for everything to harden. Eventually I had another go, touched up the red and white paint where I could. I then took a deep breath and sprayed several light coats of Halfords gloss acrylic lacquer (the stuff you spray over metallic car paint) and that gave an increasingly gloss coat, without any effect on the coats below. Phew.

Interesting about the silicon tubing with ball bearing.

I've used these from Branchlines but they might be a bit small/short for your purposes here.

A small u/j at the end of each shaft. Thin shaft doesn't show up too much going through cab....

I was given one of those Farish tender drives many years ago, it did in a transistorised controller trying to run it!  A "proper" motor was obviously a better idea, but early Farish is  intriguing though.

Found another photo of the Color Line model.

This shows a conference room where a model of the model is being discussed!

Just as a matter of interest, this is an actual Color Line ferry.  The maritime museum is in the red brick building with a high roof on the right, in front of the dock offices. It was very well curated, very friendly and had an excellent cafe as well. Some small preserved vessels outside it.

Bill.

Been going through some pics. Went on a trip to Germany last year and visited Kiel. There's an excellently run martime museum by the harbour in a building that was an old fish market. Very good at explaining the local history and included some superb models.

This is a 1:100 scale model of the Color Line ferry Color Magic one of several ferries that link Kiel with Oslo. They are built with  cruise ship facilities to attract passengers to the route.

The actual ship is 224m (734') long which makes the model  big at 2.24 m or 7.34' long.

The starboard side is cut away in places to reveal certain decks. The amount and quality of detail is frankly staggering.

The full sized ship has a mock "shopping street" to encourage passengers to spend money.

There were also buttons to press to light up different parts of the interior.  The information given was that the main parts of the hull were CNC  machined and the fittings and details were by 3D printer. Made by a large team of people, apparently.  (I think it said the figures are Preiser!)

Anyway, it was over 7 foot of remarkable detail and I thought I should share it with you.

Vintage Airfix Aichi D3a1  VAL Type 99

Made this when I was at school.  For some reason this has survived over the years packed away with various modelling parts.  It wasn't a type of aircraft I was particularly interested in, probably bought the kit because it was a new Airfix release.  This was first issued in 1965 and again in 1967 so I probably made it around then. Would have stopped making kits around then with all the other stuff of life coming along. 

So it's got to be at least 57 years old if not 59.... reassuringly the paint (and glue!) has lasted well, may well be finished in Humbrol 49 enamel matt varnish so that's protected it ok.

Airfix has recently re-released this one again.

Er, what now, back in box for another 57 years?  Ouch.

(So what do people do with old models?)

That radio interview is amazing.  He is obviously very articulate and a very good communicator. I didn't know there had been a Channel 4 program about him either.  Here's someone who played a recording of a class 37 on national radio and had the presenters hanging on his every word.  Streuth!

I've seen him on platforms waiting for various unusual trains while I've been out er, trainspotting and that's only because my mate recognised him. I've  seen railtour train crews taking selfies of themselve with him so he's obviously very well known and popular. As he's selling an interest in trains to a generation much younger than myself and associates, he's doing a  great job and good luck to him.

Thanks Phil.  Seeing more 3d printed parts on modelling forums now, interesting technique. The more you know....

The other thing on your pictures of your diorama is that the lighting adds to the realism,  looks like a bright sunny day. That's another project for me...

9 minutes ago, PhilH said:

Some more progress on the little diorama. This hopefully will depict one of the Belgian Minervas captured by the Germans in WW1.

I printed the lampost in clear resin, masked and painted it. The cobbles and paving stones et cetera are individual items cast in plaster using diorama debris moulds and various pigments.

Next step is my least favourite of all modelling activities, painting the figures.

That looks very realistic,  particularly like the coblestones and the paving.

I've never tried 3d printing, but is there any disadvantage in using clear resin, like it's less strong perhaps, compared to the different grades of the grey stuff?

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

It only gets better when running on your layout, looks like it is gliding above the rails. 

Still photos of them in action at speed in C19th show an eruption at the top of the chimney, which flattens out very rapidly. The exhaust volume in the attached vid is of the right scale, but she isn't going fast enough for the full effect.

 

 

But essential when in regular operation. A plentiful coal and water supply was necessary to deliver the sustained power output.

 Very entertaining video, the speed of the driving wheels is fascinating!

Having missed out on the single last time. I've ordered the large tender one from Locomotion, I'll have a timeline of East Coast locos from the Stirling to HSTs when it turns up, should look great running round the layout.

There was a cartoon in I think an American model magazine years ago where the model railroader sits behind his layout which is separated from the room door by a large pool full of sharks. The punchline was OK Mable, you can send in the kids now!

Pete Waterman's Leamington Spa layout was interesting to see. He made a comment about it being good not to be able to see all the railway at once. Just like the real thing. 

Also the 3d printing and laser cutting being used for the big WCML layout for Chester cathedral was interesting. An hour well spent!

Royal Danish Airforce  DH Canada T. Mk20 Chipmunk

The model is from the Airfix 1:72 scale kit which has been around for some time now. I added instrument panels from plasticard and seatbelts from thin Tamiya tape. As per previous discussions on this thread, they are details that are difficult to see on this model.

I used Lima November decals from sheet LN72-D11, good sheet with lots of stencils as well. From Hannants.   More unusual markings.

I found some pictures on Britmodeller of 2 RDAF Chipmunks in the Danmarks Flymuseum at Stauning airfield in Ringkoebing. They are P-143 and P-147. I picked P-143. It has dayglo orange markings. Mine is based on the museum example. The main silver colour is Halfords aluminium. (The prototype has a painted silver finish, like RAF high speed silver, a typical 1950s finish, rather than bare metal).

The dayglo orange was brush painted with multiple thinned down coats using an old Humbrol tin of enamel.

The finishing coat is Humbrol gloss varnish from a spray can. I’d had that a while but tested it first and it gave a smooth surface so I used it on the model. Museum aircraft often appear very shiny!

The RDAF had 27 of these used as primary trainers from 1950 to 1977. When they were withdrawn they were sold off at auction and a lot of civilian register Chipmunks came from these ones.

P-143  was in flying condition on  the Danish registry as OY-FLV from 2003 to 2008, and it’s been a static exhibit since then.

7 hours ago, RJS1977 said:

 

Not quite. Neddie built the aeroplane in a garage of Lisle Street (hence wanting to take off from there). Grytpype-Thynne sold him the air to fly it in!

Brilliant! Thanks for that, I've found the episode, got it on tape, "Wings over Dagenham" 1957, and found the script on thegoonshow.co.uk.    There's some good gags in it!

Going to have to listen to this later. 

1 hour ago, Dorkingian said:

 

The Izzard bits seemed to lack quite a bit of model railway detail though, not least how they made the snow.

I've just caught up with this episode, which had a lot of interesting history in it,  and I also wondered what they made the snow from.  Anyone have any ideas?  It looked very good. However I didn't realise the second layout was N gauge for a while, it is to a very high standard.

Re The Goons, I spent a lot of my childhood repeating lines like "he's fallen in the water" and "you dirty rotten swine" etc etc due to the Goons being a significant influence.  It was a long time later that I realised that the show contained a lot of dubious old army style jokes.  Grytpype-Thynne (Sellers) sells Seagoon a useless aircraft that Neddy for some reason wants to fly from Lyle Street in Soho.  The punch line being  "If you can't get off in Lyle Street, Neddy, you can't get off anywhere".   And a notorious gag where Eccles is fired from a circus cannon, having been told "it's your turn in the barrel"  - OK I'll stop there.  

Milligan was absolutely brilliant , his book "Puckoon" is worth a read if you can find it.  imho.

Finally, a very funny Eddie Izzard sketch is "Death Star Canteen".   Darth Varder tries to get lunch...  it's on Youtube, watch the Lego version!!

  Also there were some good trains in the program. I'll stop now.

It's a nightmare!!

There were some dinosaur models on here recently.  So for a bit of light relief  here's RoboDino! It's difficult to tell what the scale is....

Nearly 2 years ago we took our grandchildren to a "meet Santa" event on a local preserved railway. It was very well run, you met Santa then had a train ride to Santa's warehouse where they picked a present. Our grandson, who was then 5, was taken by this RoboDino kit, made from pseudo-Lego type bricks.  So far so good.

When we got it home and opened the box there were many small bags containing lots of even smaller components. The instructions had 15 sections printed so small that you needed an electron microscope to read them properly.  :-)

Well, grandson stared off gamely, then with help from (guess who) me. Then it became increasingly obvious who was going to be finishing this project....🤔

It took me a week.  Unlike Lego, the very small blocks didn't clip together very well. It was a strange type of plastic.  I had to use various glues after increasing experimentation.  I drilled and tapped it, used various bolts and screws.  I managed to get the tail to swing.  I think it looks, roughly at least, as intended to be.  I just had to keep going, didn't want to lose my reputaion of being able to fix anything..🙂

Grandson did have it in pride of place on his bedroom shelf. Don't know where it is now, daren't ask. We definately don't encourage him to get anything with lots of parts that needs assembly....

Bill

Also I liked Jools Holland's story about buying a model of Victor Hugo's house for his layout in, er, Victor Hugo's house. Presumably the house in Paris rather than Guernsey. Coming back into the UK, Customs officials couldn't work out what this was and why he was bringing it in and got the sniffer dogs out...

But it didn't contain anything it shouldn't.

Really glad this series got flagged up on this thread, just seen the first episode via Channel 4 app.

When Jools Holland's layout was featured in both Railway Modeller and Continental modeller I had to get both mags.  The different eras of personal history it covers was very interesting.  Both Pete Waterman and Jools Holland are very entertaining of course.

The layout also incorporated a very important philosophy for lofts, have the layout run round the sides and stand in the middle so you can't see everything at once!

Also great to see a serious program on model railways.