Luft46's Blog

Continuing on there are more kits I bought – gotta feed the habit!
From the top left is the RS Models BV Ae607, I may do this as a day fighter as I already have one. The other 2 kits below are manned V2 variants from AV, the quality is only ordinary for these, buildable but not great. Off to the left are 2 sets of Lorin ramjets included as freebies which may have a use some time.

And now one last photo of stuff from my friend.
Firstly from the top is the RS Models BV P163.01, I have already got the .02 version but could never justify the second one’s purchase, in the middle is the Sharkit Me1106 rocket and then the grand prize. Fruitbat Productions were around in the early 90’s. They made 4 kits of which only 2 interest me, the first the Arado E381 is a beautiful kit that I have built for one of John Baxter’s books. The second one is the Heinkel Lerche 2. I did own the cheap Final Touch knock off kit but that was barely buildable and has long ago disappeared onto E-bay. This is a much much better kit and I am looking forward to building it one day.

So you are probably wondering if i bought anything at Expo , well not much.

The photo below is all. The Me 1101 kit at the back is also from my friend. Next up are two Masterbox kits in 1.35. The first is destined for my “girl on a bomb dio giving me enough body parts to cobble together the girl and the second is the zombies for the D9 bulldozer dio.
Off to the right hand side is some tape from Red Roo Models – this is supposed to replace Dynamo tape for rescribing panel lines, a report on this later. I did love their giveaway pen also 🙂
The next post will be photos from Expo.
What you can’t see in these photos is a cleanup and reorganisation of my work area that is going on currently.

A friend of mine was selling off a tonne of kits – he is getting out of modelling so I was able to secure a few extras.

Working clockwise  for the Toad kits from top right is the FW Flitzer, the Ju 488, the BV P202 and a FW Ta 283. With the exception of the Ju488 the rest are duplicates but i’m more than happy to have them. The Ju 488 is a kit that I’ve long lusted after, there is also the Kora kit but both were outside my spending zone so it is nice to pick up a bargain.

For the last 18 months my airbrush has not been working well. Evidently this is because I was not using the right cleaner , ie mineral turps instead of metho and one of my needles was busted. When I went out to Expo I saw the lovely gentleman from runway13.com who cleaned it up and supplied me with a few needed extras. Bottom left is a pack of various spares such as O rings, above this is a tray for securing small parts when airbrushing. I will report later on how effective this all is. In the middle at the top is a new 0.2mm needle etc with my brush set up with a standard 0.3mm needle. To the right are the other needles which didn’t need replacing. Bottom right is a tool to clean out gently the inside of the front end after painting.

Now a little gossip – Hearn’s have changed hands with a much younger owner and team running it. I even spotted a kid in there with his family buying a model kit, he even knew what a Sopwith Triplane was, very unusual. Most noticeable at Expo was who wasn’t there. Hyland;s Bookshop were having a 50th anniversary sale and stayed away as did Showcase Models, perhaps costs are rising a bit too much at the Sandown site. Also pared back were Aeroworks with less to sell and Platypus Publications was also absent. The 3D printer guy from last year did not make an appearance either. Hobby HQ was there with plenty of stock – more later but I heard that his company were involved in a court case , possibly an angry competitor given his prices. Given the pervasiveness of the net I think most retailers are fighting to survive and are very price sensitive. Crowds seemed similar to previous years , many of us were returning visitors in the queue to get in.  The new incarnation of Axis Eagles – Warbirds AMG were also there but that’s one club I will not be getting involved in. I’ll be a little interested to see whether it tanks!

The next update will cover some kit purchases.