Luft46's Blog

It’s been just under four months since I last did any serious modelling. As explained earlier I’m waiting on my new modelling room to be completed so I can come in from the cold/heat extremes of my garage. The painter arrives on Monday to do his weeks work.

My son has assembled a new Ikea  set of drawers and also a set of cupboards in anticipation. He’s also sourced a sit to stand desk and I’ve got a new large cutting mat. I reckon it will take a few days to set this all up so the next update is probably at least ten days away.

Made it again to this event in Melbourne for the June long weekend. I was lucky enough to have six days there but only one day at Expo as I had other commitments.

I came via Mildura and this was at the airport.

What follows is a quick selection of the usual non Expo photos I took.

And on to Expo

This is more a recap of the last few weeks than anything else.

Below is the pile of military book purchases.

Next up is the total amount of books I bought overseas which according to my partner is at least 20 kgs.

Whilst I was away a parcel of paint bottles and a new stand for my desk also turned up.

The stand from Vallejo was about five minutes work to put together and is quite basic but hopefully useful. I’ve had indifferent results from this sort of thing in the past so this was chosen for its simplicity.

Because I’m getting older the enthusiasm to model in a cold messy garage is just not there any more especially with knowing a better indoor solution is ahead of me, admittedly further ahead than I would like.

For that reason I’ve dug out my older hobby that I gave up about 35 years ago and am having a flirtation with trying to get a stamp(s) from every country/political entity that has ever issued them including some of the micro nations and political movements. Getting three main albums and condensing them into a  rational order should occupy at least the time till my model room is complete.

On that note the skirting boards are now down in the room and I’m waiting on my son to clear his stuff out and the painter to come back and finish up.

The other thing I am going to do is continue to thoroughly list out the contents of my modelling boxes.

Next post will be on Model Expo next Sunday and not sure when the next will be after that.

I was going to write a longer post before I left to go back home BUT due to an issue with my plane getting out of London plus an unexpected two day layover in Helsinki I’m too tired to be bothered.

So here’s the quick version – went to the IWM and took more photos and bought another half dozen books mostly Ospreys on the Panzerfaust, Japanese and German lat war defence tactics and on some aircraft. Hopefully when I get back my luggage that I last saw nearly three days ago will join me and I can post images.

Meanwhile the renovations have gone ahead BUT these also have issues. Whilst the upstairs portion will be completed the new model room downstairs has not been painted and so the cupboards have been assembled but not joined together or to the walls pending painting.

I suspect this will be a delay of a few months so once I get the garage workbench area cleared I will recommence the Ta 183.

I’ll post some photos in a week or so once I have recovered.

Regular readers will know this blogs tends to eschew comments on politics, religion or sex. But on this occasion it’s relevant.

I currently feel a little sorry for American modellers. With the recently imposed tariffs on China Dragon, Takom, Border Models, Meng etc will now cost more than double their old prices. So any new kits are going to have hefty price tags. Hasegawa, Tamiya, Fujimi, Bandai etc being Japanese companies face a much lower tariff rate but will be still affected.

I haven’t seen much comment from American modellers on this but honestly as I am overseas this is not surprising.

I imagine that hard choices will need to be made by some or possibly many US modellers and I suspect more kits will be pulled from stashes than might have happened otherwise.

As the current US government position on tariffs seems to be whipsawing all over the place the above comments may be irrelevant within days. That’s my total comment on this but wiser readers can read between the lines.

I’m now in the Orkneys around Scapa Flow. I’ll see more of that tomorrow but have already seen the Churchill Barriers which are causeways between the main islands.

Back to Edinburgh last week and I visited Wonderland Models briefly. It’s a good shop that has a wide range of stuff including some older kits including the below photo of a kit I wasn’t aware of from Frog.

I went to the Scottish museum and saw this Fiesler Storch clone from the UK postwar.

And lastly the truth followed by a sort of Tardis –

I’ve got 50 minutes till I board so time for a quick post.

Helsinki

I also bought a saw set to replace my previous one that died in Covid times.

Also whilst there I visited an island in the harbour that had middle ages to 1900s era forts etc. In one of them they had mostly WW2 stuff. Not much unusual so below is a few selected photos.

Rovenamai just north of the Arctic circle and saw this jet

April 1 of course has passed and whilst I liked Airfix’s effort I particularly liked this one.

Lithuania

Near Vilnius is the Hill of Crosses which whilst mostly religious is also nationalistic as this area has been torn down multiple times by the Russians before the latest independence was achieved, each time people had risked their lives to show their wish for independence. Support of Ukraine is very high in these Baltic countries.

Various fighter squadrons have also added crosses etc whilst they have been stationed in this area especially in the last three years.

And lastly in Riga there is four assembly hangars for Zeppelins that are now repurposed as a market.

And when you’re feeling down remember you’re never as underappreciated as the poor people who design man hole covers and somehow manage to bring a little extra to looking down. I love them.

The last post was just a few days ago and I said it would be a while till the next one as I wasn’t doing anything hobby related.

My partner unintentionally booked our accommodation in Helsinki our first port of call about 150 metres from a hobby shop called Hobby Point. Whilst it is about 50% other stuff like knitting, decoupage etc the hobby section is surprisingly good.

It’s well stocked with plenty of models and lots of tools and accessories. In terms of tools etc it is in the league of the Melbourne shops. There are quite a few kits of local products especially WW2 aircraft.

After a good half hour of browsing I settled on some Mr Hobby White Putty which I’ll test when I get home.

And lastly the Putty

Till next time whenever that is.

I’m off on six weeks holidays to Europe so this blog will be fairly quiet in that time as I’m not visiting much that is military related for a change.

As the upstairs renovations continue my workbench is now closed.

During the last week or so I managed to work on the Tamiya (AMTech) 1.48 Ta 183. This is a nice little kit that’s fun to work on. I’m not even up to closing the fuselage together but have been occupied anyway. I’ve even tried a little weathering in the u/c and for the cockpit I’ve found a chalk in my stash that closely matches RLM 66 but matts down the paint surface. I’ll be using this again.

And lastly this is the repaint finished on the Hulk Hogan key chain for my brother in law.He hangs it from his car rear view mirror. He loves the old Hulk more so than the recent version.

Let’s start with my new model de jour. I’ve got 10 days till I leave on holidays and I’m still pretty busy with all the prep involved in getting upstairs moved downstairs so modelling is not the highest priority at the moment.

So I’m going to do some pleasant fiddling when I can. The challenge now is for you the reader to figure out what I’ve got on the bench. This morning I sprayed the relevant interior parts so not many clues in what this is. The answer is at the bottom of this post.

The mine clearer is now finished after some input from my artistic consultant who suggested a little more weathering. Hopefully you’ll agree with the finished product. Whilst it’s not perfect I have learned some lessons particularly with rattle can matt varnish and how much better the Vallejo masking fluid is than the old Humbrol Maskol, the tightness obtained is impressive.

Next up is I have joined up with all the cool kids on YouTube and now have black nitrile gloves. Why, well honestly I was in Bunnings ( Australian hardware store ) looking for new gloves as I had run out. The only gloves available were black so black it is.

My other project being a Delphin submarine in 1.35 has reached the tricky primer stage. This is where many of my projects stall so hopefully this will not be the case. I just do not want to be rushing to finish this and stuff it up so I’d rather wait and do this in its own good time.

There are no real gotchas with this kit from Mikromir so I’ll be happy to restart this later. It also has only two colours and no decals so I can’t see any real issues as I’ve already test fitted the brass and glass parts.

And lastly the answer to what I’m working on.

Are such a mixed blessing, on the one hand I will be getting a dedicated modelling room not subject to heat and cold extremes, on the other it just completely f$%#s with your mojo.

I have the mine clearer at about 97% complete and holding. I’ve had tradies at our place every day who’ve invaded the garage to a large extent and then there’s all the packing up and moving to be done so the painting and carpeting can be done.

I don’t have much on for the weekend so hopefully something might get done.

I also received the new airbrushing booth nozzle which I need to fit to replace this broken part.

Also in the mail was a modelling jig I ordered. This was pretty small and arrived with a broken part which I fixed but having got this I now hanker for something better. At around $25 this was just too cheap.

Clearing out my model cabinets so they can be moved has led to the farcical situation of models being temporarily stored in my spare back fridge and that’s not even my beer.

And lastly my BILs key ring that hangs from his rear view mirror. I’ve been commissioned to repaint it in yellow and red, every modellers favourite colours.