Luft46's Blog

Now my bench setup is working better some modelling is getting done. I completed the canopy masking last night which is always a slow process. The 90 odd patches over the RLM 75 have been started. The blown up instructions were covered by clear packing tape amd then Tamiya masking tape per a friends advice. I finally used the tool I bought in Telford last year to cut out the tape in those strange shapes. I don’t have to be 100% accurate as it is Luft46 anyway.

1. Ok my posts are probably like buses, you wait for ages then three come along.
2. So here’s a few photos of the bv p178. The rlm 75 from Aeromaster  is now on. The instructions have been blown up by 220% to be able to cut out the masks. Poor lighting means I will be doing the canopy tomorrowAnd something silly to finish off with.

   

And lastly the V1 which includes a bonus Rheintochter

I have added in a brass engine intake from another kit so far.

Photos on this soon 

What follows is some shots of the 4 kits I received recently via HobbyEasy. The subjects are great W46 to complement my L46 interest.

Having started the V1 launcher kit I can say the kit is very high in terms of sprue gates. The plastic is soft but also brittle. Having used my sprue cutters in cutting out the V1 parts I would recommend cutting a lot further out than normal the cleaning up with a scalpel. Otherwise you will end up lots of holes to fill.

On the whole the kit is good so far . I am looking forward to seeing how it looks further down the line.

This V1 launch site is great. There was one in 1.35 from a UK company in resin but way too pricey for me. Mach 2 did  a variant of this in 1.72 but it was Mach 2 quality though.

Here’s my new painting booth including lighting from the Enterprise. Thanks to a friend who upgraded this with accessible switches.

Now here is my pile of Aeromaster acrylics… unfortunately they have aged they have decayed and some bottles are unusable as the paint is lumpy. Any good ones once opened are a one shot affair. I opened one bottle and sprayed and by the next day it was getting lumpy.

The interior before closing all that lovely detail up. If this is not a modellers cliche I do what is. 

And for Australians of a certain age toilet graffiti that was surprising

After the last few weeks of rain modelling has been more organisational than practical. Painting has not been an option in this moisture laden environment. I have removed all my paint etc stands to the back shed and taken the chance to better utilise my drawers. The results are below

The above drawer illustrates I do not have OCD or all the RLM codes would be easily readable on the right hand side.

I did dig out a Micro Mir 1.35 kit of a mini sub for a little bit of work on the weekend. It is very typical ex Iron curtain in manufacturing style. It has a slightly brittle plastic with some poorly engraved lines in part. For big parts like the main body there are lots of moulding gates. There is also insufficient bracing pieces over the long body.

Surprisingly there is a full cockpit area.It is a little sparse but very little will be visible through the  bubble canopy. Below are a few progress shots.

After a couple of weekends of solid work dremeling the tracks and adding most of the parts to the hull the muse has left the building. I have returned everything to the box with the assembly about 90% complete. 

Unfortunately I am going through a bit of a clean up phase so nothing much is likely soon. 

I have cleared the 4 racks of paint, glue , weathering dust , washes and paints back into my drawers to free up some bench space for 1:1 scale work.

I have even dragged out the drawer of cassettes … yes I am that old and will have a massive cull hopefully. 

The weather in Sydney has been abominable with 2 heatwaves in as many weeks and a third due tomorrow. On a couple of the rare ok days I have managed to finish the tracks. I quickly gave up on hand sanding and switched to my Dremel. Even then it took 3 sessions to complete. A final session was taken up in sanding the Milliput filled divots on some of the tracks. There seemed to be 3 types of tracks, one which only had raised mould marks, one with a mixture of both and one with 2 lots of divots. Fortunately the first was the most common type. 

Having done that I now need to connect these up.

A friend gave me an Academy 1.25 Panther kit he was never going to build. I have started and got to Stage 13 with no dramas.

The kit has clip together individual track links. Trouble is each one has 2 moulding marks that need cleaning up. I’ll post next when I finish it all. The only question is how many Resident Evil films it will take to do it.