Quote from: Rick Lowe on April 07, 2025, 10:47:51 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on April 06, 2025, 06:27:34 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on April 06, 2025, 04:44:28 AMI always want to build a kit straight from the box. It jut never seems to work out like that...

I'm not sure that I ever have, EVER, even when I was young! 

I completed quite a few on Friday Nights after tea, when we'd gotten it at the shop* and then got back home.
To be fair, I was (really) young and they looked like you'd expect from that sort of treatment, but - early, learning days. 

*mostly Airfix bagged kits, as I recall.

Build the kit with stringy tube glue twisting the parts from the sprues.  Put the transfers on.  Fly it round the house while the glue dries and then paint it the next day painting right up to the edge of the markings.  Things were less complicated back then.

Quote from: zenrat on April 08, 2025, 04:18:16 AMBuild the kit with stringy tube glue twisting the parts from the sprues.  Put the transfers on.  Fly it round the house while the glue dries and then paint it the next day painting right up to the edge of the markings.  Things were less complicated back then.

Paint ? What was that ? Don't think I painted anything in the early years, and mostly used that tiny little capsule of glue you got in the kit.

My main goal was to glue the fuselage carefully enough so the prop would still spin but it was held together well enough not to drop apart. Then hold it out the car window as Dad drove along.

The other joy was the firework season, when a cheap banger was just the right size to fit in an Airfix MiG 15, with the blue touchpaper sticking out the exhaust nozzle.

Quote from: steelpillow on April 08, 2025, 06:51:21 AMThe other joy was the firework season, when a cheap banger was just the right size to fit in an Airfix MiG 15, with the blue touchpaper sticking out the exhaust nozzle.

Hmm, why does that ring a bell? 

Quote from: PR19_Kit on April 08, 2025, 06:52:22 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on April 08, 2025, 06:51:21 AMThe other joy was the firework season, when a cheap banger was just the right size to fit in an Airfix MiG 15, with the blue touchpaper sticking out the exhaust nozzle.

Hmm, why does that ring a bell? 

Or two 

Quote from: zenrat on April 08, 2025, 04:18:16 AM

Quote from: Rick Lowe on April 07, 2025, 10:47:51 PM

Quote from: PR19_Kit on April 06, 2025, 06:27:34 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on April 06, 2025, 04:44:28 AMI always want to build a kit straight from the box. It jut never seems to work out like that...

I'm not sure that I ever have, EVER, even when I was young! 

I completed quite a few on Friday Nights after tea, when we'd gotten it at the shop* and then got back home.
To be fair, I was (really) young and they looked like you'd expect from that sort of treatment, but - early, learning days. 

*mostly Airfix bagged kits, as I recall.

Build the kit with stringy tube glue twisting the parts from the sprues.  Put the transfers on.  Fly it round the house while the glue dries and then paint it the next day painting right up to the edge of the markings.  Things were less complicated back then.

I think I always painted first, but otherwise, this is to the spot. And those were good days!

I dreamed of kits with parts moulded in different coloured plastic, right down to the markings, so when you glued them together it didn't need decals or painting.

Sixty years later, the Airfix Quickbuild Spitfire is the nearest yet. They do versions in green/brown, green/grey and desert.

Quote from: steelpillow on April 09, 2025, 11:43:34 AMI dreamed of kits with parts moulded in different coloured plastic, right down to the markings, so when you glued them together it didn't need decals or painting.

Sixty years later, the Airfix Quickbuild Spitfire is the nearest yet. They do versions in green/brown, green/grey and desert.

Only downside with the Quickbuildsis that it seems the scales vary wildly. Or have I gotten that wrong?

They do indeed. Sized for the same weight of plastic, I suspect. The tooling can be a bit basic, too: the tinted cockpit reveals only its fastening lugs. And the decals are poor quality: not quite stick-on enough for their stiffness, and apt to be a bit transparent. You have to cut them carefully if you want to take the kit apart again. But at least the idea is there.

I'm fairly sure their target audience for those isn't us. Perhaps "us" as we might have been 50/60/70 years ago ... Or in Kit's case, when he was at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth*. 




[*: You played drums back then, didn't you, Kit?  ]

Quote from: Old Wombat on April 10, 2025, 05:40:25 AM[*: You played drums back then, didn't you, Kit?  ]

I actually WAS s drummer once, a very long time ago, in a school band. The word 'band' is used here in its WIDEST possible sense!

I'm not sure it QUITE that far back though............ 

Another expansion of this thread, but I thought it appropriate as also this third installation will be based on the ancient (1957!) Revell kit.

This example was snagged off our local Evilbay variant at a somewhat high cost, in particular as the fuselage halves had been painted (more on that later) and glued together. However, all parts were included, including the somewhat elusive two-piece canopy and windscreen that sets the original Revell mould apart from the Mastercraft/Mistercraft rip-off. Also, this being a 1989 reissue, there's a nice decal sheet and an additional sprue with pylons, fuel tanks and missiles, all of them incorrect, and a camera nose that may be used on either a reconnaissance Draken or a late Danish WDNS F-35, in both cases however having to be somewhat reshaped. That said, the air-to-air missile rails are quite useful as they actually do resemble early Swedish Sidewinder pylons.
And in any case - spares always come in handy, don't they?

This is, however, what came in the box I bought.

You cannot view this attachment.

Or almost. As you can see, I have cut away a length of the fuselage spine in order to make room for the new, twoseater cockpit. Also, I have reshaped the wing tips as per the other two Drakens in this thread, and I have filed and sanded a bit here and there in preparation for further construction, as you do.

And there's me been mulling over the design of my quad/octa-fan VTOL Draken.

Looked out the old Revell build and I had finished it in a Testors matt rattlecan varnish - only forgot to mask the canopy first.
Any ideas what to soak it in?

Quote from: steelpillow on Yesterday at 09:45:46 AMAnd there's me been mulling over the design of my quad/octa-fan VTOL Draken.

Looked out the old Revell build and I had finished it in a Testors matt rattlecan varnish - only forgot to mask the canopy first.
Any ideas what to soak it in?

Oven cleaner, I suppose?

Quote from: Pellson on Yesterday at 09:49:33 AM

Quote from: steelpillow on Yesterday at 09:45:46 AMAnd there's me been mulling over the design of my quad/octa-fan VTOL Draken.

Looked out the old Revell build and I had finished it in a Testors matt rattlecan varnish - only forgot to mask the canopy first.
Any ideas what to soak it in?

Oven cleaner, I suppose?

Dettol disinfectant might do the job,    and you end up with a sterilised model too.