What's on the workbench!

[McColm]

Sunday 30th December 2018

Well the Wooster 1/72 desktop model of the BAe/RJ 146 arrived yesterday .
It's in British Airways colours, no undercarriage but it does come with a stand. The wings are a bit tricky getting it to slot in the fuselage. So I hit with a mallet. There's a slight mark left.
There's a sketch drawing of the
BAe-146 AEW in The Air Staff and AEW by Chris Gibson but this shows the FASS arrangement. I will go down the Erieye System.

[TheChronicOne]

Nice man! I like the mallet fix. 

[McColm]

Monday 31st December 2018

I have removed the hull from the 1/72 Monogram Rockwell B-1B but kept the Revell HP Victor T-tail and added the front section of the Revell 1/144 Boeing 747 over the cockpit to make the shape of the Straton 798.
As you know I have an idea to turn the Academy 1/72 Boeing C-97 Stratofreighter into a flying boat but never got around to building one. With the remains of the Revell 1/144 Boeing 747-100 which had the wings of a 1/96 HP Victor is now being dry tested on the roof of the C-97. This fits.
The glazing will be glued in place and I have found the set of decals for a 1/72 Boeing 707 Pan Am which includes the windows which I will use.

[McColm]

Wednesday 2nd January 2019

The builds
1) Tailless XP-45 Maverick
1/72 Revell Avro Shackleton MR.3 donor kit.
Fuselage and wings glued together, nose flattened. Nosewheel landing gear glued in place along with the fuselage glazing prior to the fuselage halves being glued together . Bomb bay doors also glued on, but a gap has appeared.

2) Stratton 798A
Donor kit is the Monogram 1/72 Rockwell B-1B Lancer. T-tail is from a Revell HP Victor K2, at the front covering the cockpit has the Revell 1/144 Boeing 747-100. This will need blending into the fuselage of the
B-1B.

3) Avro York AC-1 Gunship
Donor kit is the 1/72 Contrail vacform Avro York C1.
So far the fuselage has been removed and the middle tail fin deleted. A part built Airfix Avro Lancaster BI/BIII will be donating it's wings, engines and landing gear.

4) Martin Mariana AEW.1
Based on the Mach2 Martin Mariner with turbofan engines and parts from the spares bin. Painted about 6 times, another coat will be needed after a bit of restoration.

5) Prince Class Flying boat
A- Air Car Ferry, based on the Revell 1/72 Blohm & Voss Bv222A kit. Upper deck does have airliner seats taken from the Mach2 Sud Caravelle, but you can't see much detail through the clear dome where the gun turret used to be. The nose section is being transformed into a pair of clamshell doors. There are six Rolls-Royce Griffon engines replacing the ones in the kit
B- The Mighty Thor
1/72 Revell Blohm & Voss Bv222A with the wings and upper body of a Airfix Avro Vulcan B.2. Front and rear FASS resin cones are from the BAe Nimrod AEW. 3 conversion set. Vacform windscreen. PSR.

6) Boeing SST
Two former Revell 1/200 scale kits.
SST Golden Cloud has 6 jet engines and twin tail fins.
Whilst the Bronze Cloud has the vertical tail fin from a 1/144 Airfix BAC Concorde kit as well as it's engines.
The Silver Cloud is still in the box.

7) HS Trident MkV
1/100 VEB Playfix Trident kit with 5 engines.

Breguet Br1250 Mystic AEW. 1 flying boat.
A kitbash using the Hasegawa Martin Marlin and the wings from a Airfix Vickers Valiant. FASS resin parts are from the BAe Nimrod AEW. 3 conversion set. Still PSR to do.

9) Fokker Rotodyne
1/72 Fokker Friendship as the donor, Rotodyne wings and rotor stack. Kitbashing on the tail fins, long range fuel tanks. Rotor blades are from the EH-101 Merlin.
Landing gear to be found.

10) Lockheed Heliplane
I have used parts from the Boeing 1/72 V-22 Osprey to form the main rotor. Kits used are the C-130H , triple tail fins Lockheed Constellation, rotor stack Mil-26 Halo, front nose resin BAe Nimrod AEW.3, rear AN/APS-20. Turbofan engines to be glued back on.

11) 1/72 Beriev Be-12 Mail
This is the Sanger vacform kit. Parts started to be cut out.

12) 1/72 An-12 Cub
This is the Airmodel kit although I do have the Sanger vacform kit as well.
This will be a AEW platform based on a Chinese aircraft.

13) Hogwarts Castle, the forbidden forest, Hogsmead Village, Hogwarts Quidditch Pitch.
Former pop-up book cut and glued on bases in the erect position.
There are a few buildings missing that prevents the two parts forming one castle

14) 1/72 Wooster BAe 146 desktop model.
Although the E-2 Hawkeye rotodome does fit, the Erieye system would work as well.

[McColm]

Hi Guys,
I had my mobile phone stolen and a few of my builds were damaged whilst I was at work last week. It's caused me a few problems but I think with a few days of whiffing I should get my mojo back.
My tablet has stopped working but I found an old phone whilst I had a clear out and with a full recharge of the battery, SIM card inserted I am able to send and receive text messages, no apps or internet connection, can't even make a phone call. This isn't a problem as I found another Emergency Phone under the bed, it's amazing what you find under there!
This one is a Nokkia 3310, but the screen is tiny and it's pay as you go, so a weekly trip to the nearest internet cafe will do for now until I save up enough to clear some debits on the credit cards and get something decent.

Meanwhile, the bench is tidy. Well that didn't last long as  the 1/72 Car Air Ferry flying boat has all six turbo engines with Hamilton four blade propellers taken from various C-130 kits.
The EC-97 AEW now has the triple tail taken from a Heller Lockheed Constellation, it will receive the rotodome from the Heller Boeing E-3 A/C with the resin stand from the RVHP conversion set. I'm not too sure what happened to the resin rotodome from the set.
Restoration on the various 1/24 and 1/25 car kits continues. The resin moulded Batmobile is slowly being turned back into a convertible (as none of the parts fit properly without major surgery!) Although the Revell Porsche RS does look good with those Bat hub caps on the headlights and Bat fin on the roof. All it needs is a matt black finish to complement the orange plastic mouldings.

[TheChronicOne]

I HATE thieves. 

[zenrat]

Cut their hands off.

[DogfighterZen]

I HATE thieves. 

Cut their hands off.

Second that!! Thieves are scum, we don't need people like that in the world.

[PR19_Kit]

Superglue their hands to something heavy, like a ship.................

[scooter]

Superglue their hands to something heavy, like a ship.................

Train tracks

[McColm]

Wednesday 23rd January 2019

Thanks for your comments, moving along to a started build. The Roden 1/72 An-12 Cub. This is a lot smaller than the Lockheed C-130 and yet when it comes to using it as an AEW or AWACS platform has a lot of possibilities both in the real and whiff world.
The kit has thick plastic with limited detailing, you can have the rear tail ramp lowered if  you want and add the seating provided. There is an alternative rear gun turret or one that is blanked over. So far the parts seem to fit together okay but I have only glued the floor to the starboard fuselage and added the starboard tail section.
This will become an AEW aircraft either with the spin top from an E-2 Hawkeye or the phased array pod favoured  by the Chinese.
As to the 1/72 Martin Marina, this has a brand new paint scheme. It started out as NATO drab green but looks biscuit brown to me. I just need to add the decals and paint the cockpit canopy.
Its PSR on all the other builds at the moment.

[McColm]

Monday 28th January 2019

There is life without the internet, such as reading books and listening to the radio. I even got to watch a TV whilst working nights over the weekend. Brr it was cold but there was a free vend on the hot drinks machine in the works canteen which has the telly in it. Its a bit of a trek from the security hut but worthwhile for the forty minutes of telly time. Well there was a TV in the security hut many moons ago but it got chucked as the guard wouldn't let the boss in until he had finished his programme.

Back to the 1/72 Roden An-12 Cub AEW build.
Its becoming a bit of a nightmare fitting the cockpit interior so that the fuselage halves have a snug bond without any gaps. I had to cut the dashboard exterior and re-glue this after. There's a gap in the nose-wheel well and gaps in the tail fin area. I'm going to close the tail loading ramp on the finish build.
I found some aftermarket wheels in the stash amongst the 1/72 Revell Tornado GR1/1A kits.

I'm not too sure if the wings from an 1/72 Airfix F-14 Tomcat would fit on the Hasegawa North American RA-5C, but it's worth a whiff.

Back to the cars and yet another box of goodies, probably too late for the Group Build but they will be next.

[McColm]

Tuesday 5th February 2019

I'm back in the land of Wi-Fi tablets and Android phones.  I'm also still sticking to my no new or secondhand kits bought during this month. The stash is getting the airing that it needs and I keep finding multiple buys of kits.
I must have bought one, forgot about it and then bought another .
On the bench at the moment is the 1/72 Roden An-12 Cub. This is still giving me some grief so I had to change the engines.  I found four outter Revell Avro Shackleton  AEW.2 engines and have glued these in place under the wings.

I've also gone back to the theory of building one Whiff at a time, so I can keep track of the parts used and stick to the design.
It's drastic but I think this will work out just fine

[kitbasher]

  would be good to see some pics

[McColm]

They are on there way.
I just had an idea of using the  BAe 146 in USNavy colours as I have the 1/144 vac form kit in the stash.
I'm not too sure if the BAe 146 was ever considered as a COD aircraft but I know that several proposals were put forward to the  Air Staff and Admiralty in the AEW role with the FASS and Hawkeye layouts.