Narses2's Blog - or what I'm slowly making progress on

[Rheged]

..Worcester, lovely place and the Cathedral is amazing..

Would love to see that. And another gazillion of interesting places and stuff over at that island of yours

Really looking forward to that! 

I was born here, I've been working through the gazillion places to see for 60-someting years, and I'm nowhere near the end of the list yet!!

If anyone working through "the list" gets as far as Hereford, please let me know and the coffees/beers/teas/whatever are on me.

[NARSES2]

Dontcha mean SAM, Chris?

Yes I do, thank you Dave. I've amended it.

Unfortunately I've been in a month's long correspondence with those (insert adjective and noun of choice) at the other magazine and my fingers are almost programmed to type their acronym 

[NARSES2]

..Worcester, lovely place and the Cathedral is amazing..

Would love to see that. And another gazillion of interesting places and stuff over at that island of yours

..Sea Defiant Mk VII which involves the front end of an Airfix Spitfire Mk 22.

Really looking forward to that! 

It's quite a short article by Henk de Jong. Nice examples of kit bashing 

[NARSES2]

I was musing on what to take to the Elstree Show earlier today and I came across a couple of nice 1940's French AF aircraft that I'd built a fair few years ago and I thought, we don't get much French 1940's stuff on the table so why not. That however led to a problem, I had know idea what they were  To be fair I had a rough idea what one was, but the other ? No way.

Anyway having started work in the 60's when offices were full of paperwork and punch cards (for the tabulators) I have this habit of retaining all my old instruction sheets and some of the better box art in filing boxes, so I dug them out. My first boss may not have improved of my system but it worked, and half way down through the first box I found what I was looking for. It helped that I had a rough idea of the kits manufacturers if not what they were.

So kit one was as I'd half remembered the Arsenal VG 36 and the second was the Doflug D.3803. Now this was a late 1940's Swiss development of their mid-40's D.3802 which in turn was a development of the MS 450. So anyway it's going to the show as the MS 460, last of the MS 410 line 

I then went through the rest of the boxes and was frankly amazed at the sheer diversity of stuff I've built over the last 20 years or so. Mostly aircraft with propellers, but some really esoteric stuff included, more post 1950 jets then I realised. A fair bit of 1/72/176 armour, some heavy artillery pieces in the same scale built for a mate who's grandfather was in the RGA in WWI and finally a ship ! HMS Nelson in 1/600. Now I've absolutely no memory of this at all, indeed it may have been an instruction sheet left over from teenage years, but it did show the diversity of stuff I've built.

So where is this leading to ? I have made a firm decision that I am going to go through and catalogue all my finished models and label all the photos. Most of the later simply have a date taken as a file name, it wasn't until relatively recently I started to label the files properly. So something for 2022 I think, a nice trip down memory lane.

The other thing I remembered during this search was the how absolutely terrible the paper quality Revell used to use for their instruction sheets was. 

[Pellson]

Good fun, that! Looking forward to see some statistics when you're done. 

[Old Wombat]

The other thing I remembered during this search was the how absolutely terrible the paper quality Revell used to use for their instruction sheets was. 

Most instructions were the same, back in the day; it wasn't like they were expected to last more than a few months or so, until the kit was bought & built.

[NARSES2]

Good fun, that! Looking forward to see some statistics when you're done. 

What answer would you like ? 

[Old Wombat]

Good fun, that! Looking forward to see some statistics when you're done. 

What answer would you like ? 

[NARSES2]

Here's a quick shot of the finished Moonbat. Full build can be found here

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=49450.60

[Old Wombat]

 

[Rheged]

I like it very much!!

[Pellson]

Here's a quick shot of the finished Moonbat. Full build can be found here

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=49450.60

Very strange aircraft, that. And a really good build too.

[NARSES2]

Thanks gents

Very strange aircraft, that. 

It certainly is, but it has a look about it that's for sure. I find the shape very appealing and I really cannot shift the idea from my mind of a missile armed jet version.

Meanwhile amongst other things I did manage to get a little bit of work done on the Tempest only to find that I've lost the tailwheel 

No problem I must have a spare one. So after sifting through a medium sized storage tray marked "undercarriage, doors, wheels etc" have I heck. Hardly any and what I do have are way to small, so I've cobbled one together from what looks like a nosewheel and associated leg. Little bit bigger, comparing to my Airfix Typhoon's one, but not really noticeable.

[NARSES2]

The KP Tempest is now finished in it's RNZAF scheme and it's a very nice kit. Lovely detail and fit, but not quite as fussy as their recent Seafire which suited me  Thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait for the Mk VI and in particular the Mk II 

Meanwhile on a completely different tack I noticed yet another sign of the "return to normality" (or whatever that will be) this morning. My local Sainsburys (a UK Supermarket chain) have removed the Covid shields that they'd installed between each till point. Hadn't quite realised how restrictive they were until this morning.

[Nick]

The KP Tempest is now finished in it's RNZAF scheme and it's a very nice kit. Lovely detail and fit, but not quite as fussy as their recent Seafire which suited me  Thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait for the Mk VI and in particular the Mk II 

Meanwhile on a completely different tack I noticed yet another sign of the "return to normality" (or whatever that will be) this morning. My local Sainsburys (a UK Supermarket chain) have removed the Covid shields that they'd installed between each till point. Hadn't quite realised how restrictive they were until this morning.

I've noticed a few pubs have now taken down the shields from their bars and are allowing you to order at the bar too. No more faff with app ordering. Slowly but surely getting back to how life was 2 years ago.