Gondor's Grumblings

[Gondor]

So was that an e-mail conversation then mate ?

Glad you got what you wanted 

I won't know until it arrives if its the sprue for the turreted version, which I want or if it's for the non turreted version which I don't want.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Had a nice supprise today, Facebook messenger message from a modeller in Indea who I contacted as he had printed some of his own decals for the second Sea Harrier squadron that was operated by the Indian Navy. He had eventually managed to get them posted to me so that will be nice to see when they arive.

Gondor

[Gondor]

One of my "plans" is to build a single seat Defiant. I have mentioned this elsewhere but thought I would share a picture or two to give a rough idea of how I propose it to look.

The size of the Defiant is not that much larger than a normal fighter of the time period so lots of things can be used to make it look the part. Firstly a lot of aircraft had spines to the fuselage, and I don't mean quills found on porqpines either. So as I am modifying a Hurricane into something simmilar but different to a Huricane I removed it's spine



and here is the resultank pictured placed on the Defiant Naval aircraft



If you can ignore the fact that the spine is sitting at an angle you can see that length wise it should do quite nicly, at least as a base to save ton's of PSR.
.

On other news I have for now stopped buying Wessex Helicopters as yesterday I won two HAS. Mk.3's, one of which has a missing undercarriage leg. This is not a problem as I have been buying earlier versions of the aircraft befor Westland modified the aircraft and some of these versions have the option of the later type of undercarriage which has a V strut at the bottom rather than just the one rod which means I can build a real world aircraft for the Israeli Air Force so I get the undercarriage type used by westland left from that build. 

Gondor

[Gondor]

Due to several people testing positive for Covid-19 at work since Friday the company decided to shut the building down from noon today.  Suddenly I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do 
The obvious thing is to get on with some of the started projects of which the majority are models I have started building. Another ongoing project has been reorganizing the storage of my model kit collection or "stash" of which ten IKEA packing boxes worth are now in the loft with each box numbered and the contents listed. The storage room now has three empty boxes and to incomplete boxes as well as another seven full boxes of which four have been numbered and their contents catalogued.too. Add in those models in the modelling room and the total so far that are cataloged is only 609, perhaps I might get some of the models out of the bedroom too 
Future builds are also tugging at me but I think a mix of storage sorting and started projet building and You Tube or Civ IV may happen.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I was checking the Mitsubishi F-1 over to see if my conversion plan would work, unfortunatly not so I went and bought a T-2 . The F-1 will not go to waste though, the decals look better than what I remember the one in my stash looks like so I may swap the boxings over or at least the decals. The deep two tone blue colour scheme will end up on ofe of them I think, just to look that little bit different.

Gondor

[Gondor]

Further to my posting on the 18^th, recently got a phone call from my boss telling my that the factory will be closed on Mondayas wellas the last few days and that it will be reviewed on Monday as the NHS will be looking over the building to see if precautions are good enough. Ho humm, at least I have some time to get some modelling done even though I model at a snails pase most of the time.

Gondor

[Gondor]

I was just thinking about some of the books that I have as once my stash is catalogued the next this to get similar treatment is the library.

So I was pondering, as some people do, if there is a definitive book on the Hurricane in a similar way as the Shacklady book on the Spitfire? I'm not expecting quite as studious tome as the Shacklady book but something with similar reverence.

Suggestions, polite, practical and physically possible and not on a postcard please "gentlemen".

Gondor

[NARSES2]

The Hawker Hurricane by Francis K Mason is a good one, not as weighty as Shacklady, but a good one 

[Gondor]

Thanks for that, will order a coppy at the end of the week when I get paid.

Gondor

[Gondor]

So you've heard of the joke "A funny thing happened to me on the way to the Forum..... Pub...... Doctors..... Theater etc"

Well Last Friday something decidedly un funny happened to me on the way to work which resulted in the below



Not exactly a great time had by all, namely me, and thankfully the weather was only cold unlike today which was snow on the ground and rain falling from the say, as if it would fall from anywhere else 

Long story short, the picture is of the drivers side front wheel, damaged, and tyre, blown. Rear tyre on the same side needed replaced as well as both front wheel and tyre, all due to some debris that fell off a lorry onto the outside lane of the motorway.

All is ok now and I got the car back Wednesday evening . The new wheel does mean that I don't have to wash that, not yet anyway.

Gondor

[PR19_Kit]

Don't you just HATE it when stuff like that happens?

I've had that three times in multi-million mile driving life, and it's no fun at all. Glad you got out of it OK Alastair.

[DogfighterZen]

I feel your pain, mate. Same thing happened to me last week, avoiding a big puddle and going over a smaller one, i managed to choose the puddle with a deep hole... i was lucky enough to make it to work and put the spare on during my lunch hour.

[kerick]

We keep a five gallon bucket in the garage to hold all the screws, nails and other pieces of metal my wife hase collected with her car tires. Of course I ran over a bolt driving my daughters car which drove the head of the bolt through the sidewall. The guys at the tire/tyre shop were impressed with that!

[zenrat]

Zoinks!

Worst thing is you can never find who is to blame to make them pay.

I once had a flat on my motorbike caused by a penny washer.  It had been on the road long enough to have been ground down into a razor sharp edged crescent of steel which sliced into my rear tyre and rattled around inside.  Something else which impressed the tyre shop guys.

[PR19_Kit]

In my early days with MTS I was driving my Cortina Mk V Estate up the A38 back toward Derby when a truck in front of me dropped one its railway sleeper loads off the back, right in front of me! 

The sleeper bounced (!) and one end went clean through my radiator grille, came to a stop against the engine, and with the other end embedded in the road, brought me to an abrupt halt. Thank goodness for seat belts and strong anchorages!

While much of the car was a wreck and had to be rebuilt at some length, I knew who owned the truck as it was my previous employers, British Rail! Needless to say my insurance people were VERY pleased to know that.