March 2020 - Some raves from the grave

More about the raves from the grave later. First off, there was a good turnout on the night with, as usual, lots to see and admire on the table - one very small to some "very" large!

I experimented with a video - not sure that I want to do it every month but here goes:

Peter gave out information about the first club show of the year - Southern Expo in Hornchurch -. Unfortunately, the passes for club members hadn't arrived but wear your Clacton polo shirt and you will get in fine. Once this was sorted, we started round the table. 

Firstly, a little bit of an apology. There was so much of interest on the table that I ran out of time to do my usual photographic stunt of taking 5 images of each model, all with a difference focus point, and then merging the five into on image where the whole model is in focus. This takes a lot of time but I had to revert to taking a single image of each model. I hope to revert back to the high quality method next month.

The Table

Colin comes first with his nice little Airfix 1/72nd scale Spitfire F24. The kit is actually an F22 but Colin has made the conversion. You can check out the way he did this by looking at his new "Member's Article" on the web site.

Newcomer (at least to me) Les Airey was up next which is where the "rave from the grave" comes in. Les has indulged himself by making up two kits that have been in his stash for many years. First up is a Frog kit that he bought in 1963 for 6/- (that is six shillings or 30p in new money). This is a 1/500th scale model of an old favourite - H.M.S. Exeter (of Battle of the River Plate fame). He is proud of this but admits that he should have used white covered wire for the rigging as the black stands out a bit too much.

His other offering is quite new by the above standards - a Revell kit from 1993 of a Vosper MTB in 1/72nd scale.

JIm Smetherham has moved on from modelling Skoda car keys (bad joke from a few years ago). His two efforts today were very different. One was a sturdy Airfix 1/72nd DeHavilland Vampire (which I think is a T11) in bare metal.

The other was quite dramatic. It is a Meng F102 Delta Dagger. Jim had some trouble with the undercarriage and the pitot tube on the nose. He solved one with a piece of cocktail stick and the other with some fluffed up cotton wool!

Bill Banks continues he great efforts on 1/72nd scale aircraft. This time we have a Frog/Novo BAC Lightning F6. Bill says that he doesn't like painting all over silver so will be doing a couple more of these in other finishes.

Bill's second effort raised a few jocular remarks - along the lines of "we don't want any Argy stuff here". Of course, this isn't the case as we are pleased to a see aircraft of record on the table of all types and finishes. The aircraft involved was an Airfix 1/72nd scale Dassault Super Etendard of the Argentine Navy.

Arthur Banyard is still working away at the Royal Air Force from his time there. This time we had two of very different sizes - but both Hawker Hunters. First was a 1/48th scale Academy F6 which Arthur had modified with an Aeroclub cockpit, tail cone and undercarriage.

The second couldn't be any different. It was a full camo FGA9 but from Revell in 1/144th scale. I have quite a little collection of 1/144th but have never made one of these. I must get one!

Crispen Block, as usual, was beavering away all night on a new kit of his that I hadn't seen before. The box was huge so goodness knows how big the model is going to be. Welcome here to a Trumpeter 1/48th scale U-Boot! This is U552 - a Type VIIC type boat. All I got in the way of images were two pages of the manual. Hopefully, we will see more of the model in months to come.

JohnOvenden was up next with an extremely well presented diorama for France 1944/45. This was based on a Great North Road diorama base with an AFVClub Churchill AVRE and some Masterbox infantry. Very nice! He did explain that he had to make a new barrel for the Churchill as the Carpet Monster got the kit one!

I was amazed when John Rose arrived with only a small box in his hands. John normally fills the table with something spectacular. However, he had restrained himself this month and had brought along a nice little piece of work in progress (WIP). The kit in question was a Takon M3 CDL. What is a CDL? This is a standard M3 with a new turret. The turret contains some extremely bright lights and the intention was to kill the night vision of the enemy when opposing a river crossing, for instance. The kit version was only used for practice so never had any real action.

To general agreement, he complained about the complexity in new armour kits. As an example, he showed one suspension unit which had 21 parts! It did move very nicely, though.

Peter Carlo had a pair of Soviet era hardware. One was a (excuse me if I get these old codes wrong) 9K37 M1 BUK. Evidently, when the Soviet Union broke up, Ukraine told Russia that they were keeping the equipment on their soil so this one is for the Ukrainian Air Defence.

The second was an Russian SA4 GANEF  2K11 KRUG! Please note that both of these stretch my photo booth to its limits!

Geoff Woods tells me that he has recently retired so we can see him most months and that he is back to making figurines on a regular basis now. Only to the good for the club! He brought along three Young Miniatures busts - all 1/10th. I have done a lot of these so know how good they are.

Firstly, we have an "Arabian Knight" (no pun there then!).

Secondly, a Roman Officer

Thirdly, a vicious looking pirate captain called Edward Leach.

His last figure is a pike man from the English Civil war - "Long Road To Naseby"! There was some discussion about the length of the pike (I couldn't get it all in the photo). It must have been terrifying to be confronted with such a weapon.

Lastly, we have two armoured vehicles by the master - Jeff Adams. He won two golds at the MAFVA show last year and not only got medals but also two kits where is where these came from. Firstly, there is a Dragon 1/35th scale VorPanzer - an up-armoured Panzer IV made specially for the Russian front. This is nicely presented in winter camouflage.

There was a short discussion about the current pricing of kits when Jeff pointed out that the Panzer IV is currently in excess of £50 on EBay whilst the other kit is on Hannants at £29.99! The other kit is an Italeri SturmTiger. Jeff's opinion is that there is little to choose between the two kits (but the Dragon box is still full when you have finished!). He also acquired an etched brass mask from "Ushi Van Rosten" which is used to create random colour changes on the body of the tank. It came out very nicely on this one. I think that I prefer the Italeri kit. I liked it so much that I used it as the featured kit on my turntable later in the blog.

Lastly, there are my two contributions. I didn't get time to photograph these at the club so they were taken afterwards. Gobsaki is a resin Goblin from a kit by Dark Star. I painted some of this a couple of years ago and then was told by my wife to "get on and finish it". I had to buy a set of Andrea green paints to get the shadows right but there it is. The tartan on the handles was quite difficult to do but I have done Scottish Napoleonics before now so I have some experience.

The other item was a sole example on the table - a Revell 1/25th scale Chevrolet Corvette C7 in full racing trim. This was a nice kit to make and was painted up using Zero One paints. The problem with these is that they cannot be painted using a brush so it is impossible to touch up using this range. I did mention that this was the Revell Germany version. Evidently, the US Revell packaging had inferior decals - strange.

Lastly, this time I managed to find my turntable in time so, picking a random model from the table, here is the result.

Finally, can I remind you that all images here and on the web site can be enlarged by double clicking on them. Secondly, for a better mobile phone experience, instead of going to the Clacton Web Site, you should point your browser at http://www.ipmsclactonmobile.co.uk

February 2020 Meeting - lots of large aircraft

Well, my return to the club was easier than I thought. It was good to see all the people that I hadn't seen for a few years. When I arrived, the room was full of people chatting and the table was weighed down with models.

After the usual opening messages, Colin got the meeting off to a good start by describing the background to the Airfix 1:72nd Avro Lancaster he had brought along. It was a strange beast - a BIII converted to an M.R.3. from the School of Maritime Reconnaissance in mid-1956.

With Eduard cockpit details and Avro Lincoln wheels it was a clever conversion. Oh, also, he had to scratch build all the aerials.

Up next was a nice pair of Airfix 1:72nd scale MiG-17. The box includes decals for a Russian version and an unusual North Vietnamese, supposedly flown by one of their aces. Peter Terry comments that each one was a straightforward build. 

Built out of the box, it was surprising to see an oil drum supporting the tail of each aircraft. It seems that, when full with fuel, a MiG-17 could tip backwards so the wily crews put an oil drum under the tail to stop this happening. Peter built these out of the box but gave some recommendations about the paining. He always uses Tamiya paint but he has a tip - with a new bottle, open it and pour a little Tamiya thinners in. Give it a good shake and there is - a bottle of airbrush ready paint - simples. The Russian plane was painted black before its coat of silver. Peter pointed out that this gives a better finish for silver paint.

In an attempt to take over the whole table - smile - John Ovenden provided us with a 1:18th scale Merit Douglas Dauntless and a 1:32 scale Hobby Boss B-24 Consolidated Liberator.  How he has room for these, I will never know although he did say that the Liberator had no undercarriage as it was destined for the ceiling. He brought along a nice "little" 1:48th scale Italeri (Ex- Accurate Miniatures) Dauntless for comparison.

 It was nice to see someone else bringing some figures along. Martin Hogben had two lovely Japanese Samurai from Bonaparte Models.on display. Resin kits, one was 1:10th scale but the other was considerably larger. Unfortunately, I appear to have lost my photo of the larger one but here is the second - something to be proud of.

I hadn't chatted with Bill Banks for a couple of years but it was nice to see that he is still working his way through the Airfix 1:72 scale catalogue. This time, he showed us a Hawker Typhoon as seen in France after D-Day.

He had a humorous tale to tell about the D-Day stripes. It seems that he carefully painted the stripes on the underneath of the aircraft (note to self - take more than one photo, otherwise you miss some detail). Having struggled with this, he found that there was a perfectly OK set of decals in the box! Bill says, "never mind, mine are a bit uneven - but they would have been in real life!". I have made this kit and I know how good it is.

Peter Carlo is a committed armour modeller (or targets as most aircraft modellers call them). This time he had a fabulous pair of US vehicles from the Afghanistan operations earlier in the century. These were a Buffalo 6x6 Mine Clearer JERRV and a Cougar 6x6 MRAP. These are from Panda in 1:35th scale. They were very clean with lots of fine details. Peter had been in Afghanistan and had talked to crews of these vehicles including seeing the benefit of the slat grill armour. He found a crew that had just been hit with two missiles but both had dissipated because of this addition.

Wikipedia says "The Buffalo combines ballistic and blast protection with infrared technology to detect the presence of dangerous ordnance and a robotic arm to disable the explosive ordnance. Personnel operate the Buffalo’s 30-foot robotic arm and claw from within the armoured hull via a mounted camera and sensory equipment, to safely dispose of mines and IEDs."

Breaking his normal pattern, he also brought along two aircraft - a Gloster Meteor and a Hawker Hunter. Both of these were Airfix 1:48th offerings built out of the box. I liked the underneath of the Hunter so, fingers included, I added a shot.

Crispen was still at his usual business of continuing a build whilst the meeting went on. This time, he is building a 1:16th Trumpeter SU-100. Best of luck! I forget to take a picture - sorry Crispen.

John Rose came in with his usual arm full. First of was a completed Fieseler Storch. There was a discussion about which kit but it turned out to be by HobbyBoss - which may make it originally to be a TriStar model. In spite of its seeming fragility, John demonstrated how the undercarriage can be stressed with no ill affects.

He also brought along a "work in progress" - WIP - new large beast - a 1:32nd Revell He219 UHU. This is large!

Jim Smetherham is working on a 1:32nd Dragon P.51K Mustang. So far, he has built the engine, which he found fiddly. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot of this but here is the box.

Because of his grandson's interest in Star Wars, he has also got hold of this kit - to be completed later.

I have no idea what it is about or what is in the box. Let's hope we find out sometime.

I thought that Jeff Adams had brought along an entry for the Colchester club land sea and air competition but, in fact, it was land, land and air! Instead of his usual Sherman, he brought along a nice piece of WIP - a Tamiya French Char B. He commented that he is getting very enthusiastic over Mr. Surfacer for getting an even finish across the different materials involved.

His second "land" model was of a Volkssturm cyclist with a couple of panzerfausts which are mounted on the front forks. Evidently, there are lots of little decals for the panzerfausts - instructions to any untrained person who has one when near a Russian tank!. 

The fiddly bit was the etched brass spokes. Evidently, Jeff has seen one of the bikes in the "Battle of the Bulge" museum in Luxembourg. Tongue in cheek, I asked if the full size bike had brass spokes! I have been to Luxembourg on many occasions but, as I was on business each time, I never got to see any museums - shame.

Just for once, Jeff indulged in a bout of aircraft modelling. It seems that he has made a bf109 G2 before and explained that the G4 that he brought along differed only in the radio and the aerials. It seems that the factory stopped giving new IDs to every variant but just changed the digit for small changes.

The base is a photo of an actual Luftwaffe hard standing that has been printed onto sheet plastic. Unfortunately I did't get the makers name but it was very nice.

Having one strange Lancaster on the table is unusual. This time, however, we had two because Arthur brought along a beast that is even stranger than Colin's offering. Arthur brought us a Lancaster BIII which had been heavily converted for use by the Empire Air Navigation School. The aircraft was used to determine the long over-water navigation techniques for the Tiger Force air assault by the RAF on the Japanese mainland but the war ended before this came into operation.

The model uses an Airfix 1:72nd scale Lancaster (first moulding so quite new then!) with an M&E Models Lancastrian conversion kit. As ever, when Arthur cuts and shuts you can never see the join! Having had issues with the name 'Aries' on the nose, Arthur eventually wrote it on himself using a fine felt tip!

Lastly, there are my three contributions to the table. These are all Scale75 75mm figurines. Two are in resin and one is metal. You can really feel the difference when you pick them up. However, there is no visual difference once they are painted. If you are interested, it is the Imperial Guardsman that is made of metal.

Hussar Officer, Brunswick 1815

Coldstream Guardsman post-Waterloo, 1815

French Napoleonic Imperial Guardsman, 1805

I wanted to bring my little turntable along to highlight one of the models on the table. Unfortunately, I couldn't find it in time. It seems that it was away in our storage room. I have recovered it and have put together a little video to show what I wanted to do. I intend to bring it along to the club each month and use it to highlight one model - not the best, as we don't judge models at Clacton - just a random pick.

There is an option to see this in full screen mode so have a go!