Glued Up Issue 5

News in brief

Since our last issue, a lot has happened. In a very short space of time we've had a change of name, change of committee and have had a brand spanking new website set up. All this plus Scale ModelWorld.

First big vote of thanks goes to new member Tom Ward who has created our website from scratch. This has to be about the best thing that has happened to the club since it was formed. Full marks to you Tom for getting the gallery up so quickly and for grappling with the back issues of Glued Up that I seemed to lose repeatedly

in the virtual ether. For those of you who haven't log on to www.bedfordmodelclub.co.uk to see what has been achieved.

Second to Bob McIntosh for very patiently reworking the club flyers, and to Andy Horton for getting them printed. Flyers and posters have now been delivered in to Goldings, Jammie Toys, T&R Models in Wellingborough, Modelzone and Auto Models In Milton Keynes and Bedford Library. I may need volunteers to deliver more to further flung retailers and museums.

AGM

This was held on September 25 th . Although membership is down, the club is secure and solvent, with a proper working bank account and membership fees and club subs being paid in on a regular basis. By the time of next year's AGM we will hope to have a proper set of accounts in place.

2007/8 Committee is as follows:

Chairman - David Ross
Treasurer - Andrew Horton
Secretary - Steve Rickwood
Events - Simon Boness
Publicity - Mark Peacock

Steve Addison has also been appointed Membership Secretary in a non-executive capacity. Plans for 2008 include possible visits to Cosford, Bovingdon , Yeovilton and Modellbrno or eDay in the Czech Republic . Our own show has been postponed until Spring 2009 to give us time to build membership. Annual subscriptions have risen to £15 with club night fees remaining at £1. Non members pay £3 per visit. Refreshments will be restricted to hot drinks and biscuits.

In order to create a wider appeal to new members in the locality the club will now be known as Bedford and District Scale Model Club. Listings in BoS, model magazines and the Airfix site have been changed.

Finally I believe that we owe James Stanton a debt of gratitude for his service as chairman and for his far-sightedness and careful steering of the club through a period of uncertainty earlier this year. Many thanks James, enjoy your retirement.

Retail News

A new branch of ModelZone is open in Milton Keynes . Although strong on diecast and R/C it has good kit, material and tool stock, and about the only place that seems to have Simon Boness' elusive Tamiya XF-63.

If you are looking to stock up on Hycote primer and finer grades of wet 'n dry paper try PDM Motor Spares in Kempston. They have plenty available.

Also check out BBC2 on December 7 th - The Money Programme is looking at Hornby's takeover of Airfix.

Can you help?

Simon Boness needs copious quantities of Tamiya XF-63 to complete his Big Dora railgun. He's up to 26 pots at the moment. If anyone sees this stuff on a shopping trip please grab it for him.

Chris Chandler, please pick up the white courtesy phone again. Your drills are here and gathering dust.

Finally I will be doing a big unmade kit cull early in the new year. Prior to eBaying or selling them off at shows I will be making my unwanted items available to club members at very special prices. For a list please contact me.

Scale ModelWorld 2007

Another busy Telford show, with plenty of new stuff on show, including Airfx's Nimrod, Canberra sprues and Doctor Who figures and Revell's Piper Cub, Bismarck (astounding!), Gannett, F-22 and Lancaster (at £15 I'm buying four). Traders reported takings slightly down, which may be a sign of the times. Someone on a Scottish stand who must live in a padded cell had built a number of 1/48 Wyverns in alternative schemes including one with a Defiant rear turret grafted behind the cockpit. Amidst the throng I caught up with ex-member Roger Brown. Roger is well and misses everybody.

2008 events

Feb 3 rd - ModelKraft 2008 Milton Keynes - this has now been relocated to Stantonbury Leisure Centre
March 15/16 th - Southern Expo, Hornchurch.

2008 Club meeting dates

8 th , 15 th 29 th January
12th, 26th February
11th, 25th March
8th, 2nd April
6th, 20th May
3rd, 17th June
1st, 15th, 29th July
12th, 26th August
9th, 23rd September (23 rd AGM)
7th, 21st October
4th, 18th November
2nd, 16th, 30th December (30 th provisional)

How many times do we start a kit with a view to completing a great model only to find that either due to inaccuracies in the kit or to a manufacturing glitch, we come up against a big problem? Sometimes kits are so awkward in their basic outline error (i.e. the Airfix Fairey Battle) that to correct them seems like just too much effort. The other off-putting thing is when there seems to have been a problem in the manufacturing process. The onset of resin casting technology has brought us some wonderful kits but along with this comes the occasional problem such as a mis-cast part where insufficient resin has gone into the mould resulting in a deficient part. However, if the motivation is great enough you can be tempted to tackle the problem head on and I have found that such projects actually push back the limits of my modelling ability and help develop skills that can be used to good effect in future projects.

A recent example of this was an attempt at the superb CMR Spitfire XII kit. I've built a good few CMR kits and a couple from their Spitfire range. They are the best resin kits I have ever had the pleasure to build and when I had started the XII and realised there was a problem with the fuselage being far too narrow when put together my first assumption was that I'd made a huge mistake in cleaning/sanding the fuselage mating surfaces.

It was only when out illustrious "Glued-Up" editor pointed out to me that one of the fuselage halves looked different to the other in shape I realised the problem. The starboard half had been cast so that it had around 2 - 3 mm missing along a good part of the edge of the mating surface. I had three options:

1. Contact CMR who I know place the highest priority on the satisfaction of their customers and ask if they could send me a replacement.
2. Use an available injection moulded kit(in this case Italeri) and mate the fuselage from that to the wings and other parts from this kit.
3. Tackle the parts I had and see what I could do. .

I went for Option 3. As the fuselage half was OK around the area just in front of the tailfin and at the very front of the engine nacelle I decided to try and use those two points as my fixes and pack-out the rest of the fuselage join with plasticard and filler. The large cavity on the underside, where the wing/centre section would later fit, allowed me to consider working through that hole and build from the inside. The extreme front and rear of the fuselage was glued together with cyanoacrylate and when set I fared over the gaps from the inside with plasticard. Using a scalpel handle I first "stroked" the card to put a curve on it, which ensured a better fit against the curved inner-joint of the fuselage. I had to do this on the upper fuselage in front of the cockpit to the nose and behind it to the tail then underneath from behind the wing joint to the tail. The front underside of the cowling where the oil cooler sits was OK without packing and gave me another fix-point.

Once this had set in place I filled the whole outer side of the joins with white putty and sanded to shape. Result? One perfect fuselage for not too much effort. The secret was in thinking the problem through and developing a plan to put it right. It was also very

satisfying to beat the problem without butchering another kit or having to wait for a replacement. I then continued to build the kit as normal and ended up with a superb addition to my eighteen strong Spitfire collection.

The message here is don't give up on a project or spend a lot of money trying to put it right. Think it through and have a go with the good old basics of filler and plasticard or whatever else you have to hand. If it don't fit properly, all is not lost !

I have now started my Fairey Battle.....

Ask Alan
(The first in a series of valuable Modelling Q&A provided by your favourite kit building guru.)

Dear Uncle Alan. I am in a bit of a fix about how to clean photoetch. I've just put my Big Ed set for my Tamiya Lancaster in the washing machine at the lowest possible temperature and it's come out in a crumpled ball. What am I doing wrong? Thanks in advance. Steve.

Dear Steve. You are a pillock aren't you. It's all your fault for playing around with this new fangled detailing stuff that most of us can live without. You are clearly a hapless victim of the accuracy police. If you can't unravel the mess you've got yourself into the only option left is to ditch your shiny metal ball and find some sheet balsa. Cut out the detail parts from scratch using Airfix Magazine references I carefully provided in April 1964, dip them in a 50/50 mixture of cellulose dope and talcum powder, sand and paint. For seatbelts just cut thin slivers of balsa. This is very easy to achieve. Once done pour yourself a very long Bacardi and admire your work. One final thing. Please write your questions on BOTH sides of the paper. Yours, Uncle Alan.

(all contributions to me for Issue 6 by January 31 st 2008 )