Glued Up Issue 6

The official journal of Bedford and District Scale Model Club

Unfeasibly Large Weapon Special Number

In this issue:

Spielwarenmesse 2008 - all the fun of the Nuremburg Toy Fair

ModelKraft 2008 - New venue, same old competition blues

Peterborough 2008 - Simon Boness wins a gong to hang around his barrel

Club show programme 2008

Airfix Nimrod - Tony Honour gives this eagerly waited kit the once over.

Ask Alan - our modelling guru from the 'sixties tackles your modelling challenges

Spielwarenmesse Nurnberg 2008

 This year's Nuremburg Toy Fair revealed a prolific level of new kit releases, and witnessed a strong return to form by Airfix. Who'd have thought we'd have seen announcements of a 1/32 scale Lightning (Trumpeter) at one end and a 1/72 HP Hereford (Valom) the other? Airfix's 1/24 Mosquito will be on most people's shopping lists - at £80 best start saving now.

Here are a few pix taken at the show

ModelKraft 2008
(in which Bob McIntosh discovers Pathfinder skills and David Ross reveals that he was a Me 262 pilot in a previous life.)

February 3 rd , 2008 . 7-15am. The guard of honour for Simon Boness' Dora gun descends on the BP filling station on the A.421. While we wait for the armoured Mondeo to arrive, Hadleigh 'GongHunter' Mead dives into the depths of the Wild Bean Café to build up his blood sugar levels.

7-30am. Precious cargo arrives, and we set off via the semi-pretty route, Pathfinder McIntosh at the prow.

7-45am. Party buzzed by familiar green BMW 320i in warp drive presumably on its way to intercept a gaggle of Plymouth Brethren on their way to church. Later discover that Dave Ross wants to get to Milton Keynes before his son redecorates his clinically clean upholstery.

8-00am. Unfeasibly large Dora, unloaded and unveiled on first floor. Miraculously manage to arrange other models made by mere mortals around the exhibit. Simon's Dora receives deep interest and praise from all who visit our stand.

9-00am - 5.00pm consume first bacon butties of show, trawl the traders and spend. Manage to locate an Airfix Hawker Demon and Matchbox Privateer for the princely sum of £27. Ah well, it's only money. Enter competition. Well, several of us do. Matt Edwards wins a gong for his LVT diorama. Simon's railgun, in spite of the judges being told and agreeing to have it judged on the stand does not get any scrutiny from the panel.

In the junior section, Katie Horton's Spitfire is out pipped by several models that have clearly had parental input. At the end discord in the competition room causes a few fair and frank exchanges of views.

5pm. Home. Another year over. And for me, it's Nuremburg next week.

Greater Peterborough Show

Congratulations to Simon Boness on winning best in class, judged from all

exhibits at the show. The people have spoken....

AVRO/HAWKER SIDDELEY/Bae NIMROD

A Short History

For those not in the know, the Hawker Siddeley Nimrod was intended as a replacement for the Avro Shackleton and the eventual result of a dischuffed Avro design team's efforts to persuade the government that British is best and that the Breguet Atlantic should stay on its own side of the channel! In the end of course Avro won, although by now they had been merged with Hawker, Armstrong Whitworth, De Havilland and others to form Hawker Siddeley as part of the late 1950s purge to dismantle the British Aviation Industry, which ultimately fetched up as the nightmare creation of British Aerospace in the 1970s.. Am I cynical and bitter? Possibly, but there is a certain amount of patriotism in there somewhere, which is more than can be said of the government of the time.

The Kit

This is the first new aircraft kit following the purchase of Airfix by Hornby, which in itself is rather ironic as in the early 1970s Airfix bought out Triang, of which Hornby were then a part.

On opening the box which, by the way, is rather difficult to smuggle under your raincoat out of sight of those who don't need to know you are faced with 223 light grey parts along with 26 (separately bagged) clear. A, B and C sprues contain the main airframe parts, the D sprue has detail parts and there are 2 E sprues containing armament, wheels and numerous aerials. If anyone says there are no "effin" sprues they need to contact Hornby Complaints department because the F sprue is the clear one.

The huge size of the model is immediately apparent; the fuselage and wing sprues fill the box. The quality of the plastic is superb, right up there with the best Trumpeter turn out, which is hardly surprising as they produced the mould!

Main airframe sprue. It's HUGE !!!!	Lower wing sprue

Considering the size of the model, dry runs have proved the fit to be excellent and assembly should present no problems to anyone with large enough hands to hold it! Steve Rickwood and I spent a good few hours on Friday evening finding that out, for which, many thanks Steve by the way. The cockpit floor is far too low and cockpit detail is at best sparse; the previously issued 1/72 Concorde had a more detailed interior. That said, a good base is provided for the average modeller to produce a striking model and for those who wish there is plenty of room for super detailing. An excellent range of armament is also included in the kit, including Sidewinder missiles, Boz 107 pods, depth charges and torpedoes. Other plus points are the under camber on the wing leading edges, fine surface detailing, flight deck glazing as part of a large insert for the front fuselage, separate ESM pods, decent undercarriage and optional position bomb bay doors.

Detail of the forward fuselage showing the location points for the cockpit. These place the cockpit floor and coaming too low so extra work is needed to correct this fault	One of the 2 "E" sprues. Wheels, armament, and lots of fiddly aerials!

Negative aspects are the lack of bomb-bay and nose gear bay detail, poor representation of the thrust reversers and omission of the flap sections that pass below the jet pipes, so although the two outer sections on each wing are separate, an accurate "flaps down" model will require some engineering. There are a number of parts included on the sprues that are not shown in the instructions. By way of example, part F10 on the clear sprue would appear by process of elimination to be the searchlight lens but no such reference to it is made on the instructions. Obvious ejector pin scars abound, particularly on the inner faces of the intake tunnels and open bomb bay doors. Cabin doors are separate but no interior detail is provided; the after market guys will have a field day! Indeed, we believe a resin bomb bay insert is already being tooled. The extra weight involved would require a metal undercarriage, I'm sure.

The decal sheet is extremely comprehensive and provides for nine different versions: an MR1, 5 MR2P's and the three R1's currently operated by 51 Squadron. A number of other aircraft could be represented through transposition of various number combinations although early XZ and XW serialled aircraft would necessitate a visit to the decal bank or purchase of the after market sheets. Parts are also included to enable construction of an MR2 but no specific decal option is included on the sheet. From what I have read the quality of the sheets does vary but mine look ok, although the carrier film is very glossy. Model Alliance have produced three excellent sheets for those with large rooms and deep pockets but bear in mind that while Airfix have produced and sold some 20,000 kits, only 49 of the real thing were actually built! The MA sheets do not include stencilling but do include all appropriate serial numbers and national markings.

I can thoroughly recommend this kit. It does have its shortcomings but as the first effort in an attempt to put Airfix back on the map it is a real winner. Dalrymple and Verdun recently published a superb book to augment the kit which at £15.95 is excellent value for money and is well worth buying in its own right.

Bring on the Canberra !

Tony Honour (with help and additions from Steve Rickwood and Sue for pictures)

( Many thanks to Tony for an excellent out of box preview. There's no doubt that Airfix have laid a marker down with this one, and with worldwide sales topping 20,000 units it augurs well for future releases. Never mind the Canberras, bring on the Mosquito!)

Club show programme

This is a list of shows which we are attending this year. As you'll see these are golden opportunities for us to create more awareness and potentially hook in new members.

April 6th - Cosford
April 19th - Poole Vikings, Dorset
August16 th - Romford MAFVA
Sept 14th - Spalding
Sept 28th - Brampton
November 2nd - Letchworth

There is an opportunity for us to visit the Modellbrno show in June in the Czech Republic . Costs will be £100 flight approx, £30 2 nights accommodation plus beer and spending money. A good cheap weekend and the chance to buy Czech home brewed kits and accessories at 2/3rds UK price. Ask me if you are interested, as I will booking my flights soon.

I'm also looking for volunteer demo builders to give up a couple of hours on a Saturday subject to me getting an OK from Goldings and Jammie Toys to do demo kit builds in store. If successful we could extend this to MK Modelzone and Hobbycraft.

Ask Alan
Our modelling guru tackles your decaling problems in his own inimitable fashion!

Dear Uncle Alan. I've just opened up my Airfix Fairey Battle and the decals have yellowed. How do I cure this? Thanks in advance. Steve.

Good God! Not YOU again?! Can't you learn to write on both sides of the paper?

The modern modelling view seems to be take highly poisonous floor polish and dip the decals in it to eliminate the problem. This I find far too drastic, and besides which your floor pattern will never be the same again.

In this situation I simply charge my Bacardi glass and paint the yellow areas white. This is quite easy to achieve. The decals will then bed down very nicely over the balsa, dope and talcum powder insert that has been used to extend the nose.

I look forward to answering more of your inane questions next issue.

BBC2 Modelling Night

In an attempt to build the profile of the hobby, the BBC has taken the unprecedented step of hosting a series of scale modelling programmes as seen below:

7-30pm: Strictly Come Modelling
8-30pm: Coleen's Real Modellers
9-00pm: The Weakest Track Link
9-30pm: Ray Mears' Extreme Conversion Techniques
10-10pm : Modellers Go Naked
10-45pm: Woodward Confidential
11-30pm: Accuracy Police! Camera! Action!
12-30pm: Neil Robinson presents highlights from the top of the competition table clash at Telford in Kit Of The Day

( Submissions for Issue 7 to me by April 30 th )