Nigel.D

Sod it il get it anyway !!!! see you at cosford mate and thanks from both me and char

wonwinglo

Workbench shots.
Well it is pouring down with rain here,and there are no nice blue skies to take photographs of a subject for today,so lets go inside and see what current activity there is on the workbench,well it has been quite busy for the past twelve months when a start was made in restoring about 160 early models that badly needed renovation,some arrived in a big box from Leeds smashed to pieces in the journey,they had been stored hung from the ceiling and covered in nicotine,grease,grime and thick with dust,in the bottom of the box was hundreds of small parts that needed sorting out,so the first job was to soak the models in automotive Gunk overnight to soften the grease and nicotine,you should have seen the colour of the water ! then the models were removed and washed down under running water with a tea strainer in the sink to catch any small bits,nearly all of the props and undercarriage units were smashed and were scratch built on the restorations,the same with props,the tiny parts were cleaned and placed into a plastic bag and sorted through as needed,out of all the models only four were consigned to the spares box as deemed beyond economical repair.
The next job was to strip the paint,a long dirty,tedious,smelly job,Nigels tip for using car brake fluid was taken up,I filled a galvanised pail with a few gallons of the stuff ( it is not cheap but you can use it again and again if decantered ) three models at a time dangled from a wire coat hanger into the fluid,sometimes stubbon paint needs soaking longer but it did the job,the next thing was to remove all traces of the fluid with another soak in white spirit,then a wash in lukewarm soapy water using a stiff bristled brush,every trace has to be removed otherwise the new paint will not stick.
After leaving to settle for a few weeks the models were then broken down into major parts in order to do any necessary repairs and tidy them up,all of the models had been badly assembled with no rubbing down of flash etc,so I needed to bring them up to standard,the best tool for dis-assembly was found to be an ordinary kitchen knife,by laying the model down onto a pad made from several layers of carpet underlay I gently but firmly prised open fuselage joints,removed wings,tails and most important saved any tiny bits for assembly later,I should have mentioned that the most difficult task for me at least was removing the clear canopies without undue damage,this was done before the major dunk otherwise they could possibly have crazed over,each canopy was cleaned and polished with toothpaste,the framing added and then a dunk in Johnsons Klear to seal everything,dont forget these models were 35-40 years old and the nicotine had stained everything in sight,some were so bad that you could hardly see the transfers !
The next important job was to re-assemble and repair the models,I used simple balsa wood jigs etc to get things in line,any new parts were made up such as undercarriages which were made from brass tube,wheels were sourced from my spares box,propellers were sometimes made up,or found as spares,or made from celluloid discs,the latter is good especially for photography.
The big job of priming with Holts white universal primer was done outside on a sunny day,one can usually is sufficent to do several models,then the model colourscheme was researched and painted in stages,the final job of soucing decals for roundals etc also had to be done,was the results and effort worth it ? well I say yes because many of the models were long since obsolete and filled important gaps in my collection,literally hundreds of hours of work has given me some pristine models,and above all I enjoyed every minute of the experience.
Here are the last batch of models now receiving final treatment on my workbench,working in batches has its benefits because you can have continuity when waiting for paint and adhesive to dry.



Busy restoration workshop.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

new to trains

i love seeing pictures of peoples work benches, knowing mine is always untidier ! :-)

tigertc

WOW....Thats the tidiest workbench i've ever seen!!!
You can actually see parts of the bench itself!

wonwinglo

Hawker Slip Wing Hurricane.

During World War 2 some desperate measures were undertaken to increase the range of fighter aircraft,some of the ideas were verging on dangerous such as towing three fighters behind transport aircraft and dropping them off as gliders,then the engine would be started in flight and the aircraft carry on with its task,another system that needs explaining is the 'circular runway' in this case the aircraft was attached to a pole and once flying speed had been reached,the aircraft was literally flung into the air ! thankfully experiments proved the impractibility of such a technique and it was scrubbed.But one idea that was tried on Hawker Hurricane L1884 entailed the fitting of an upper wing,the idea was that aircraft could be flown from tiny fields hidden away from the enemy,once airborne the upper wing was jettisoned,needless to say this ingenious idea was not adopted by the R.A.F,the experimental Hurricane was converted by F.Hills and Sons Ltd who designed and adapted some most unusual aircraft during wartime.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

Barry, I don't know if this is of any interest to you in your endeavours to restore old models. I was thinking more of the decals and the bits rather than the headers.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Decals-Instruc...QQcmdZViewItem

wonwinglo

***Thanks Richard,I have picked up one or two decal sheets like this in the past,I think the present bid is perhaps their money,but you know how silly these things can go.

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Bunkerbarge

I agree and I suspect the headers will push the price up to an unrealistic high.

I would have liked to have had a go at collecting old bagged Airfix kits but the prices seem a bit silly to me. There is an old SRN1 hovercraft on at the moment and the buy it now price is fourty pounds. People have more money than sense nowadays!

I'm still tempted though, just to see some of the old bagged kits that I made thirty odd years ago still give me a buzz!!

wonwinglo

Recently on television, on one of those collectors shows appeared a chap with four large cardboard boxes,in them was virtually every Airfix kit unbuilt from forty years ago,he said that he went into Woolworth's each week and brought them but never opened one ! fanatical at the time for someone to buy but not build kits ?
Dont worry you will find a few old Airfix kits one day,there is still loads of kits stuffed away in drawers & attics etc as millions were made,I would never pay silly prices for them,I missed a batch a few years back when a neighbour had a clear out,he gave a load of unmade kits away to a young lad,and the lad built one,botched it up,got fed up and ditched the lot,thats gratitude for you.
I once won a B-29 for writing a letter to Airfix magazine,it never turned up,then won another kit this time an Heller CL.215 that never appeared either ?

__________________
'And there I was oil on my goggles from a broken pipe,then I looked at the altimeter,all I could see was the makers name !'
www.wonwinglo.scale-models.net/

Nigel.D

Barry i have a huge collection of decals if you need any let me know