Saturday, 4 April 2015

Trumpeter Aerosan NKL-16 - Model Making: Learn by Doing. Part One

I'm fairly new to this modelling lark, but its something that i've always had an interest in, and having seen just how good some of these kits can look when they have been painted and made into a diorama setting, I'm always keen to give it a go. I've had a few previous attempts and limited success in the past, but I find I'm learning all the time, and they say 'practise makes perfect'.

First things first, it's important to choose a model to build that you are actually interested in, and want to make. I came across the Trumpeter Soviet NKL-16 Aerosan Kit in Hobbies catalogue, and was intrigued by its appearance. It looked almost unreal, like nothing I had come across before and, with a price under £20, I decided to give it a go.

http://www.alwayshobbies.com/plastic-models/military-/trumpeter-soviet-nkl$916-aerosan-plastic-model-kit

The Trumpeter Soviet NKL-16 Aerosan Kit consists of 151 parts on 9 trees, 86 photo etch detail parts and a short piece of copper wire.

First of all I had to look on Google to see just what these amazing vehicles actually looked like in real-life, and I found photos and read descriptions about how they worked.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=aerosan

A further search turned up some dioramas using the aerosan which were hugely inspiring.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/110741/message/1392651763/Red+Dawn+-++NKL+16+Aerosan+w-%26quot%3BTank+%26quot%3B+Scouts

It appears the NKL-16 Aerosan was introduced by the Soviet Union during World War II. It was made of plywood and was powered by an aircraft engine.  Various models were built at car factories, and were always being improved. The Aerosans were organized into transport battalions.

You need a place to work. A laptray in front of the telly is probably not going to work successfully, so in my case, it was the dining room table, with a thick, protective tablecovering over it.
I quickly established that I would need a proper cutting surface, so that my knife didn't end up making holes in the table, so I purchased an inexpensive modellers' tool kit containing small cutting mat, hobby knife & spare blades, a sprue cutter ( so much better than hacking parts from the sprue with the knife), and a small file to 'clean up' the piece.

  Tweezers are also 'essential' for handling 'fiddly' smaller parts. 

Light Craft Fluorescent Daylight Compact Table Standing Magnifier Lamp  not only gives clear, shadow-free light which is easy on the eyes,  it gives perfect magnification allowing you to see smaller parts, making them easier to handle, glue, and paint.





Use the correct glue for the materials you are using.
Roket Rapid (Superglue) is perfect for sticking metal photo-etched pieces to plastic ( as well as the more traditional sticking fingers to forehead), but use Revell Contacta for 'plastic to plastic' applications.




TO BE CONTINUED . . . 

Tuesday, 31 March 2015

Spring Price Cuts on Workshop Essentials (valid until 31 May 2015)


These Special Offers & Price Cuts are valid until 31st May 2015 and strictly while stocks last.

Order now to avoid disappointment!

Tormek T-4 Water-Cooled Sharpening System  £319.96 with free SVM-45 Knife Jig (Worth over £31)



Arbortech Contour Sander £67.45 includes Bonus Pack of New Heavy Duty Discs

Proxxon PM 100 Polishing Machine £219.96 with Free Felt Cloth & Microfibre Polishing Discs Worth over £22



Veritas Metric Wheel Marking Gauge £35.95

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

RAF Red Arrows 2015 Display Dates

The RAF Aerobatic Team, The Red Arrows, is one of the world's premier aerobatic display teams.
Representing the speed, agility and precision of the Royal Air Force, the Team is the public face of the service.
They assist in recruiting to the Armed Forces, act as ambassadors for the United Kingdom and promote the Best of British.
Flying distinctive Hawk jets, the Red Arrows Team is made up of pilots, engineers and essential support staff with frontline, operational, experience.


The RAF Red Arrows have released their 2015 Display Dates
These are not flypasts but the team's actual display, which lasts about 20 minutes. Displays are subject to operational changes, which can occur right up to a scheduled performance.
For more information on individual shows, contact the event organiser or follow the links provided.












MAY

23 May Llandudno Air Show
24 May VE Day Anniversary Air Show Duxford 
25 May Skyforce Launch, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Blackpool, Lancs
30-31 May Meeting Aérien Solenzara, Corsica, France

June

6 June Växjö Air Show, Smaland Airport, Sweden
7 June Meeting Aérien Tours, France
9 June Isle of Man TT Races (Ramsey Sprint)
9 June Isle of Man TT Races
13 June Biggin Hill Festival of Flight, Kent
14 June RAF Cosford Air Show, Shropshire
19 June Whitehaven Air Show, Cumbria
20 June Barry at War Event, Barry, Glamorgan
20-21 June Weston Air Festival, Weston-Super-Mare
26-28 June Goodwood Festival of Speed
27 June Armed Forces' Day National Event Guildford - Flypast only, not a display
28 June Meeting Aérien Luxeuil, France
29 June Stornoway Port Authority 150th Anniversary, Outer Hebrides

 

July

2 July Cunard 175th Anniversary Display, Southampton, Hants
4 July Santander British F1 Grand Prix Qualifying, Silverstone
4 July US Independence Day Celebrations, Feltwell, Norfolk
5 July Belfast Tall Ships Race
10 July Kent County Show, Detling
11 July RNAS Yeovilton International Air Day
11-12 July Wales National Air Show, Swansea
17-19 July Royal International Air Tattoo, RAF Fairford
20 July Lyme Regis Lifeboat Week
24 July America’s Cup World Series Event, Southsea, Hants
24-26 July Sunderland International Airshow
25 July Scotland’s National Airshow, East Fortune

 

August

8 August Newcastle Festival of Flight, Newcastle, County Down
9 August Blackpool Airshow
12 August Minehead Summer Festival, Somerset
12 August Falmouth Week
13 August Cowes Week
14-16 August Airbourne, Eastbourne International Airshow
15 August Herne Bay Amy Johnson Memorial Airshow, Kent
16 August Combined Ops Show, Headcorn, Kent
19 August Weymouth Carnival, Dorset
19 August British Fireworks Championships, Plymouth
20-23 August Bournemouth Air Festival
22 August Dawlish Air Show
26 August Torbay Royal Regatta
27 August Sidmouth Regatta, Devon
27-28 August Clacton Airshow
28 August Port of Dartmouth Royal Regatta
29 August Dunsfold Wings and Wheels
29 August CarFest South,Hants
30 August Rhyl Air Show

 

September

5 September Scottish Airshow, Prestwick
5-6 September Northern Ireland International Airshow, Portrush
6 September Chatsworth Country Fair
9 September Pangbourne
10 September RAFA Guernsey Air Display
10 September Jersey International Air Display
12 September Southend Airshow and Military Festival
12 September Southampton Boat Show
13 September Great North Run, South Shields, South Tyneside
18 September Sanicole International Airshow, Belgium
19-20 September Southport Air Show
20 September Battle of Britain Anniversary Air Show, Duxford, Cambridgeshire





Friday, 23 January 2015

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT - Occre HMS Revenge

OcCre are a specialist Company using state-of-the-art technology such as 3D CAD, high resolution digital cameras and computer image processing to produce incredibly detailed and lifelike scale models of trams and trains, ships and buses for modellers to build and display. Their latest offering is of the HMS Revenge. An English race-built galleon of 46 guns which participated in several battles under Sir Francis Drake's command. The Revenge comes in 1:85-Scale and measures just over 27″ long and about 22.4″ high. This plank-on-bulkhead kit includes English instructions, with step-by-step images of assembly, planking in sapelle, walnut and lime wood. Fittings come in cast metal, wood, and turned brass. It also includes a sewn sails set that just needs to be rigged.
The model is suitable for those with some experience of model making.

Revenge by Occre
Ship’s history
HMS Revenge was an English galleon built by Sir John Hawkins in the shipyards of Deptford in 1577. The design had some special characteristics. The ratio between the length and the breadth was narrower, forecastle and stern castle smaller than typical galleons with low freeboard. These features provided better artillery stability. Under Sir Francis Drake's command participated in several battles.
As an integral 1590 Frobisher expedition against the Indian fleet, she was captured as war booty. A terrible storm sank Revenge on her trip to Spain.

The following excerpts taken from Wikipedia:
Revenge came to her end in a glorious but bizarre episode that has become a legend. In order to impede a Spanish naval recovery after the Armada, Sir John Hawkins proposed a blockade of the supply of treasure being acquired from the Spanish Empire in America by a constant naval patrol designed to intercept Spanish ships. Revenge, was on such a patrol in the summer of 1591 under the command of Sir Richard Grenville.
Occre Revenge
The Spanish had dispatched a fleet of some 53 ships under Alonso de Bazan, having under his orders Generals Martin de Bertendona and Marcos de Aramburu. Intent upon the capture of the English at Flores in the northern Azores. In late August 1591 the Spanish fleet came upon the English while repairs to the ships caused the crews, many of whom were suffering an epidemic of fever, to be ashore. Most of the ships managed to slip away to sea. Grenville who had many sick men ashore decided to wait for them. When putting to sea he might have gone round the west of Corvo island, but he decided to go straight through the Spaniards, who were approaching from the eastward.
The battle began late on 31 August, when overwhelming force was immediately brought to bear upon the ship, which put up a gallant resistance. For some time he succeeded by skillful tactics in avoiding much of the enemy's fire, but they were all round him and gradually numbers began to tell. As one Spanish ship retired beaten, another took her place, and for fifteen hours the unequal contest continued. Attempts by the Spaniards to board were driven off. San Felipe, a vessel three times her size, tried to come alongside for the Spaniards to board her, along with Aramburu's San Cristóbal. After boarding Revenge, San Felipe was forced to break off. Seven men of the boarding party died, and other three where rescued by San Bernabé, which grappled her shortly after. The Spanish also lost the galleon Ascensión and a smaller vessel by accident that night, after they collided each other. Meanwhile, San Cristóbal, which had come to help San Felipe, rammed Revenge underneath her aftcastle, and some time later, Bertendona's San Bernabé battered the English warship with heavy fire, inflicting many casualties and severe damage. The English crew returned fire from the embrasures below deck. When morning broke on 1 September, Revenge lay with her masts shot away, six feet of water on the hold and only sixteen men left uninjured out of a crew of two hundred and fifty. She remained grappled by the galleons San Bernabé and San Cristóbal, the latter with her bow shattered by the ramming. The grappling manoeuvre of San Bernabé, which compelled the English gun crews to abandon their posts in order to fight off boarding parties, was decisive in securing the fate of the Revenge.
"Out-gunned, out-fought, and out-numbered fifty-three to one", when the end looked certain Grenville ordered Revenge to be sunk: "Sink me the ship, Master Gunner—sink her, split her in twain! ... Fall into the hands of God, not into the hands of Spain! ". His officers could not agree with this order and a surrender was agreed by which the lives of the officers and crew would be spared. After an assurance of proper conduct, and having held off dozens of Spanish ships, Revenge at last surrendered. The injured Grenville died of wounds two days later aboard the Spanish flagship.
The captured but heavily damaged Revenge never reached Spain, but was lost with her mixed prize-crew of 70 Spaniards and English captives, along with a large number of the Spanish ships in a dreadful storm off the Azores. The battle damaged Revenge was cast upon a cliff next to the island off Terceira, where she broke up completely. Between 1592 and 1593, 14 guns of the Revenge were recovered by the Spanish from the site of the wreck. Other cannons were driven ashore years later by the tide, and the last weapons raised were salvaged as late as 1625
Revenge

Her final action inspired a popular poem entitled The Revenge: A Ballad of the Fleet by Lord Tennyson , which dramatically narrates the course of the engagement.


Revenge Model 
  Model makers will find the Occre portable workshop cabinet invaluable with making this model

occre portable workshop

Thursday, 15 May 2014

Airfix Model World - Europe's Best Selling Modelling Magazine



We were delighted to see in the June 2014 Issue 43 of Airfix Model World magazine that one of our best-selling models, the Pegasus Hobbies Nautilus has been treated to an outstanding 'Advanced Build' review.
In fact 7 pages of gorgeous photos and inspiring instruction of this beautiful piece of Victorian-era science fiction.
Other features include builds of the Lynx HAS.3 ICE helicopter, L-39 Albatros plane and C-47 Skytrain.

http://www.alwayshobbies.com/plastic-models/miscellaneous-kits/pegasus-jules-verne-nautilus-20,000-leagues-under-the-sea-1$5144-scale-plastic-model-kit-pg9120

Pegasus Nautilus
Another piece that caught our eye was a Normandy landings diorama featuring an exclusive build of Airfix's new 1:72 scale Willys Jeep and LCVP landing craft. We were impressed by the instruction for using balsa wood and cork tiles to build the beach setting, and Deluxe Materials products 'Making Waves' and 'Solid Water' to produce lifelike sea that the landing craft is emerging from. Simply a brilliant tutorial that modellers will surely be inspired by . Its also accompanied by an enjoyable and informative historical feature on the D-Day landings featuring dramatic photos of the day.