Well the bulk of my tools have now been delivered and my workbench is set up ready...
I am ready to make a start and all I now need is that rarest of commodity, one that will not be available for a couple of weeks, time...
But I can plan and prepare for the first proper project. As said before I have a small stock of unmade kits from years ago and I need to practise to get my skills back up to scratch. These old kits are ideal for practising. I have already done some airbrush practise using beetroot juice, practising spraying fine lines and wider areas on paper but it is just not quite the same as doing it for real. Also I need to try out the new weathering materials.
In addition these days the more sophisticated kits include photo etched parts and I have never used these before. Injection molded plastic has its limitations in reproducing fine detail so sophisticated kits have metal photo-etched parts to provide that detail. I do not want more first use of photo-etched parts to be on that £117 Tamiya 1:32 Spitfire... it could be an expensive mistake.
Fortunately one of the older kits I have is a 1:48 scale Tamiya Beaufighter. This is ideal to try out the airbrush for real and the new weathering materials. As a bonus a company called Eduard have a photo-etched set available for this kit in the aftermarket. Ideal - just got to research on the web to find out the best ways to work with photo-etching.
These photo-etched parts are just so tiny and they need cutting/trimming/treating/folding and sticking is exactly the right place... see what I mean:
I am grateful to have bought a 'third hand'...
I can blog on this thread the progress of this kit, with photos, the next perhaps being when the cockpit interior (with all that photo etching) has been constructed, painted and weathered.
Please tell me if you are interested in me doing this - then I will do it, if not I wont bother...
The next stage wont be for a good few weeks though!!!!