10K !!!!

MASSIVE GIVEAWAY

(if you're only 1 inch tall)

I am absolutely astounded that I have reached the blogging milestone of 10,000 page visits, though without the weird Russian thing a while back I think I'd only really be at about 9k but I'm going to take it.  

The numbers were slowly building despite my efforts to take many months between posts but there has been a real rush of late all thanks to your love of Pound shops, this has been my most popular post by a very long way with more than double the number of visits compared to anything else I've done, and it's nearly hit a thousand views on its own.

By way of celebrating this achievement and as a thank you I've decided to do a little give away.  You to could be the owner of a golden Buddha statue from the pound shop.  "Ooooooo" I hear you all cry.  All you need to do is comment on this post with something complimentary, or even constructive criticism, by midnight (GMT) on Saturday September 30th and I will randomly pick from the comments and then be in touch with the lucky winner to arrange getting it to you.

This could be yours, or one very like it anyway

Good Luck & Thanks for stopping by

Afghan/North African Compound - Part 2

Somewhere I promised a comparison shot of my scratch built compound and the 3D printed building I've been given.  So here it is...

I think they scale reasonably well tbh, yes the door and windows are bigger on the 3D print, but the level of the protruding beams is roughly the same so I think we can get away with it.

Having given the 3D stuff a coat or two of paint the scratch built effort looked extremely stark in it's pure brilliant white, so it also got a quick slap of cheap house paint to make it blend with the rest of the evolving village.

Short and sweet post this time I know, but hopefully the next part will see a bit more colour depth added and the courtyard given a bit more attention.

GR III - The Final Shelf of Discovery - Part 2

So we left our hero wading through his booty from the Final Shelf of Discovery in his nice and tidy garage.  He had reached the final box, the box which he hoped would hold all the treasures he thought.

Goodies a plenty

I would certainly hope I could make a better job of painting this up now a days

Airfix poly tanks on the right, not sure what make the kit on the left is

More Airfix poly goodness with a mix of other bits and pieces.  The cannons we used to fire matchsticks from and that was our to hits rather than rolling dice

Technically labelled a ferry but it always doubled up as a beach assault craft in our childhood games

Beer mat basing from the days before laser cut mdf.  Mostly Citadel from the early/mid 80s

A real mix of fantasy figures including Citadels first generation of Lord of The Rings figures (Gandalf riding Shadowfax, Ithilian Rangers and wood elves), Lone Wolf fighting fantasy novel figures and assorted warriors and such.

I spy with my little eye boxes of figures and other goodies.  Packed really well as you can see, but looking complete the Airfix Coastal Defence set along with some spare bits (from somewhere) and I think the landing craft is from a Matchbox set, Beach Assault maybe.

Already hording figures at that early stage, still on sprue Germans are a beautiful sight

Airfix and Matchbox mix of US Infantry, there might even be some marines in there

Plastic Allsorts.  Think these might have come from a friend many many years ago.  I can spot Airfix NATO ground crew for sure and some gloss enamelled German infantry, plus various others

The final box of our odyssey, is this the one that would this hold the fabled motherload of figures?  Well judging by the scrawl in the corner (in my Mum's writing I think), YES!

Ooooo what mystery posters are these????

Well that helps date all this a little more

Barely a single day of peace since the end of WWII, and that was back in the mid eighties, hasn't improved much since either!

Gnasher badge complete with googlie eyes

Well this really is a blast from the past, my Beano - Dennis The Menace Fan Club membership card and badges (and my elder sisters as well I think), wonder if they are still valid?

Here we go, just look at that wonderful box art Matchbox had

My dad used to save old tobacco tins for me and my sister and fill them with coppers (1p & 2p coins) when he used to be away for weeks and months with work.  They certainly came in handy for me after the cash was spent

Didn't think I had so many plastic Napoleonics
Shame they aren't the RHA sets

No recollection of ever even having WWII French

A snapshot of my childhood

So there we go, my figures all found, the garage horde all sorted and a mammoth painting project born.  I guess I will have to catalogue them all in more detail at some point and perhaps decide what I am going to do with them all.  For instance I'm not too interested in Nappies so the boxes of them might go on evil bay at some point.

Spray Booth

To Spray or Not To Spray?

As I wanted to start spraying my models (for the big areas) rather than hand painting and making a bit of a mess of them I had decided on starting with the cans of spray from Humbrol as a first tester of the market.  If this proved successful and I wanted to carry on I might consider a reasonably priced airbrush set up, but we would have to wait and see about that.  

Not In My Back Yard!

So with that decision made for the time my mind turned to where I could actually do the spraying.  When I was a youngster and my mother was none the wiser I would do it in my bedroom with the window open and a few bits of newspaper and perhaps a bit of a box to protect the carpet etc.  But now I am a responsible adult and realize how much carpets and furniture and wotnot cost there's no way I'll be doing in the house (and SWMBO wouldn't let me with in a mile of the house with a spray can).  So the next place to consider would be the great outdoors where there is plenty of ventilation, but that would severely limit when I would be able to do it do to the famous British weather, coupled with living in a fairly rural coastal area with more wind than the big city.  So this left the garage which at the time of these thoughts was more than a little messy (see Operation Garage) so things were kinda put on hold for a while.

Boxing Clever

Whilst this may seem a bit of a tangent, our dishwasher was starting to fail a few months back with half the contents needing rewashing as it had failed to reach them with the washing jets.  What has that got to do with spray painting models I can hear you asking?  Well we bought a new dishwasher and there was a rather splendid three sided inner box made out of 1cm thick card that was incredibly sturdy and I instantly had it reserved as the walls of my spray booth!  Along with the lid bit to keep it all in line.  the card was of such thickness that I figured it should take staples well which could be the easiest way to hold it together.

Squaring The Box

So that was the base and sides of the of the booth sorted and I needed to figure out how to finish it all off.  This went through several variations including using clear plastic dustsheets across the top and lots of other lighting ideas.  But eventually (and I mean eventually) I have settled on the following ideas.

A Piece o'Cake

I could already foresee issues with getting around to the other side of anything I was spraying and I recall seeing somewhere a turntable being used to get around to all sides of a model.  Where to obtain such a turntable... PING!  Light bulb moment.  Rotating cake decorating stand - £6.95 from Amazon Prime -
Bingo.  Ordered.  Arrived next day.

Seems a good buy, and 4.3 star rated

Blinded By The Light

With the main body of the spray booth constructed the interior was a little dark and despite the plan for a clear roof it needed more light.  The easiest way I could think to get some descent light in there was with some clip on lights you can pick up from most DIY stores and some of the discount shops in the UK.  I thought 3 would be plenty, one for each of the sides, with some cheap daylight bulbs (they can be had for as little as £2.99 nowadays).

Putting it All Together

So the plans changed a little as I got everything together but I think it has actually worked out alright.

Marking it out

Getting it stuck together with some weights on top to hold it down, used PVA wood glue as well as staples as they didn't hold it as well as well as I had hoped.

Components assemble

Nice powerful daylight bulbs, bargain at £2.99 each and should put out plenty of light to see by.











OK so those pictures were all taken back in April when everything was going according to plan, though slowly.  Then life sort of got in the way and before I knew it we're in August and I spent more time doing Couch to 5k than I have on painting!  So with a few days spare after coming back from a nice sunny holiday the partly completed spray booth started to call to me from the garage, or more it was making sarcastic comments to me every time I went in there.  
And you know what there wasn't that much left to complete it really, apart from having to clear out lots of spiders and cobwebs

The lights were glued in place with a little bolt to help keep them in place, the cake stand was glued in the middle as I didn't want it moving around. and I added a bit of a roof as I didn't want stray dust and dirt just falling in if I was spraying.

All done, with a little roof added to keep some of the dust out

A 1/72 Curtiss Tomahawk for scale

Getting the Dak primed, at last

It's almost a production line now

Keeping them covered so the dust doesn't get to them

So there we are, finally completed my spray booth and started to spray stuff.  Just need to mask up the Dak and I'll be able to make much quicker progress with the sprays for the two top colours already sat waiting to be used.

Happy bunny.