A Return To Model Railway Modelling?
What’s On The Workbench This Month?
Having finished last months primary projects - the Bladerunner blaster and Vengeance dive bomber - on the very last day of January it’s now time to consider what my plans are for February. I am liking the two-project system that I have started , where I have a primary (hard) model project and then a slightly easier project that I can turn to when I have to pause the main one (like when I am waiting for glue to cure or paint to dry, etc).
I even tried to work on three projects last month - with my Gaslands car - but I found that this was pushing things a bit too far and I didn’t make much headway on this (and some other stuff I had going on in the background). So, for these smaller jobs I will have to be less scheduled and they will just take however long they take.
This is the down side of my habit of jumping between so many projects at the same time. Unfortunately I can’t help myself, I am too easily distracted by new ideas! 😆
Return To Model Railways…
One unfortunate reality of my attempts to create a modest little railway layout is that I am somewhat restricted in the space I have to do all my hobbies. I am very lucky in that my wife has allocated a whole room - the attic - for me to do my ‘stuff’ BUT that space also happens to act as the house’s storage space.
So, the small space that I did have to put up my temporary railway layout has been lost until such time that we can get rid of a lot of the junk that has accumulated in my attic (I am squished into a small corner of the room surrounded by boxes of crap)! In any case, this is why my model railway projects ground to a halt. 😕
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| Above: First job, I have to paint on the road markings so I did this little design marking out where I wanted the white and yellow parking boxes. I will then sketch the outlines lightly onto my model's base and then paint in the lines. Once done I can then start gluing down the various bits and pieces of garage equipment onto the base. |
That said, I am still very keen on my original idea which was to build a model of a small Japanese rural village, though now I may have to do this as a series of small dioramas rather than pieces of a large layout.
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| Above: Some of the items that I have scratch made to go onto the diorama. I was particularly please with my wooden palettes! ;) |
This idea gives me a chance to dust off what I was working on, which was my Japanese gas station, but as a stand-alone model.
Brick Model Aircraft - COBI PLZ. 23 Karaś Light Bomber
I have a backlog of brick kits from the Christmas before last! And so it’s time to make a dent in some of these. This one combines my interest in ground attack warplanes, Polish military aircraft and brick ‘puzzle’ kits. I call them puzzles simply because I think of these ‘Lego’ type models as being like 3 dimensional jigsaw puzzles.
It’s interesting to compare this Polish PLZ. 23 with the Vultee Vengeance kit I have just made. Technically they were designed to - roughly - perform the same role as a tactical light bomber, but it’s interesting how one of these aircraft is seen as a military failure while the other was a comparative success. (I won’t dwell on this complex subject, but I *think* the reason for the difference in perceived performance is to do with the degree of contested airspace. The Poles were faced with a vastly superior Luftwaffe in 1940, whist the RAF’s Vengeance faced a - I imagine - was a much depleted Japanese airforce and had good air support.)
In any case, the PLZ. 23 is a very interesting aircraft and generally could be compared to it’s German equivalent - the JU87 ‘Stuka’ (though the Karaś was not a dive bomber, but a tactical light bomber and reconnaissance aircraft).
Aside from being an interesting WW2 military aircraft this model goes nicely together as a companion model to the COBI PZL 11C fighter which I made earlier last year.
A Christmas Library of Books’ Book Nook
Another Christ present from 2024! Yes, I have such a large backlog of model projects sitting in my stash that I am only just getting around to this wonderful model! 😯
My wife got me this kit and I have to admit it did scare me a little. This is the most complex wooden/card diorama kit that I have had so far. The Rolife Sakura Tram, Takoyahi Shop and Luminous Globe were consecutively more and more complex models, but the book nook takes detail and complexity to a whole new level… SO it kinda got pushed further and further back in my project cue as I reread idly chicken out of making a start to it.
But I have decided to get some balls and (finally) make a start on this amazing kit.
Yet Another 3D Printed Revolver Model!
Yep, I’m having yet another go as making a classic snub-nosed ‘Detective’ model revolver. This - in fact will be my THIRD attempt at making this style of handgun - so what’s my obsession with it?
Simple, the first attempt was gawd awful! It was a very poor 3D model file which I think was an amateurish attempt at a 3D scan using low end scanning equipment (there are a few of these knocking about on the 3D model archives). The quality of the surface of the model was janky - due to the half-assed and poorly ‘locked in’ steadiness of the scan. So, however much I tried to clean this model up it was always a bad recreation of the original source model.
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The second attempt was a better quality - properly 3D modelled model 😁 - of a Smith & Wesson Model 10 conversion to a snub-nosed variant of the revolver. I was quite happy with it and very much enjoyed making the ‘kit’ and painting it BUT it was not a ‘Detective’s Special’…
The Smith & Wesson snub-nose was a ‘Detective Special’ clone based on the success of the first revolver to bear this name - the Colt 1927. ‘Detective Special’ has over time become a generic synonymous term for this style of compact carry revolver even though it was a brand name originated by the Colt Company. It’s rather like how we Brits can all vacuum cleaners a ‘Hoover’ even though all vacuum cleaners are not made by Hoover! 😂
…And I always really wanted a model of that original Detective Special - the Colt Model 1927. Though when I made my S&W Model 10 snubby there were no good 3D modelled files for the Colt 1927 available… Until now.
I just happened to be looking through the Cults.com archive after I got my new Flashforge Adventurer 5M Pro 3D printer when I stumbled across a Model 1927. It wasn’t a bad rendition so I thought I’d give it a try, luckily it is a fairly uncomplicated by nicely modelled ‘kit’ (I call these 3D model files kits as you have numerous sub-components to print before assembling them).
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OK, so that’s the plan for this month, hopefully there’s something of interest for the little group of people who are following my adventures (thank you by the way).
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