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Bruce_Crosby

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Bruce_Crosby last won the day on October 25 2021

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About Bruce_Crosby

  • Birthday 10/04/1950

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  • Gender
    Male
  • Location
    Swindon, UK
  • Interests
    Late WWII fighters, big engines, big props. Modelling, playing with airbrushes, more modelling.

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  1. I've got the PCM C.200, C.202 and C.205 kits, as well as the Re 2005 and the G-55. Three Special Hobby G-50 kits too. All of them buildable, except I can't find the colour sheet or decals for the G-55. However, there's a set of Montex masks in the box, plus I've got the Cameo 3 to make my own if needed. Still be buying the Italeri kits though! You all know my work pace, so you might see some movement about 2030. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  2. Hi Guys, Two Mossie cannon sets nearly finished, just need to add the teeny weeny resin hoses. This is out of sequence, the gun pod gets fitted after the wings and fuselage are combined. Some paint applied. Frames and ammo boxes assembled, first cannon ready to fit in place. First cannon in place. Two up! Four cannons fitted. only the heater hoses to be painted and fitted now. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  3. Hi Guys, Here's the photos. First is a bunch of resin bits after a lot of clean up. The frames all had webs in the triangular spaces, everything else had pour blocks, air reduction wicks, etc. , The Breech mounts were moulded onto a pour block with lots of webs and legs. My eyesight isn't what it used to be! Frames with some black primer and paint. I forgot to open up the little D shape holes and did them after painting. The task of clearning the web out between the breech and the little handle was fraught with anxiety. The guns were primed with Mission Models Black Primer then a mix of their Gun Metal and Cold Rolled Steel. A few minutes to dry then dry brushed with Citadel Mithril Silver, The rotary feed and belt stripper should have been Tamiya's titanium but it is awful to brush paint so I dragged out the Citadel Mithril Silver again, followed by a wash with Citadel Nuln Oil, similar colour to Tamiya's Smoke but flows much better and sits in recesses nicely. BUT still not the right colour! The gun rotary feed should be anodized so I decided to use a yellow wash. I went to the WarHammer shop in town and bought their Casandora Yellow Shade. This looked Orange in the bottle but the young manager, Jan, assured me it would settle out as a warm yellow. Now look at the photo of the bottle and tell me that I wasn't right to worry just a teeny weeny bit! A before and after of the gun feed mechanism. The shade is pretty much on the money for an Anodized or Alocrom 1200 surface. The guns right now. The next job is to paint the ammo boxes and the ammo feed chutes. They're already primed, so a cup of coffee first then back to mix up paint, switch on the extract and the compressor and get on with it. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  4. Hi Guys, After over a year's break from building the Mossies, I've picked them up again. Currently fiddling with the gun bays, using the Eduard Brassin sets. They are actually the reason I stopped the builds in the first place. Trying to upload some photos to Flickr at the moment, seems to be taking forever! Regards, Bruce Crosby
  5. Hi Guys, This is for James Rademaker about shaping up the exhausts. There's nothing fancy, no electric drill or burrs involved - way too fast and dangerous for delicate work. I spot the holes with the yellow handle scribing pin from Hasegawa, then drill out the holes with an Archimedes drill. the drill bit is a lot narrower than the resultant channel we want. Join up the holes with the drill, nice and slow. change the angle of the drill to cut into the bottom of the next hole then slowly bring it vertical to cut out the web. Something like a burr will take away material far too quickly. A decent set of Swill files. Most modelling files are cheap crap metal, these are proper Swiss engineering files that really are worth the money. I hold the round file close to the tip and rotate it slowly to clean up the slot. Slow turn speed and run the files along the slot anf it's a few second's work. any carving and straightening of the walls are done with this combination - NT Cutter knife and Zoukei-Mura Scraper Tool. These are invaluable. I find Swann-Morton blades flex and spring whereas the NT blade is totally rigid, giving far better control. Similarly you can get a cheaper scraper from Trumpeter but it is nowhere near as capable as this one. How do I know? I've got two iterations of the Trumpeter one and pardon the pun, but they just don't cut it. Dremel: You've got to be seriously deranged to let this anywhere near a model. Far too fast and far too much power and far too big! You may think otherwise. My preferred rotary tool is this old Expo Mini Drill I've had for ages. It was given to me by Bob Hext of Froude and Hext Models in Swindon, UK, when I was making models for display in the shop window. Must be the early 1970's as I was still based at RAF Lyneham on C-130's. The model railway controller was battered like this when I got it, so how old is any one's guess. it will turn at a very low speed, even got a 1/2 power switch. I hope this is useful. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  6. Hi Guys, Here is a short treatise on recent developments at Casa Crosby. I've got a number of 1/32 Hasegawa Fw190-A models and three PCM Early A series. A couple of years ago I bought aftermarket hollowed out resin exhausts for the Hasegawa kits, plus some Ki-84 exhausts. I painted them, along with two of the PCM sets (third one arrived later) and, like you do, put them in a bag or a container and put them away somewhere safe. Forgot to say, there were two PCM Ta152C-1 exhaust sets as well, but I've used them. MEANWHILE!!! Back to the plot - I've lost them somewhere. I still had one set of PCM A exhausts, but they are clearly taken from the Hasegawa kit and reworked, and they are marginally smaller, which could only get worse if I copied them. So, here's what I ended up doing: I drilled out three complete Ki-84 sets, wasn't worth the time and effort of making a mould. Then I modified two sets of Hasegawa exhausts, made a mould box, let it set then cast a pile of bits. Pilot holes drilled in the Ki-84 exhausts with my ancient Archimedes drill. Yes, one is off but that actually doesn't matter as there's a lot of cutting and filing to take place still. First manifold already looking better. First set of Ki-84 exhausts drilled and filed. Obviously, I have cleaned up the seams and refined the lips from this attempt. And that's three sets. Starting on the Fw set. A short while later......... Comparison of the PCM resin and reworked Hasegawa by Yours Truly. Two sets of Hasegawa parts were modified so I could speed up the casting. Here's the mould and the mould box sans walls. A pile of castings in need of some TLC. Final result: Ten sets of Fw190-A series exhausts ready to go. No, not PhotoShop! How long did it take? I started looking for useable bits about 8pm on Tuesday and worked until gone 10pm. On the Wednesday I carried on drilling and cleaning up, having decided to not cast the Ki-84 parts but drill three sets instead, also double up on the Fw parts. I made the mould box in the afternoon, gave it a couple of hours for the cements to gas off and added the RTV in the evening. I had the mould box cracked open by 8am on the Thursday and spent the whole day casting and cleaning up the results. All done by about 3pm. Was it worth the effort? Yes, as now I'll find the originals inside the week. If I hadn't made them, the old ones would be lost to the mists of time. That's pretty much a hard and fast rule in modelling! Regards, Bruce Crosby
  7. Hi Guys, Some minor bits on the Ta152C. I added the oxygen compensator from plastic disks. originally I painted it blue but wiser heads intervened and told me otherwise So Thanks Roy Sutherland and Klaus Herold. Then I dropped the cockpit insert and the IP flew off, so that one more little rebuild. Then I noticed the throttle lever had pinged off at the same time, so I made another one. Hope this passes inspection. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  8. Hi Guys, I finished the project last Friday in time for the Avon Show here in the UK. I didn't get anywhere near finishing the launch dolly so I adapted the one from my original Me262/He162 Mistel. At the Avon Show on Sunday with the PCM Ta152C-1 behind. A lot of fun to build and paint and it seemed to be popular on the table at Avon. No accounting for taste, it there? Regards, Bruce Crosby
  9. It's definitely worth a look. Three optional types, great decal sheet.
  10. Just to say the model is actually finished, I just need to take some decent photos and upload them.
  11. Some more work on the Mistel II. Here's a few splashes of paint on the Ef126 double Pulse Jet Adding some mottling. Slowly getting there. More soon.
  12. Hi Guys, More fiddling with the Ta152. Almost nothing fits first time so lots and lots of fiddling, cutting, sanding and correcting. This may not look like much work but it's days of messing about, swearing and general frustration. But that's half the fun of a short run kit, you just have to do it! First up, the resin engine insert for the wheel well. Then I finally put the wing sections together. Easy to type on the computer but a real dog of a job in real life. A lot more tape used than seen here, plus clamps and clips. It was a case of a bit of glue and clamp a section, then move onto the next section. Took forever! Motor gun tube from old Contrail tube. Brilliant stuff! A tiny amount of Mr White Putty on the starboard leading edge. Gun camera added to the port wing. PCM's prop blades aren't quite right, trailing edge too wide at the root. Left is revised, right is kit original. At greater pitch, the trailing edge would bind on the radiator cowling. All three blades modified. And that's it so far. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  13. Hi Guys, This time it's adding rigid brake pipes to the undercarriage legs. Usually they were routed between the leg and the door, behind the door attachment bolts. First photo is the leg as supplied (with my brass pin mods). Small vee notches cut behind the attachment bolt faces. Here's my rat tail files. I used the rat tails to deepen and round off the vee grooves. Plastruct 0.6mm rod cemented into place as the rigid pipes. The effect of pipes behind the fixing bolts. Later I will add twin flexibles, one to the brake nearest the leg and the other to the axle to run thru to the outer face brake. Regards, Bruce Crosby
  14. Hi Guys, I added the IP supplied in the kit, minus a few of the micro sized do-dads. The seat belts in the box are early issue Eduard colour etch so a bit clunky, I've put in belts from Eduard's Luftwaffe belt set. OK, so HGW would be more realistic but I'm not up for hours of struggle and anguish, never mind the cursing and swearing. The red outer dial Bezel was fixed in place with more Krystal Klear. For once I managed to get one bezel off the fret without ruining it. That's it! Regards, Bruce Crosby
  15. Hi Guys, The F-2 interior is taking shape slowly. Straight OOTB. I will add Eduard etched belts. Simply the kit IP. I'm not throwing money at this one as I'm out of funds! So its paint, wash, dry brush and Krystal Klear. Hope someone out there likes it. Regards, Bruce Crosby
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