Gomez's blitherings - Temp halt in proceedings 🥸 27 Dec 🎅🏻

[WardWorks]

Of course it will...😎

Best
GtM 😉🙃

[mustang1989]

Looking forward to more progress GtM.

[WardWorks]

That one's back in its box 😖- I will return to it in the course of time - promise !

I'll be concentrating on getting the previous three 35ths (Sig 33B, Flak half track and Flakpanzer 38(t) ), which are currently in the paintshop across the line, after that, its That time again - UFO sorting...🥸

UFO hereabouts stands for Un Finished Object, of which there's more than a few at present, all in a much smaller scale than 1/35th and something I was pretty well known (or infamous 🤫) for in the past... 🤯

Here's a hint 😈





She's at the stage where brass railings etc; start being added, the scale is 700th, I've got a fairly good pile of such things that are construction complete but need brassing - 3 Queen Elizabeth class battlewagons (QE herself plus Malaya and Barham) just for starters. I've been playing with 700ths on and off for ages, dropping to bigger scales (72nd and 35th usually) from time to time when my eyes scream "enough already !" Most bods would call 700ths complete when they get all the parts assembled into a composite whole and painted, to me that's just stage 1, they look rather naked to my eyes without etched railings, radars, crane jibs and catapults, plus stretched sprue rigging. 🥸

I'll post some of my completed 700ths in this thread later, or I'll drop a photo post in the completed ships forum. 🤔 Time wll tell on that

Best
GtM 😉🙃

[JCON]

This is gonna be amazing!!!

[WardWorks]

I dunno about amazing, but it'll be fun being all at sea again (in eye frying fashion ! )😖😋

"Dang the torpedoes (and my cataracts), full steam ahead in whatever direction the pointy end's a-pointin' !" 😆



Best
GtChanging (but still just as Mad) 😉🙃

[JCON]

Mad is in the eye of the beholder...

[WardWorks]

Don't look at my eyes, there's cataracts in both of the boogers ! 🤬💩🤯

Inoperable is the word, they'll be grinding my new glasses lenses out of the bottoms of the old Coke bottles ! 🥸🤫

My response when they told me that inoperable bit was regrettably, most ungentlemanly, unseemly and best described as a torrent of vile language.🤬🤯😈..- Optometrist said it was justifiable under the circumstances and he'd heard worse from others facing the same problem 🤬

I'm afeared the time came when even 35th became less of a challenge, so I'm going for the smallest scale I can still handle, going to brass a couple of Destroyers I've had finisihed for a while just to get my brass handling skills back up to scratch before I get onto Norfolk, I'd rather not have to undo glitches as I go along on her. 

I don't yet need magnifying lamps or magnifying headsets (got at least 2 of each) 🥸

Best
GtM aka "half blind Pew" ☠️😉🙃

[JCON]

I have to wear magnifiers as I can't see up close, a big blur to me, can only see far away clearly... my regular glasses are graduated bifocals...

[WardWorks]

I have Bifocals, the upper part is useless, can't have the graduated ones, they make me giddy for some reason. These days, owing to the moveable nature of the flat spots (astigmatisms), on the curvature of the natural lenses of my eyes, I don't have to use glasses for anything but close up stuff (that's the blurry bit without glasses !), my normal sight is better without em, especially for distances over 4-6 feet, 🥸

Makes life interesting, my normal sight was pretty rotten as a kid, got near missed by cars and trucks I hadn't seen within 10-20 ft of me when crossing the road ! 😳🤔 Til recently, I've had to wear my glasses from the moment I've woken up in the morning til the moment I went to sleep at night 🥸. Feels rather peculiar getting the wind in my (unshielded by glasses) eyes when I'm outdoors. My next pair of glasses will be a single stronger lens version of the lower prescription of my bifocals - that'll be a relief on my wallet and hip pocket nerve at least ! 😎

Best
GtWotever 😉🙃

[WardWorks]

Oh Sh.... 🤬 err... 😳 sugar ! 😳

Just discovered a rather nasty fly in the ointment - I had a huge pile of 700th brass sets and leftovers from my previous Naval adventures in the scale.. I don't have them anymore (must have got shot of them in the general clear out of kits bits and spares before I last went railways, or I gave them away in between then and now 🤯
Oh fie, phooey and fiddlesticks (and other less printanble expressions of totally frustrated disappointment) ! 🤬🤬🤬👿

I'm not going to build or finish anything nautical as box (as I've said before, to my eyes,they look positively naked and utterly unfinished without brass), nor can I afford to get the relevant brass sets for what I've completed (3 QE class battlewagons and various RN Destroyers) at present (if the local stockists had them in stock, which they don't at present). None of them are expecting more brass to be delivered until March next year either and the prices on it will be higher per sheet as well ! 😖 Oh dang etc; 🤬

Norfolk has therefore been returned (somewhat reluctantly), to her box and gone back into storage, I've got a couple of unfinished 72nd Aircraft in the "Drawers of Stasis" along with the ICM Me 109 E I started a couple of pages back in this thread, so I'll get them dun and then return (temporarily), to the 35ths and get the 4 needing finishing across the line, that's the SiG-33B, Flakpanzer 38(t), Flak half track and the recently shelved Marder.

After that we'll see what direction I choose to go in.

Best
A rather disgruntled and disappointed
GtMth*
(*Madder than heck) 🤬😉🙃

[JCON]

No worries, get to it as you can!!!

[WardWorks]

Roger wilco on dat, mon Capitain ! 😋

I have outside my abode, stacked against the back wall, under a convenient overhang, a number of plastic storage boxes, usual things, rollers underneath, clip on lids etc; Some have never been unpacked since I moved up here, others have been unpacked and repacked as my interest in something waned, so all associated bits n bobs have been placed into those boxes and stored outside, due to somewhat limited space in my abode.

Had reason to go to those this morning (was putting a railway something into one of the railway boxes,) when I made a very happy and totally unexpected discovery... In box full of empty 4mm scale locomotive boxes I found two good white cardboard boxes that had nothing to do with loco boxes. That's them, stacked one atop the other, on the LH end of the photo below



The top one proved to be empty...



The other one wasn't, so I opened it to see what was within... As Howard Carter said 100 years ago, almost to the day, "Wonderous things" as well as he later wrote "and everywhere the gleam of gold". He was talking about his opening of the recently discovered (by him) tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt (Valley of the Kings on the west bank of the Nile,opposite Luxor (ancient Thebes), , but those words of his still work for what I found today



Its some (less than half), of the 700th ship brass I thought I'd lost, including the frets for the ships I mentioned above so after a quick look through, a fret for Royal Navy J, K and N class destroyers was removed and Matchbox's old HMS Kipling was located in her finished but naked (recently finished OOB), state and after I calm down a bit and get my shaky hands back under control, I'll start detailing her. The kit is good for its vintage, correct for length/beam/height from waterline, and has most of the essential shapes right, its not bad (actually quite acceptable) OOB, but its small details aint really up to what's expected these days. Let's see what can be dun with a modicum of brass, a dab of superglue here and there and some powerful cussin' (doesn't help matters, but ya do feel good after letting fly ! )😤🤫



After Kipling, I'll git onto Aoshima's new HMS Jupiter and Jervis, difference twixt them is Jervis was built as a Flotilla Leader and has an extended deckhouse. 🥸

I have no idea whatosever of how the frets came to be in the white box, nor of how the white boxes came to be in the railway boxes either, no Idea at all of how or why, no memory either, one of those things I guess 🤔, just awfully glad its and its contents turned up, I was sure they'd long gone, after thoroughly searching everywhere they could have been, (and quite a few places they couldn't/shouldn't/wouldn't possibly have been) - No way in the world could/should or would they have been anywhere near the railway detreitus, let alone stored in the same box as some of it ! 😖

I Still dunno 🤔 Put it down as one of them thar things I guess

Best
GtM
Back to being a happy chappy again , 😆

[JCON]

Whoo hoo!!! Excellent discovery!!!

[WardWorks]

I'm still drinking coffee to get over the shock ! 😋😎

No idea whatsoever how they got there or why (unless I thought the white boxes were empty), but the weight of that one alone would have told me it was loaded 😳

Kipling will cop a little touch of gold tonight, after the air cools, the heat out here is 'orrible and making me giddy, about to switch back to night shift in the Works again ! Don't have a dedicated County class set for Norfolk, but nay worries, I've plenty of spare (unused), rails and crane jibs that'll be appropriate, the catapult might be the hard part, think she may have lost her cat by the time period at which I'm modelling her (May 1941, the Bismark breakout/chase), if it had gone I'll see if I have a spare multiple pompom (flak) gun, of the type which replaced the catapult on most of the County Class variants. Research continues 🤔😗🎵🎶

Best
GtM 😉🙃

[JCON]

Happy researching!!! You have heat and we got 6" of snow yesterday!!!

[WardWorks]

You can keep your snow, with all my love matey 😖😈

Here's the mistook ridden start of Kipling's brass - maindeck rails and the first mistook, I should have started with the upper deck rails first, when working on completed ships, always start in the at thetop, in the middle and work down and outwards to the deck edges, never mind, its fixable, should I decide to bother. I've a couple of better quality K class Destroyers anyway - White Ensign's resin Kashmir and Flyhawk's Kelly., so I mightn't bother fixing Kipling, because these rails would have to be removed and new rails substituted, had a feeling this might happen, so Kipling was the obvious candidate for practice...

A couple of cruel close-ups.. (very cruel 😈🤬)

Bow to Fo'csle break (forecastle break)


Fo'csle break to stern (almost !) 



This is just a practice run on this baby, proving that I'm way out of practice at railing things, ne'er mind, I'll soon have the skills back up and be getting the superglue in the right places, and not on the rails as I'm trying to stick them down, rails are between 2 and 4mm high in this case. Dunno what that blob behind the searchlight platform is, I know its supposed to be a 20 mm oerlikon or a 40mm Bofors, but it looks rather like a full blown 3.7 inch Anti-Aircraft gun, that'd be ok onshore, keeping a base safe from the Luftwaffe and the Regia Aeronautica (Kipling was in the Med at the time I've modelled her), but its a tad too heavy to be mounted upon one of HM destroyers ! If I decide she's worth adding to my shelf-worthy collection, that blob has to go and be replaced by something that looks more like what should be there, think there's a spare 20mm "oil can" still on Jupiter's spare sprues. 

Best
GtM 😉🙃 (Frying my eyes and loving every minute of it !) 🤯😈😎

[JCON]

Looks good to me!!!

[WardWorks]

You're not where you can see her up close and personal 🤯😗🎵🎶

Unfortunately I AM ! 😖

Think I'm going to work on ships at night, playing with 35ths during the day, 🤔 bearing in mind I have 3 35ths (Sig 33B, Flak half track and FlakPanzer 38(T)), in the paint shop atmo, only needing the rest of their camo and decals, then weathering to complete. So those 3 will be finished fairly shortly, probably the next couple of days. 😎

That's me sorted then ! 😋

Best
GtM 😉🙃

[WardWorks]

Blergh , 🤒🤧

Sorry about the radio silence, not been well (a touch of flu for my burpday would you believe ?) 😖🤬

Anyways, the Marder's fighting compartment has had some paint hoiked at it (as has the rest of the chassis completed so far...🤔





The Sig-33B has copped its camo pattern...😎



As has the Flak Half Track...😎



As well as the FlakPanzer 38(t) ...😎



Those 3 just need some attention on their roadwheels and tracks from a hairy stick, followed by decals and weathering, which will all happen over the next few days in between Marder construction bursts...🥸

That's the start of my week in advance sorted I reckon ! 😋

Best
GtM 😉🙃

[JCON]

That looks really good! Sorry you had a bad birthday my friend!!! Get well soon!!!