SPA Modeler

How.. how how HOW?? Are you capable of just churning out so many?? You put us all to shame

Wow! All these years of being a Matchbox fanboy and I didn't know they built ships!

Good to see you back at the bench Mark and great all around as usual. I love those Aerosans, they must be tiny!

I had thought about picking up those Aerosan kits some couple years ago myself. They look pretty cool. You are a machine, Mark.

Stuart wrote:Wow! All these years of being a Matchbox fanboy and I didn't know they built ships!

Oh yes they did and quite a few as well. I remember when I was a kid, looking & drooling at the box art of Matchbox ships. Never had one though, just those memories left

- Kari

I vaguely recall building a Matchbox HMS Exeter to face off against my Aurora Graf Spee long ago… but it also may have been the Airfix HMS Ajax.

Great memories guys.

Kari - MB box art was always great!

Stikpusher wrote:Nice batch of build updates Mark! You do indeed look to have several that you’ll get over the finish line by the New Year.
As far as the landslide of work goes… we’ll, at least that helps to support this habit

Thanks Carlos! I did manage to get a little more done yesterday so I'm definitely closer. I only wish the landslide was paying work! It wasn't; it was trying to arrange the house to keep my wife off my back; send out Christmas cards, and helping a few people out with their Christmas preparations. At least that last part resulted in some fun and memorable Christmas parties. I also ran out of Christmas cards this year too along with all the stores!

Medicman71 wrote:Very nice builds Mark! But I don't see any aircraft......very sad.

Say it ain't so! Don't worry. I have five aircraft under construction as well; only the progress I made on them was so little that it wasn't worth posting. Don't worry, one of them might even be included in the final count at year end. Thank you for the compliments on the rest my friend.

Ceaser_Sa1ad wrote:How.. how how HOW?? Are you capable of just churning out so many?? You put us all to shame

Thank you Declan! It is all the masterful modelers here that put me to shame; I may be able to churn them out but they come nowhere near the quality they do. As for how I do it; I simply use my impatience to the maximum efficiency: when one model gets so far and needs to dry; I work on another until it needs to dry and so forth. After a number of them are done, I go back to the first again once again when it's dry. I get about seven to fifteen of them to the paint stage and I then spend a day just airbrushing. I also have to credit Hobby Days with a lot of my ability to churn these out: I get to spend 8 to 12 hours building models during those days.

Stuart wrote:Wow! All these years of being a Matchbox fanboy and I didn't know they built ships!

Good to see you back at the bench Mark and great all around as usual. I love those Aerosans, they must be tiny!

Thank you Stuart! Yeah, I did know about Matchbox ships before; I just never built one until now. I even think this is the first ever Matchbox ship kit I ever got! Yes, the Aerosans are small, about five centimeters more or less. They are also quite fiddly and rough given that they are short run models done by ACE. They take a lot of dry fitting, sanding, adjusting and filler but they look great when done. Here are two more examples I did of additional Aerosans. The first is a two-seater:



This is one that's the same as the one above, only I modified it with an open top and a Boys rifle. Most likely fictitious but for the purposes of our Treasure Train game, it could be considered a 'field mod':





Thanks Blacksheep! This 'machine' is getting a little creaky, but at least I'm still running! I would highly recommend the Aerosans, but as I mentioned above; they are short run kits and need a good bit of attention. I would love to see you build one.

Thanks all once again! I hope to get more done so maybe I'll have more to post next week. And Mike, there will be aircraft!