Saturday Film Club: Tamiya Honda City Turbo build

I'm sure there is a Tamiya radio control car build in my future. It's probably the Sand Scorcher, but when looking at a RC website, I spotted the Honda City Turbo. 

This is a fun little car and digging on the web, I found a build video that makes the assembly look fun. The finished result isn't tiny either!

Fantasy GWR

 

Many years ago, I had the idea to build the Goblins & Warlocks Railway (GWR) using Games Workshop figures and accessories. Digging through the cupboard the other day, I found the rolling stock I built as an experiment. 

Both items are based on old Hornby wagon chassis. Bodies are Plastikard and a bucket load of modellers licence. 

Those oversize buffer heads are drawing pins. The wagon was probably missing one or two of the originals. They look quite fun though. 

I still think the idea has legs. I know we've seen one or two models in the fantasy genre, but they aren't common. Maybe I could still be a trailblazer...

Lockdown Project - Tea caddy repair

Lockdown means more tea and our poor tin box from Yorkshire Tea has seen better days. One hinge has broken. A sensible person would chuck it away. I am not sensible. 

Like most of these things, it's cheaply made from pressed tinplate. The "hinge pin" is part of the pressing (quite clever really) and it's simply broken. 

My solution is to unroll the edge a bit by ramming a small screwdriver along the roll and slide some 1mm diameter steel rod in. Then roll the metal back to grip the rod. You could use brass, but I would wonder how long it would last with the tinplate rubbing on it. 

Job done. While I was at it, a couple of pieces of shim brass were epoxied over the areas in the lid where the metal was tearing. Hopefully, this will keep the precious teabags in good condition for many brews to come. 

Waterborne Wednesday: Coracles

I'm not a fan of canoes. The idea that you sit, trapped, in a narrow boat that is so easy to roll that performing an "Eskimo roll" is part of the "fun" doesn't appeal to me at all. 

Much as I like boat, I think I should be on top, the boat underneath and the water below us. Reverse that order and things have gone wrong. 

A coracle though - not sure. They should be nice and stable. Moving and steering with a single oar looks like a challenge, but practise should make perfect. 

I like the idea of making one quite a lot though. Mind you, a radio control model coracle would be a challenge!

Stopping the water

Working out how the water was getting in to the hull didn't take a lot of thought. As I examined the join line between the two halves, I spotted that there were some tiny gaps at the back around the prop tube.

It might be that when I inserted the new tube, I didn't open out the hole as much as I should have. Whatever, I decided to go for a belt'n'braces approach to the fix.

A think piece of microstrip was laid over the entire join. Fixed in place with cement and then solvent, I pushed it hard into any gaps - even imaginary ones.

Them some cheap epoxy was mixed and forced down the back of the boat to really fill the problem area.

Hopefully this will sort things. By the way, apologies for the static grass on the hull - the stuff gets everywhere!

While fiddling, I've taken the opportunity to fit a smaller prop to the model. The large version was OK, but was going to provide too much thrust making scale speed sailing difficult. Hopefully the smaller version will be entirely submerged yet give enough go to the finished model. Once the glue dries and it stops raining, I'll find out.