Hello all,
I've had a few good chats recently with the owner of our local hardware shop. The Airfix and Revell model kits he's been stocking have sold so well that he's expanded the range significantly and also said he'd like to display some finished kits to draw the eye so I said I'd be glad to help him out.
Some of you may remember a few years ago my 1/72 Airfix Churchill Crocodile - and the cumbersome, unwieldy base it was displayed on? As I was off on Friday, I decided that this would be a good starter to give him but not without first significantly scaling down and simplifying the base.
The old base was consigned to the bin and a picture frame was dug out of my stash. Glass was removed, back board taken out and and painted brown and static grass was applied. The two holes where the rivets for the hangers went through were scalloped out and turned into shell craters. I puzzled over the best way to get a scorched wood effect in the corner and in the end simply settled for setting the frame on fire!!
The flame jet from the tank is a piece of acetate cut to profile and coated with thick super glue. Flame red, orange and yellow paint was applied with a cocktail stick which when mixed with the glue, jellifies and sets fairly quickly but with some swift action can be teased into swirls and rolls. The other flames were created the same way on the glass sheet from the frame and were then peeled off and stuck into place with CA.
The smoke if a bit of fibre filling from a cushion pulled into shape and given a brief hit with black spray and with flecks of red and orange paint added near the base for sparks.
That was an hour well spent and the finished article is now on display in his window.
Interestingly, it was the original base that fell onto my Lavochkin and squashed it all those years ago and that Lavochkin was recently used for my crashed aircraft diorama in the "Lavochkin Revisited" post so there's a bit of karma going on there I think.
I've also just realised that the title of this thread has several meanings; one old flame rekindled is that from the Crocodile itself, another is my return to modelling and this website now that I have a reason to build again and hopefully, a third will be more people either returning to the hobby or taking it up for the first time after visiting Holderness Hardware in Withernsea!
Nice to be back anyway and I think I may have something else to post quite soon!
