TOPIC:

The sawmill got through my cutting list very quickly, but the courier (Yodel) was absolutely hopeless, and it took 6 days for the package to travel less than 65 miles – so 0.5mph (or 0.8 kph)  

It took about 90 minutes to work out what bit went where & tape it all together, but at that point I could see I hadn’t made any mistakes in the maths … but I didn’t have any pins/nails of any description to put it together. Or at least I couldn’t find them  

This morning I got a half pound bag of 1mmx20mm veneer pins, finer than I’ve used before & TBH the 1.4mm variety might have been better – Although they’re just there to provide a bit of support while the glue sets. Unless I manage to lose them, I’ll be using them for a long while yet as even given the high proportion that were so badly made they were unusable, I used just a tiny fraction of the bag.  


I’ll admit the handles were cheap – less than 10 GBP for all 6 – but no matter what you spend, the threads are always very badly formed and/or of an obsolete form. These might be M4, but I could only get a screw a decent way in one out of 12 threads. I’m hoping they’ll clear when I run a tap through them. 


All the drawers & the “cabinet” itself need some really aggressive sanding to even out the cutting tolerances, last time I made something like this I seem to remember clamping my belt sander upside down in a bench, but this time I have my Aldi bench grinder / linisher … this will be the most use it’s had in the 2 years since I bought it. 

Once I’ve done that & I stain the drawer fronts & finish it with a couple of coats of sanding sealer, it’ll be passable  



In the meantime, the glue is curing, the “cabinet” getting a bit of extra help from by grandad’s “Woden” brand sash clamps, which I think date from the 1960s.

I was aware that 10ml mixing jars were available, but TBH getting so many for “free” (apart from cleaning  up time) I wasn’t about to pay the price of a full one just to have the Tamiya logo printed on the side. 

I wasn’t interested in the “square” 10ml (which usually come filled with enamel paint) jars either. 


The 46ml jars looked more useful – I kind of assumed they’d be the same size (nominally 35mm OD) as the 10ml round jar, just taller. They’re actually the same around as the PC paint jars (nominally 40mm OD) but c.71.5mm tall with the cap on. 

I’ve dutifully cleaned any of the 23ml PC jars I’ve emptied in the past, but I’m yet to find a real use for them. I believe (from the photo of the whole range) that the “20ml” round mixing jars are _exactly_ the same outward dimensions as the PC jars. Maybe the glass is 13% thicker or something


"Stain" for my cabinets is 25% Red, 25% Flat Red, 50% thinner

2nd paint jar cabinet finished & installed, rightmost now has X- paints starting in the bottom drawer, switching part way through the middle drawer to XF-. 


Leftmost has custom sized drawers on the bottom &  middle, the lowest one has PC- paints & 46ml mixing jars & is barely half full.

Middle drawer is custom sized for cheap airbrush jars & has a lot of premixed varieties I use often, plus dregs that might come in handy – plus room for some empty spares at the back.

The top drawer has various custom colours, some of which have dried up completely but I’ve kept them for the recipes marked on them. This drawer is also only half full, I’ll probably fill the rest of the space with the cleaned up empties I’ve kept. 


The nature of these drawers is that labelling is often obscured – I thought it was just the banging of dropping each jar back down on to the MDF while looking for a specific colour that was annoying me, but the now foam-silenced action is still pretty tedious … I’ve ordered some 30mm OD stickers & will print up a label for each - though that will hide the cap colours a lot.  




The Airbrush / Unimat overspill cabinet has been sanded, stained, sealed, sanded & sealed again, and also installed and populated

In hindsight it might have been better to leave the drawer fronts unstained & do the cabinet edges red, it’s a little overpowering but I suppose I’ll get used to it. 

I've been peeling off the warning labels from the top of every jar of Tamiya paint I've bought in the last few years, as I always felt it was a bit of a shame to have the nicely shaded & moulded tops even partially covered. 

In the name of expediency I've now covered each lid with a label of my own I hope that having all (currently 95+%?) paint in one very visible place will let me run stocks down a bit, and not be in the situation of having, just picking an example at random here, finding I had 8 of a particular colour in various places, then, just when I thought I had it all sorted, finding another two on the shelf.

Oh, and then finding another box of 6    


The labels appear to be sticking quite well ATM  

A retailer with all the resources of a small country, who claimed to have an item in stock locally, really shouldn't take 8 days to deliver - but somehow, _somehow_, Amazon managed to pull it out of the hat once again.  Still, at least I know I won't be anything like a disappointed with them in 2022, as they won't be taking UK issued Visa credit cards any more, and I really do need that extra 8 weeks before anything gets taken out of my bank account.

I don't think pointing out that my card is from HeadSlapping Bungle****s, sorry, Hong kong & Shanghai Banking Corporation - and what could be less British than that? - will help

 

The Pro-Line RC Body paints I got recently won't fi in my existing cabinets, so I bought a small rack from a different seller on etsy. It seemed to take a very long time to get here, and is lightweight in comparison, but with the exception of one "pat" it fitted together quite well. I didn't bother gluing it, I will just give it a coat or two of sanding sealer when the weather is a bit more pleasant   
 

I like these paints. Thanks for the remind Jonny. In France they were pactra badged if my brain is still présent...

I have lots of things I could get on with - or start - but they all looked too complex/involved ... instead I thought I's have a go at cutting & fitting the Baja Beetle body that's been kicking around for a while. 

So far I've cut the excess off, dremelled out the windows & fitted a rear body clip, I don't plan on keeping the body so will probably just prime it & paint in off white when the weather is suitable, fit a mesh windscreen & slap some decals on

nb I just noticed the body isn't on straight at  the back

 

Ooohhh nice baja. She looks very similar to my baby. 😁

The front & rear ends do have some similarities

Baja body rubbed down, primed in white, rubbed down again, sprayed VW Alpine White, dusted off & just about to get a load of Clear on it: