MARX BRISTOL 188 TOY RESTORATION BY KEVIN D: PART 2

Hi MB

I have made a bit more progress. I have added more chrome panels, I've now covered the rear of the fuselage and the tail. I am painting the thin edges with silver paint as the chrome will not adhere to tightly curved edges. 

You can see the difference in the shot of the top of the fuselage, aft of the black and white stripe has been done, forward of it hasn't been.

I have glued the tail in place, it looks as though it is meant to just clip in, but mine won't stay. The Pitot tube is the sawn off end of a paintbrush, sprayed white. You can see I'm spending a lot on this restoration!

Nearly there,

Kevin D

Airplane Graveyard

As always, its sometimes the small things which provide the most satisfaction. Scoop gave me the nod recently on a small toy which he thought i'd like; a miniature wheeled X-15 Rocket Plane. As it transpired, I already had a damaged model from the sixties, which I had picked up from a counter top box in a shop in North Wales. Fitted with 'speed' wheels like Matchbox Superfast and Hot Wheels, the little Hong Kong plane was one of three models available. The other two haven't fared as well as the durable little test plane. A white Starfighter and magenta Draakhen, both in Royal Canadian Air Force livery have been battered by being thrown into a box with my old cars. The newer ebay model has a slightly bent front axle, but still runs well. At just over two inches long, its a lovely little addition to the Wotan fleet.

SWORDaku WORD COMP!

OK folks, word game time again. A 4 move SWORDaku! The aim: in 4 new moves, change the word BASE to HOTH. Shimple! All you do is change ONE LETTER to create a new word. This is done 4 times until BASE has changed into HOTH. Very Star Wars I know!

One new word per reader please! Please state which word it is, either 2,3,4 or 5. Go go go!

1. BASE
2. ****
3. ****
4. ****
5. ****
6. HOTH

GERRY ANDERSON'S 'THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW' ON UK TV

I see that Gerry Anderson's 1975 T V special 'The Day After Tomorrow aka Into Infinity is being shown on BBC 4 H D in the UK this coming Sunday at 22.50 during a science/science fiction feature.

Starring Brian Blessed and Nick Tate with narration by Ed Bishop thIS TV film was originally conceived as a pilot for a TV series with a premise to introduce the viewer to contemporary scientific theories involving interstellar space travel. 

The film was produced  between the first and second seasons of Space 1999 and uses many elements from that series including the main spacecraft design for the science vessel, Altares.

While critics argue that the plot is, at times quite pedestrian and lacks few moments of suspense, I'll still be tuning in to see that usual splendid model work. 

  

MARX BRISTOL 188 TOY RESTORATION BY KEVIN D: PART 1

Hi MB,

Don't know if you'd be interested in this, but I thought I'd show you a toy restoration project as I did it [ Ed.]

I'm not actually that much of a collector of toys outside of Anderson related vehicles, but when I saw Scoop's post on the Bristol 188 toy by Marx, I thought there was a toy I'd really like! I'd never even heard of the aircraft before (and I'm interested in that sort of thing!).

Anyway, I did a quick ebay search and found one. It was battered beyond belief but I thought it might be fun to try to rescue it. Nobody else thought so, as I was the only bidder. (£10 but that seemed ok to me?). It arrived, looking as it did in the listing, most of the chrome gone, a gaping hole in an engine intake and no nose wheel. Incredibly, despite all of that, the drive worked!

So, onto restoration. I have some chrome sticky backed plastic, so decided to use that, cutting out panels and sticking them on. I have done the wings and engines so far and it seems to be working. The hole in the intake I repaired by cutting out new panels in clear acetate and painting them in clear red paint. The white part between them I cut from a piece of plastic that fell out of the toy!

The nose wheel I used was from a wrecked Dinky Harrier, I cut it down, drilled out the stump on the model and just push fitted it in. It is not accurate, but it is robust and allows the toy to steer.

Take care,

Kevin D

CAPTION COMP!

Caption competition time readers! I used to post loads of these so here's a new one. Here's our dog Blue staring at one of my space books, but what is he thinking?

C'mon readers, the funnier the better!

YELLOW STRAKER'S CAR BY DINKY

One of the items I picked up at the recent Doncaster toy fair was an unboxed  and  slightly battered yellow Straker's Car made by Dinky.

I already have a gold version which I've had since new and have remarkably managed to hang on to the box, but when I saw this yellow version I thought it would be good for the collection.

Also making a cameo appearance on the little diorama I created for the photos are a couple old style Dinky road signs which I also picked up at the fair.

KEVIN'S CLIFFORD GEMINI CAPSULE

Hi MB,

Having seen that ad in a recent blog post [ below. Ed. ] here are some pictures of my Clifford toys Gemini. I had one of these as a kid, so was really pleased to get one off ebay a few years ago. This is a stunningly accurate toy, all of the detail on the surface shingles and the orbital module seem really right to me. Mine is missing one crewman sadly, but they hadn't really worked out all of the problems with EVA in those days.

Take care,

Kevin D