Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We are fortunate to have Christine and Daniel home for the holiday weekend. Nicholas stayed out east to spend the weekend with my Aunt and Uncle at their cabin an hour east of Ottawa.
We had our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. It is the last weekend of golfing at the Thickwood Course, and Christine is spending as much time there as possible. She played on Saturday, and was supposed to play in the end of year tournament on Sunday - hence having Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, but her golf companions decided they only wanted to play 9 holes.
We were in Calgary for most of last week, leaving on Sept 27 and getting home last Monday. The primary goal was to relocate Marie's mom to a smaller room, downsizing from a single bedroom to a single room suite. The move took three complete days of work, from Wednesday morning to the end of the day Friday, and included downsizing, packing, moving, building Ikea furniture, and multiple trips to WINS to donate things. Thankfully, we had help from her brother Eric and his new wife Kelly, as well as Michelle's good friend Darleen Fedun, which greatly sped up the process. In the midst we took a break to celebrate Michelle 's 87th birthday on September 29. Marie and I were both completely tired out by the time we were done.
But that wasn't the only move this trip. On Saturday and Sunday we assisted my Mother to rearrange a bedroom and install a new bed. The chosen room started out rather full, with a computer desk, a hobby desk, a bookcase, a dresser, and various types of storage. Most of the stuff was boxed and relocated to their building's basement storage area. It took a day and a half to sort thru everything, pack it up and then move it to storage downstairs. And there was another WINS trip to donate items that were no longer needed.
My Dad is still in hospital. We visited him daily while in Calgary and got to meet some very "interesting" roommates. Not surprisingly, he is very bored and wants to go home. It has taken the hospital a while to sort out the cause of his kidney failure, the resulting need for oxygen, and then deal with his loss of mobility caused by the inactivity. They have been incrementally adjusting his medication to achieve the desired effect without causing further kidney problems. In the last week, he has started daily physio to build up his strength and coordination. The good news is that he is progressing well, and it appears that he will be able to go home some time this coming week.
On our way home, we picked up the dogs from our breeder, located just west of Edmonton. They were all freshly bathed, groomed and teeth cleaned. The breeder had several batches of puppies running around and oh were they cute! I think we would have come home with an extra dog if any of those puppies were available.
Marie and I were very happy to get back home after all that and just sit. Sitting didn't last long, as I started on the baseboards. The front hall is now complete, with both front hall closets and all the baseboards around the front door finished. Next up will be to work my way down the hallway towards the garage door and the main floor bathroom. Unfortunately, at least for me, I think it will be necessary to do at least some touch up painting to the tan walls.
The fantastic fall weather continues, with temperatures into the high teens and low twenties. I got in three bike rides this week, enjoying the weather and the fall colours. It feels like the trees turned colour really late this year, and with more colour than past years. I have enjoyed getting out and taking pictures of the fall colours. The first picture below is of our back yard, taken as the sun rises. The rest are from various spots in the Birchwood trails.
Christine has been able to sort out things back in Ottawa. She has changed class sections in order deal with some problematic classmates, She has also found a new place to live that will make things easier. She moves into the new place at the end of this month, using her reading week to make the move. In the meantime, she has started carpooling to class with a more reliable classmate. She is much happier after the changes, knowing that she has a path forward.
Daniel spent his weekend at home installing his winter tires, cleaning his car from 8 months of hiking, and studying. He continues to maintain a full course load, belongs to 2 clubs including the F1 team and the Hyperloop team, is playing rec hockey a couple times a week, working out with the powerlifting club, and was just announced as the Dean's research assistant! It took all my attention to simply get thru Engineering so I am very much in awe of his abilities to successfully manage it all.
Nicholas continues living in the common area of his basement suite, watching the floor drain repair to see if it will leak. Like Daniel, he is also extremely busy. His frosh activities are now complete, but he is also on a couple of clubs and also playing hockey multiple times a week. I don't know how they do it and retain their sanity.
Halifax
Thank God I had bought some Eduard masks. Even with two turrets deleted, the kit still was a lot clear window areas to mask. The Eduard masks fit perfectly, saving a lot of time and sanity.
With the masks on, it was time to prime. The primer exposed some minor repairs, mainly around the clear parts on the nose. After polishing the primer with 1500 grit paper, some filler was used around the nose to clean up small gaps, then resanded to smooth out the repairs.
I have decided to paint most of the markings, with the exception of the nose art and stencils. I find it easier to use positive masks to paint the code letters and serials numbers, where the colour is sprayed and then the mask placed over it to protect the colour. The roundels are easier to spray as negative masks, where the mask is used to control where the paint is applied. The first step was therefore to spray parts of the rear fuselage a deep red prior to masking the code letters. The serial numbers at the tail are probably the smallest masks I have attempted at about 3 mm tall. Very fiddley but they should work.
Photo 1 - Thank goodness for Eduard masks!
Photo 2 - Primer smoothed and camouflage pencilled in.
Photo 3 - A deep red is applied to the areas to be masked
Photo 4 - Letter masks applied. Note the serial numbers by the tail - about 3mm high!
While waiting for the primer to harden, I started work on the props and landing gear. The kit's props are paddle style, while the Halifax typically used a needle style. Replacements are available, but at a rather startlingly high cost. Rather than buying replacements, and attempt was made to modify the kit props by sanding the blades into an approximate shape. After an hour of sanding, a decent representation of the correct shape was achieved.
Photo 1 - Reshaped props. Original on the right. Shaped needle prop on the left.
GT40
After looking at pictures, I went back and touched up the exhaust colours, adding more red/brown and a touch of clear blue to represent heat staining. The pictures don't capture it well but I am happy with the result.
Pictures of the real thing show a surprising lack of visible wiring and piping. Even the distributor wiring is mostly hidden under the firewall and below the exhaust manifolds. There is some piping visible from things like coolant reservoirs and such that I may try and replicate if there is time.
Photo 1 - Happy with the exhaust
Photo 2 - Chassis and engine complete
Seats
Next up is the cockpit area, dominated by the seats. The real car's seats are gloss back with silver buttons. The Revell kit models this using decals. The Meng kit requires that everything be painted. The silver buttons are about 0.5mm diameter and deeply indented. After some thought, I decided to try and paint them using a sharpened toothpick dipped into silver paint. A trial on one seat back shows the idea mostly works but some touch up will be required.
Photo 1 - The real car
Photo 2 - The instructions
Photo 3 - The seats painted gloss black.
Photo 4 - Testing a toothpick to apply silver to the back of one seat. It mostly worked.
And that's it for this week. Stay safe everyone.
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