My 1st reaction: must be hallucinating. 2nd: you’re kidding. 3rd: YOU’RE KIDDING!!! 4th: recitation of every swear-word I know. 4th: liquor cupboard 5th: lie down.
Whether you’re familiar with my stalled Operation Anthropoid project or not, here’s how that all began almost exactly 5 years ago, attempting to create Heydrich’s assassination-ride from ICM’s original Merc saloon…
Thanks for taking the bullet Tim. Once upon a time you never have expected this ever be done. These days, you never know what will come out. It is what is stopping some of my projects.
Sob I’m still crying…yep Peter that’s the inherent danger of trying something different…I’m expecting Prague trailer-tram from MiniArt any day now. And yes Mike, at least ICM are guaranteed to have flunked the upholstery.
Get off your knees and stop paying homage to the Carpet Monster; pull that No. 11 blade from your knee; try not to airbrush the cat as it saunters though your spray booth; drive three hours to the hobby store only to forget to buy glue; try to ignore SWMBO’s scowl upon your return — good luck with that one, … Now get back at it.
Tim @Dioramartin . . . . I feel your rage . . . just be comforted by the excellent job you did kit bashing your Cabriolet. AFV Club burned me a couple times in the last two or three years, I’d been scrambleing to add to my stash any and every Nam era kit I could get my hands on, after getting PSM’s M728 then Real Models’ M54 conversions here comes AFV club with plastic kits . . . “well that figures” I said, happens to all us styene junkies eventually. The only thing worse is spending months building a kit thinking you’ve included every minute detail and all the peripherals, daydreaming of the accolades you’ll receive when you post pics of your build only to stumble acroos someone elses entry of the same kit using some of your clever ideas in their presentation and theirs is actually better looking than the build you’re about to post. Karma. BTW, your whole dio looks fantastic, I wasn’t familiar with the inspiration of your dio until I recently saw the video of this account, so a tip of the hat and cheers to you . . . “You don’t need no stinking kit!”
Thanks all for cheering me up, y’all too kind.
And then some weird things happened yesterday evening at a BBQ. After relating aspects of The Hobby to a bunch of the guys I was surprised how interested they were, many questions. The host (a model-railroader I don’t see often) disappeared & on return gave these to me…
One of the others was/is a surgeon and said “Ah, hemostats” then corrected himself, one isn’t but I can’t recall what he said it was. Used to clamp arteries etc, they won’t hold anything wider than a quarter inch/5mm but I like that they don’t keep exerting pressure like a peg or anything sprung, just hold very firmly in place for fine-part gluing. I immediately thought of a use regarding the articulated figures I’ve been trying to develop. (Maybe I’m the last modelmaker to know about these instruments but if anyone’s interested they’re cheap & easy to source – I also gather they’re disposed of after a single use if you can find a friendly hospital-theatre staffer)
Later, another guy I got talking to ran/owned a specialised plastics company until he sold it in 2014. Very specialised plastics. Ultra-thin very specialised plastics which do crease but don’t fatigue, break or tear…exactly the kind of material I gave up looking for last year, for the uniforms over the joints of the articulated figures I’ve been trying to develop.
But there’s more. I woke up in the early hours this morning, like levitating - clearly ICM’s Merc announcement was preying on the un-/sub-conscious. To successfully photograph the assassination sequence/narrative, I need the Merc I built to start off intact but end up wrecked…
This was problematic because it would be seen from both sides intact in the early part of the sequence, so I’d built the passenger side in detachably dual conditions (intact & wrecked), and that became tricky for several technical reasons I’d never fully resolved i.e. the switch, after the grenade went off. It was another likely contributory reason why I’d stalled on the whole Anthropoid project.
And so it came to pass, in the middle of last night: TWO CARS…one intact (thank you ICM), and one wrecked – mine.
I’ve had mine since the late 60’s (my father was a biochemist and thought they’d help me. I still have them). I’ve always known them as “hemostats”. But others call them forceps. Forceps, as I understood them, were those big grabby things to aid in the delivery of babies. (Which are not at all useful in model building - gynaecological forceps, and babies, that is.) Confused me for years (I can be a little slow…) It seems, forceps is not incorrect. Hemostat style instruments come in a variety of shapes and sizes with a variety of names.
Regardless, they are great tools for model making.
Great work on the Cabriolet.
Thanks Evan, forceps maybe the right term but it wasn’t the word I heard even though I’ve forgotten it. Could be just Aussie terminology…don’t think it was “clamp” either. Whatever I’m way too squeamish so I’ll have to have another lie-down now…
There is a part of my extended family that has a number of doctors and nurses. There is usually a point during a big family dinner, where I excuse myself, when the Meds start talking shop, and go seek out the company of the younger generation. So ya, Tim, I hear ya.
… Now get back at it. 
