Gondor's Grumblings

[Gondor]

I ordered a pack of twenty-five sheets of labels yesterday, a little after four in the afternoon. This evening I popped out to my local supermarket for a couple of things and found that a package had been posted through my door. It was the labels. So tomorrow evening, I shall be making a list of what I require and printing off that list. I have only been meaning to do this for a few years. 

[Gondor]

So, having received the labels yesterday, I decided to print out what I needed.



I know that they are not all aligned or matching in spacing, but they do tell me what brand, type and container size is in each drawer when there is something in the drawer.

[Rick Lowe]

Is it too late to suggest putting blank labels on, and writing in pencil, so you can change the list if/when you change the contents?

[Gondor]

Is it too late to suggest putting blank labels on, and writing in pencil, so you can change the list if/when you change the contents?

No, but that's not something I would do as my handwriting is not great. What you see in the picture took less than half a sheet of labels, and I bought twenty five sheets of that size label, so I don't think I will run out if I ever change what is in each draw, which will take some doing. I have been modelling since the nineteen eighties, the only time I have thrown away a tin of paint is if it has gone hard or really weird on me.
Admittedly some of the draws do not have many tins of paint inside them, the Colourcoats 30ml tins, of which I have five or six, are in a quite large draw, but they are quite large tins anyway.

[Rick Lowe]

 
 

he only time I have thrown away a tin of paint is if it has gone hard or really weird on me.

Word! 

[Gondor]

Is it too late to suggest putting blank labels on, and writing in pencil, so you can change the list if/when you change the contents?

I should have said that each draw usually contains only one brand of paint and that is what goes on the label. Each draw is then organized in numerical order with doubles or spares at the back of the last draw labeled as that brand. Way too much hassle to list which paints are in each draw individulay.
There is a draw that has two labels on it as there are two brands of paint in there, but it's not worth starting a new draw for just two paints when there is space for the same sized jars in an existing draw. The labels are working from left to right in this case. The one on the left is the primary brand, with the label on the right being the secondary brand. If there was a third brand, that would be placed further to the right.

[NARSES2]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who stores his paint in such a structured way 

Most of mine are stored by brand and then by airforce/country and then within drawer by paint number. The only drawer that differs from this "norm" is my Xtracrylic Luftwaffe drawers which are ordered by RLM No rather than paint No. Sad I know, but it works for me 

My Hataka "sets" are kept within their origional boxes as this makes it far easier to access "Dutch", Polish etc 

[PR19_Kit]

I wish I could do things like that.

Every time I want to use one of my vast selection of Hataka pots these days, I always end up ploughing through the whole bunch of them! Even painting colour swatches on their plastic lids doesn't help as they're never bright enough to figure out exactly which one is which. 

[Gondor]

The Hataka paint is stored in racks in numerical order. On the top of the uppermost rack, I have the backs from the boxes, so I can refer to them for which paint I want. As Chris says, "It works for me".

[Rick Lowe]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who stores his paint in such a structured way 

Most of mine are stored by brand and then by airforce/country and then within drawer by paint number. The only drawer that differs from this "norm" is my Xtracrylic Luftwaffe drawers which are ordered by RLM No rather than paint No. Sad I know, but it works for me 

My Hataka "sets" are kept within their origional boxes as this makes it far easier to access "Dutch", Polish etc 

I have no problem with that sort of system - it's a far cry from mine, which is "Just stick them in a compartment in the bin, loosely organized by colour"
Then I, as Kit, have to search the whole box for the colour I need... 

[Gondor]

Have put a black wash over my VG Lightning, which was on the bench for undercarriage door repair/replacement, and on my MB.3 and MB.4 builds, I started to think about varnish. This reminded me that I had bought four pots of varnish-like items last weekend at the Scottish Nationals. Tamiya Mr Hobby type bottles. So I thought to myself, what did I do with them, and where are they? I was sure that I took them out of my small toolbox once I got home, but I checked there anyway.
There then followed a fruitless ten minutes of looking in all of the most obvious places, and a couple of not-so-obvious ones. No bottles. 
So I started looking through the nicly-labled draws of paints, no new bottles.   
I eventually found the new bottles hiding behind the extra Lifecolour bottles. Unfortunately, two of the bottles are slightly larger, so they would not fit with the rest of the bottles I have by Tamiya. But after a little experimenting and thinking, I realised that the drawer the bottles were in was the same size as the drawer the Tamiya bottles were in; it all depends on whether the bottles are in the top or bottom drawer. This is because the supports for the top drawer are only on the sides of the unit, thus providing an extra little space above the bottom drawer. So I am having to build the other unit, I have to allow me to rearrange the paints, keeping the different brands together.

[Gondor]

Just had a nice visit from Young Nick. He is travelling up to Loch Tay and Killin and was dropping off a kit for me. We chatted for a while, and I got to show off my set-up and part of my stash.

[Rick Lowe]

 
Time spent chewing the fat and bouncing ideas off one another is never wasted.

[Gondor]

Catching up on things, I did build the remaining unit and put it out of the way, as I ended up not needing it, well, yet anyway. I moved the Mr Hobby paints into the second lower drawer that had the overflow of Tamiya paint. I then moved the label from one drawer to the other. That solved that problem!

I have no idea why I was fretting about the missing parts from the Tiger kit that Young Nick gave me yesterday. I do, after all, own a 3D resin printer and both normal grey resin and a tub of clear resin. So perhaps a future practice piece for me. Just no one hold your breath in expectation, as that will result in expiration.

Talking of Tigers, I get paid on Thursday, and while checking my funds earlier today, I found I did have enough, firstly for petrol, so I can get back and forth to earn more money, I also had enough to allow me to buy a Tiger that Thorvic found for sale by KingKit. With this being Tuesday, I will hopefully receive said kit this weekend.

[Gondor]

I have been feeling a bit low at times today due to this being the second anniversary of my father's passing. Not a great loss, as he was never really that important in my life. This is probably due to his upbringing. When you are the only son that is born in the early thirties of the twentieth century, you tend to be a bit hands-off as far as parenting goes. I do kind of wish that we had been a bit closer, but what happened, happened. The experience could have a bit to do with my own standoffish attitude at times. With regards to a comment elsewhere, I intend to get my nephew, whom I tried to get into building plastic kits, because he didn't want to go to Sunday school. I believe he is into Warhammer though  anyway, I intend to enrol him into the way of my PC so that if something unforeseen happens to me, you lot of miscreants will know about it. 
This month has been a five-week month between pay days, and the Scottish Nationals have been thrown into the mix as well, so the coffers have been laid bare. However, there were enough funds for a little shopping and filling the petrol tank of the car yesterday. That sounds much better and less expensive than "filling the car", which takes my mind back to an early episode of "Catweasle", and that was not yesterday! During my time at work today, I received an email from the BIG yellow H, saying that an item on my list was now in stock. Thoughts of getting the item as soon as was reasonably possible ran like the roadrunner through my mind, complete with a flexible road surface. I settled on setting up my basket just before going to bed tonight, and then come the morning, while breaking my fast, purchase the contents of the trolley. Two things have conspired against this course of action. A second email from Hannants saying that another model I was after was now in stock, and me checking my bank account.
Some of you may know that I spent a few years in the Royal Air Force; the rest of you have just found out. I served for twelve years, which entitled me to receive a small pension once I reached the grand old age of sixty. It appears that the payment date for this pension is the twenty-ninth, which, at the time of writing, is today. So, with funds being available to myself, I revised my plans for the purchase and simply ordered the two kits and a couple of other items I was after, sooner rather than later. A while later, I remembered that I was going to buy one of THESE as there are times the cable connection between my travelling computer and car decides not to allow one to talk to the other.
No physical modelling has taken place this evening. I have been catching up on YouTube videos as several channels I follow publish new videos on a Wednesday. An interesting video about a third railway station in Brixtion by Jago Hazzard, and an interesting breakdown of King Charles's address to the US Congress. I have yet to watch the speech in full, but the video I mentioned by Professor Tim Wilson I found enjoyable.
This evening had started when I got home with a complaining cat. Spot was walking to the front door as I exited my car, demanding attention and not answering my questions of where he has been. So an immediate change of priorities took place. Get the cat fed, he always wants fed when he comes home! This delayed my repairing the net curtain for one window of my bedroom. I use a system sold in Dunelm Mills that has an extendable rod, the ends of which fix onto pegs that fit onto a surface with double-sided pads. Now and again, the pads fail, and the pegs need to be replaced. This means cleaning the surface to which the previous set were adheared to, including any pad that tries to remain in place, as although only one pad fails, the second pad is twisted if it has not fallen off as well. The replacement of the pegs on pads was accomplished easily enough, and they are cheap, £0.60 for a pair, so I don't mind replacing them now and again. One advantage is that I can put these on the surround to the actual window, rather than the window frame or the surrounding structure, which means when each window is opened or tilted, the net curtain moves with it. Laundry night tonight as well, which I dealt with as soon as possible. It's been a busy evening.  Paint has been put out for tomorrow. I was wondering during the day as to why I was trying to get an even coat of white paint on the intakes of the Fairey ER.103C build I recently started. I realised that this was a good question. The intake of the Lightning was bare metal, I believe, so why paint the Fairey's intake white? So I have decided to paint the intake trunking with Humbrol Metalcoat Polished Steel. I have been getting stuck with white intakes after putting a couple of Phantoms together, which has been kind of blinding me to the fact that a lot could well be bare metal.