Had a half-a-crown moment there.

Boy, was that a worry. Turned on the old pc, started up Opera and went to have a look on the blog. As I scrolled down I noticed that all my photos were missing and on investigation found that I couldn't log in and a message that said something along the lines of blog has been cancelled or terminated or similar was glaring malignantly at me. What! I hadn't done anything naughty or broken any rules that I was aware of, so what was going on? Went onto the Help pages and it said that Help wasn't currently available in my language. Now what? Still feeling a tad concerned over all the lost info I tried once more...and there it all was in glorious colour. Phew, that was close! Anyone had anything similar?

Now onto more interesting matters.

Had a thought the other day while looking at someones pics from Salute. 6mm explosions or fall of shot markers. Then of course the next thought was how do I make them? As the Meerkats from the adverts say 'Simples!' So here is my first attempt along with a H & R T72 for scale reference. Can you guess how I made it?



I found a bag with some old 25mm round bakelite like, plastic, washer type things so, using that as a base I folded a humble pipe cleaner four times and then glued it down with some UHU. When dried I covered the cleaner in watered down PVA then, when that was dry, using neat PVA, I put some dabs on the arms and stuck it into my 'slightlier-chunky-base material' bag. When that part was dry I gave it another coat watered down PVA for extra adhesion for the bits. The whole thing was undercoated black and dry-brushed in ever lighter shades of grey. The 'slightlier-chunky-base-material' bits were painted to represent chucks of earth thrown up by the explosion. Some flashes of red in the middle and thats it, all done. Make up the base in your own style and there you have it. Might make some with some smoke billowing out as well. (Made from cotton-wool and stuck in the middle of the bend. Thought just occurred to me, different types of shell could be represented using different colours of cotton-wool.)

I'm on a roll here, I've already got another half dozen made up with the UHU drying as I type.


Don't let yours get dry,


Mick