Weird and Annoying

I wanted to check out an old post dated October 21, 2016 where I play tested and evaluated Thud Ridge air combat rules. I noticed that the post was truncated. As I recall, there was at least two more turns. The way it reads at the end, its pretty obvious that there should be more. Admittedly, its four years old now, but its pretty annoying all the same. Was this due to the "new and improved" update? Already I notice some annoying issues with the Blogger text editor. Unfortunately, I don't have a Word file of this post. I read that you can use Google Docs and then cut and paste into Blogger. For now on, I am definitely going to do this.

Testing a New Method of Flight Stand

 I dread helicopter models for two reasons. First, they are a pain to put together. They always have "fiddly bits" as they say across the Pond that drive me nuts. This is more of a problem with 1/300 models than 1/600 but I have a hard time attaching those clear plastic disks that represent spinning rotors at that scale. Second, attaching a magnet to the bottom of the model is a pain, particularly on 1/600 models. It is bad enough that those rare earth magnets do not stick well, but the helicopter models tend to be either too narrow, and/or have landing gear that interferes with a good attachment. Some time ago, I was grumbling about this in one of my posts (I grumble a lot). Pahoota of The Solipsist Gaming blog recommended using staples as a bridge between the aircraft and the magnetic stand. So, I tried his suggestion:

1/600 Hind with staple stand bridge

 I broke off a block of four staples from a larger block. They are fused together, but I needed to be careful as it is easy to separate one from the rest. It was a little too long to use as is, so I carefully bent them and then cut off the bent piece. Sorry, I don't have a picture to show what I mean but you can see on the part of the staple that is holding onto the magnet where I cut it. I then glued one side to the helicopter with the other end going onto the magnet. So far, it seems to work ok. One advantage of this is that I can paint the helicopter while holding the stand rather than the model. I've been using staples for paper for 1/600 helicopters but I might try heavy-duty staples for 1/300 helicopters. I think it will also work well for very small aircraft. I recently got some 1/600 Pilatus PC-9s, which at that size can pass for either a Super Tucano or an AT-6B. They have very thin fuselages, so the staple bridge might work better than even a narrow cylindrical magnet.  

I Got My Life Back!

 My wife and I debate how long it took, but Friday we put in our last floor plank and yesterday, we put the appliances back in the kitchen. There are a few minor things left to do, but nothing disrupting. I'm happy the way our new floor project turned out, but I don't plan to do any projects of this level for a long time.