Turkey Sandwiches and Empty Wallets

Happy New Year

So, Christmas has come and gone, and we are now into day nine of the turkey sandwiches and the thought of going back to work leaves us in dread. After having a week off (which ultimately feels like just a day), New Year comes and you’ve probably drank enough that going back to work is frightening, seeing as you’ve only had one day to recover when it takes four days to get yourself feeling right after that NYE bender. But you have to go back to work. The bank account is empty and that’s all the drive you need to defrost the car on that morning and head back to the eight hour grind.

You put your work clothes on and the belt has jumped two notches as you’ve put on nine stone of mince pies, pigs in blankets and enough Thatchers cider or Guinness to put out a fire in Notre Dame Cathedral. The bins are full of empty alcohol cans, tubs of Celebrations or Quality Street with used wrappers in them and three sets of fairy lights you bought last year but they never worked this year. You even forget what the day is, so look outside the window every day for the local “Binfluencer” to see which bins need to go out, knowing your wheelie bin is already overflowing and would take a crane to even put it outside your home for the council to collect.

Outside of Youtube, one of the ways I pay the mortgage and pay for my scale modelling hobby is by spinning music on the decks, I am a DJ. I go around establishments playing loud music and allowing people to have stars in their eyes with Karaoke. Christmas is the money maker. I start the first week of November and finish at 3am on New Year’s Day. Every weekend I am driving around setting up my gear and entertaining the pissed and the unhappy. As most work do’s have an unlimited bar, there is always one woman crying in the corner bemoaning she’s still with her fella and her life is crap, in-between bringing up the roast turkey, spuds, black forest gateaux and Tequila Rose shots she has lined her stomach with.

This December has been very busy. I had seventeen gigs (mostly work do’s and pubs celebrating Christmas), so January is a most welcome month for me, as I basically don’t do anything musically.

A lot of my work involves breweries and they don’t budget for entertainment that first month of the year. It’s a very quiet time as most of the human race are broke from buying new iPhones or iPads for their seven year olds, wives have bought enough food that they give Bob Geldof a call asking him to get his millionaire mates together to host another Band Aid to pay for it, and the car is due a service and MOT. So, with an empty bank account most people stay home as they can’t even afford a blackcurrant and soda water at their local ale house.

January is my time. I actually frequent the quiet pubs and clubs; drink and maybe get a little pissed, because I gig I don’t drink, so January is my time and with the pubs being a lot quieter I enjoy it. I go and watch the darts and sup on the amber nectar and swig Jack Daniels with a few folks who are drinking their blackcurrant and soda water’s.

With it being a quiet month for me, I also have a lot more time on the workbench. I have a couple of projects I need to do as I’ve put them off. I did manage one build in December, which was the Heller 1/24 Ferguson TE-20 Tractor. I picked that kit because looking at the instructions and the sprues, I knew it was gonna be a reasonably easy build and also a kit that I could try out some new products from Humbrol on.

Last year Humbrol announced that they were releasing a chipping fluid that would help with weathering a scale model, especially a rust effect, which I have been itching to do for some years. So, with the chipping fluid and a pack of their new weathering powders I was off. After a good nine hours in total of build time I ended up with a decent weathered rusty grey Fergie that I remember seeing on most farms growing up in the 1980’s.

The process was very simple, I airbrushed a base coat on the parts I wanted to weather with Outlaw Paints dark rust lacquer paint. I then airbrushed or hand painted the Humbrol Chipping Fluid on the base coat, allowed that to dry (which left a satin or gloss finish), then added a topcoat of dark ghost grey, applied through the airbrush and then left alone to cure.

Then it was time to remove that top coat to allow the rust colour to come through. Plenty of water and a stiff hairy stick and I rubbed the hell out of it. Bit by bit the rust appeared through and the results looked absolutely brilliant. With a little bit of the dark rust weathering powders (also from the Humbrol range) I felt that the end result was staggering. The one takeaway from using these products is how easy they were to use, and if you watch my build video on YouTube, it should give you some confidence to try out weathering if you’ve never actually weathered a scale model before. It’s very forgiving, the powders can also have a drop of water added to them to make a loose paste to add some texture to the rust spots too. All in all, it was a cracking build and I’m extremely happy with the results.

So, what’s next on my bench to build? I have a Revell Kit SpPz Luchs in 1/35 scale which I will be buddy building with Luke from Black Rifle Model Works. Keep an eye out for the build on my channel in the future.

To all my readers, watchers, subscribers and members. I wish you all a very Happy New Year and may you have a year of great builds, new tools and I look forward to hopefully seeing you at a couple of model shows in 2025.