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Thanks for that, I will check out the Maplins and Stapells and see what they have. Will cause blindness, just like Tennants Super.

Where do you get the Isopropyl Alchohol? I can't find a good source of it in the UK. I know in the US you can get it in pharmacies but they don't sell it in Boots (otherwise it would overtake Special Brew as the tramps favorite).

I use Alec Tiranti who sell all the fibreglass and similiar stuff: http://www.tiranti.co.uk/indexhome.asp They are in Theale (near Reading which is close for me) and in central London.

On prop forums I go to they use the plastic skeleton and expandable foam to rough out the shape, cover it in epoxy resin or Bondo then take a fibreglass mould from it. Bondo=US P38=UK Car Bog??=Australia If you go to an automotive shop (Halfords in the UK) it is advertised as car body filler. You get a tub of putty then a tube of hardener.

I have used P38 (Bondo in the UK) near water and it's unaffected by water as far as I can tell. It's just polyester putty in a big £5 tub. Cheaper than the Mori Mori putty when you are doing big jobs.

There are loads of places: Akihabara, loads of cheap electronics and a few anime stores. Just wander around. Try and go to a maid cafe. Shinjuku, few places but Akihabara is better Before you go look at: http://www.mandarake.co.jp/english/shop/ Print out the maps, the Nakano store is a bit of a trek but has loads of shops with older kits. If you are looking at getting modern kits then you can't go wrong with Akihabara.

Nice scratchbuild. From the pics I can't tell what plastic you are using to model. The planking looks to be styrene. What are the ribs and the structure of the model made of, looks like thick styrene or possibly foam PVC (love that stuff). Lastly have you got a good supplier for plastics, I've used a few places but can never get it as cheap as it seems to be in the US.

What is the scale/height of this? Thanks

Thanks, I have some flat aluminium spray so that will make things a bit easier.

From the picture it looks like TS44 is the blue for the Tachi, did you paint the grey bits as I'm just putting together an order and wondered what the closest grey available is.

I brought a load of the japanese single volume and dual volume manga off ebay a few months ago. Can't read kanji but you can get a rough idea of whats happening.

I have read various posts about how much to thin Tamiya acrylics. What is the general concensus for thining with regards to light and dark colours. Thanks.

Ever notice the breatplate on the Kerberos armour is the same as the Griffon's chestplate from Patlabor?

The progress pics looks superb. I was looking at the picture with the size of the tachikoma and I think it's showing it as way too small. I was basing my one on the pic in the GITS:SAC visual book. I've attached a scan but this shows it as just under 8' tall (about 2.4m) rather than 6'4" as that pic shows. At 1/6 your looking at about 15" tall which is too big IMHO.

I was just doing the plans to make my own 1/12 scale Tachikoma but looks like I'll have to buy one of these 1/18 now. Perhaps this is a sign to start the plans for Starbug.

I've scanned them in and they are 1.5Mb, can't get to my web space for some reason. If you email/PM me I can email them to you.

I guess you want pics of the 2nd one with the detail. I'll scan the pics in sometime.

Which Patlabor carrier, the basic one from the OAV's which is like a flatbed or the 2nd one which has the crane and a very complex gantry sytem? In one of the Hobby Japans someone scratchbuilt the 2nd version and I have an artbook from Patlabor 2 that has production sketches of it.