Piano Man

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It’s been a very gloomy few years so I think it’s time for something in a lighter vein. For my last birthday, almost a year ago, CStM bought me a model kit. I’d already made something in a similar line, but on a much smaller scale…

The base is about an inch and a half wide. Nothing came pre-made. Nothing. Not even the books.

Well, this new one is a lot bigger. A hell of a lot bigger. If you search ‘Simon’s Coffee model kit’ you’ll probably find it. It’s 1:24 scale so will fit with the garden sized railway and again, nothing comes premade.

Last year was a busy year, mother getting ill, CStM’s father’s birthday, daughter’s wedding, and much more. So I hadn’t even opened this new model. I’m also pretty tied up with an increasing book backlog and we’ll be at a funeral soon, but I did need a bit of ‘relax’ time. So I started the model. Relax? Ha! My lexicon of imaginiative swear words has grown exponentially and I’ve only done a tiny bit.

Just to make it more interesting, all the instructions are in Chinese. I can’t even guess what they say. I’m working by pictures and part numbers, and few parts have numbers.

I decided to start with this part because the components were relatively easy to identify.

Well, there was an initial balls-up, mostly because I can’t read Chinese, but I realised before the glue set so I fixed it. It turned out pretty okay in the end, I think. Took me a while to find the tiny dowels for the chair legs among the bags of bits, that’ll be next. For reference, the squares on the cutting mat are one inch.

Once the funeral is past (with the hope there won’t be yet another too soon) I’ll be able to concentrate on books again. For now, the assembly of parts is cathartic, it takes my mind off the current gloom of the world. Have no fear though, that gloom will still come out in stories.

Update – the tiny upholstery job is done. It’ll be a few days before the next part is started.

20 thoughts on “Piano Man”

  3. I don’t know whether I’m impressed or just jealous.

    I have abnormally normal sized thumbs (and fingers), not to mention waning eyesight, so something apparently as simple (for everyone else) as texting is beyond me. Constructing miniatures is so far out of my capabilities as to need the Hubble to see it. (Don’t ask about my recent experience of changing my watch battery, I’m still recovering, a week later).

    I admit being 6’ 5” and 17 st (Oh OK, plus) has given me a somewhat biased opinion, but I struggle to manage in a world designed for short people (when I moved to my current address I was stunned at the numbers, and wondered if I had moved adjacent to either Charlie’s factory, or possibly Oz). I struggle to mange with ‘normal’ sized furniture, please don’t ask me to try miniatures! (a ¼’’ socket is about as small as I ‘can’ go).

    As interested in carpentry/joinery and cabinet-making as I am, I ‘did’ consider getting some of those small Proxxon machines from Axminster, but the first I tried was so small I had trouble seeing ‘it’ let alone the pieces I was imagining making.

    So, jealous it is then.

    Liked by 2 people

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    • I used to work in very much smaller scales, down to N gauge railways (2mm to 1 foot: I still have a working semaphore signal that I made), but I’m also suffering the effects of age on my eyes and I don’t have the fine control in my fingers that I used to have. It started to get difficult to put the wagons on the tracks some years ago. I can just about manage 1/72nd scale but that’s hard now. I’ve kept a lot of N gauge stuff, sold most of it, but I’m hoping the grandkids will take it on.

      I remember being told as a teenager that railway modellers move up the scales as they age. I’m now on G scale… 1:24

      Liked by 1 person

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  5. The best things i ever did for my overall well being was over 30 years ago turned my back on newspapers, and it must be well over a decade now since i watched any live broadcast from a television, any news (thay want you to hear) or advert coming on the radio sees it immediately muted or the channel changed.

    The last 3 years have affected almost everyone i know, including me, personally it was the disappointing but not exactly surprising realisation of not just how gullible whole swathes of the public were, it was just how the cruel nasty vindictive pseudo dictator was lurking just below the surface in more than a tiny minority just waiting for their chance to take out their venom on someone disapproved of by the state, with some of the more outspoken calling openly for apartheid, incarceration, forced injections and/or denying of medical treatments for those who didn’t drink as directed from the WEF/WHO/GOV kool aid bottle.
    They were here all along, the same people who in 1930s cental europe were enthused and took on the persecution of the state declared enemy of that time, look where that ended.
    One clown i’d known for years, a volunteer for early jabbing (dead now, that’s a surprise, not) was shocked beyond belief that i hadn’t been jabbed and wasn’t going to be as long as i had the required rear orifice, declaring in public vehemence that i should be taken and forced injected, he always was a shilling short of a quid.

    Whether affected by personal issues such as bereavement (my father has been gone some 35 years and i still miss him every day, a man of honour and truth) or not, few of us have come through this unscathed.

    I will not forgive and forget as we are being urged either, i will remember all of those who took part in the covid scam.

    Liked by 1 person

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    • Likewise, I gave up on newspapers and TV a very long time ago. I used to enjoy watching Dr. Who, I even thought the actress who took over, Jodie Whassname, showed promise. It was the excessive woke lecturing stories that killed it for me. So now I don’t watch any TV at all, and can’t remember when I last turned on a radio.
      I will also never forgive nor forget, those bastards forced my son and daughter to get the jabs to keep their jobs. So far they’re okay but if anything happens to them, well I’ll really have nothing left to lose…

      Liked by 2 people

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  12. Leggy, i know this might seem odd, i’ve tried to contact you via the contact clicky above but blowed if i can make head or tail, i’m a computer dummy of the first order.

    I want to ask you about a product the doctor (my wife hasn’t seen before but suddenly contacted my wife out of the blue) suddenly prescribed for her, changing what she was previously using.
    The product is called Vagirux (you can probably guess the reasons for her using such a product), here is a link i found to it
    https://www.medicinesfaq.com/brand/vagirux
    Now down in the description mRNA is mentioned which caused me great concern, her too.
    Would you mind casting your eye over this link please and give me your thoughts, i know you’re not a doctor but a number of us have come to trust you given you helped keep us away from the filth the pharmas came up with recently.
    As you can probably understand i trust the medical establishment about as far as i could spit.

    Much obliged for any thoughts you might have, or whom else i might contact for some advice here.

    Thankyou.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

    • There’s no mRNA in that medication. The reference there is to the normal transcription process – the cell’s own mRNA system – and how the hormone regulates it.
      Nothing to worry about – it looks safe enough 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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