Update

Hi people.

Not that I owe you all any explanation for my absence, but here is one anyway.

Lately I am occupied with lots of job-related things and taking care of my sweet girlfriend who needs me to improve on her health again. She improves a little every day but it will take a lot of time until she's better. 
Both the job and the nursery stuff take up lots of time so that puts the paper model things on a low priority level, unfortunately.
I occasionally do some paper stuff but not a lot. Most of the time I just don't feel like it. And that's why although this year started out quite prolific, it now came to an almost grinding halt.

How's stuff then, now?
Well, I have built some more Johan Scherft birds. I did another version of the wren after I made the starling and I recently finished the goldcrest. So now I have quite an aviary on my shelves. For the birds I chose to use 120 g/m2 paper because I find the advised 80 g/m2 too thin. But that's just me. The wren was slightly modified, too, because I opened its little beak so now it sings. The older version was put on a small branch inside a display case and I gave it to my mum, who loved it. So it got a good home.

The Ariane awaits finishing too, of course. I did the cylindrical part of the fairing weeks ago.  I wanted to improve the two halves over all the previous attempts with splitting shrouds I tried over the years.
So I tried a tongue and groove connection by putting an extra layer between the inner and outer wall. It looked great, it worked like a charm. it was on a hot day when I made it and while the idea worked great, it dried up totally wrong. I took the mould away too soon, I guess. The end result was totally unusable. I haven't got myself making it again.

The tongue part of the shroud half. Some more pictures after the jump. 
I have to say, I like the abstractness of the photo. (-:

 

 the groove side of the shroud half.

the two halves slide over each other wonderfully, originally it really fitted and from the outside it looked almost seamless. But.

This. I let it dry away from the perfectly fitting mould that was inside and it all curled up too much. I need to dry this stuff thoroughly before releasing it from the mould, I guess. Oh well. never too old to learn.

Hopefully soon there will be some updates on the build of this rocket. I still really love to look at it and it is the most detailed and demonstrable rocket I have ever made. I want it to be as perfect as I can make it. So I won't haste to finish it. But I do hope I have some time soon.

Until then, greetings and please stay tuned.
--PK