Hey MG, the M3 is looking great. The .50 on top looks awesome. Looking forward to seeing the belt ammo installed. Keep posting updates.

 Hey Bob, Looking forward to seeing the P40 updates. Any paint schemes planned. The P40's, IMO look great with the sharks teeth. If there ever was a plane designed for artistic nose art, the P40 fits the bill perfect. Anyway looking forward to seeing updates.

 

 

Thanks Mobious-I'm thinking that I'm going to go with the AVG markings & paint scheme.  I have some better decals leftover from another build that died on the bench-lost parts.  After I pulled the resin interior out of the 90% complete Acadmey P-40c kit (painted, decaled and just needing the landing gear & canopy attached), I realized that I could have just taken the parts I needed from the Rev-o-gram kit and been done with it.........but then I would have missed the joy of working on the Revell/Monogram kit . 

Stikpusher-Nice P-39 build you've got going.  That's one I have to add to my 'to build list'.As far as the paint overspray, I would imagine that many planes left the factory with more paint overspray in the interest of getting them out and into battle.

This build is finally starting to near completion.....believe it or not. There's only one more planned update after this one. Soooooo, finished pics should be up on Saturday or so.

As for this update, the decals are on. The red star and numbers are from the Zvezda kit. They were actually quite nice, but they kept curling in the corners. Thus one must be carfull not to put down the decal with the corners stuck underneath. The flag/wreath decal on the door was from a Revell kit spare. It went on nicely with just a little bit of vinegar to help it go over some raised detail.(Gotta thank Hans von Hammer for the great tip about using vinegar in place of Micro-Sol!) The instructions did say one more decal of a red star in white circle goes on the hood, but I felt it subtracted fromt the builds appearance so I let that one off.

Another view of the decals. Also I put the axe permanently in place inside the scratch axe sheath.

Yep the .50 cal has finally got it's ammo belt feedin' in. This belt of bullets came from Tamiya's US Infantry Weapons set. I put half the belt inside the can, with the other half of the belt feedin' in. Just some slight cutting was neccessary to get the ammo belt to curve. Note: the guns are not yet finished more weathering will be coming soon.

The .30 cal is now also permanetly in place. This ammo belt also came from Tamiya's US Infantry Weapons set. Placement was straightforward(just some shortening), since this belt didn't have to curve at all.

Finally the tarps and bags that will be along the hull. I decided to replace all the kit supplied one's with much better detailed ones from Tamiya's Allied Vehicles Acessory Set. The kit supplied ones are okay in front, but as soon as you look to the side of them their completley void of any detail. (I guess you could scribe in fabric folds, but that would take a while, and I was a bit lazy to do all that .) The dark green tarps are Zvezdas and the very light green ones are Tamiyas. I think this pics says it all in just a simple comparison.

The bags and all will be getting more texture ala tissue paper, so I gotta get workin' on that soon.

Thanks for looking!

 

bobbaily wrote:

Mg-your build is coming together nicely.  Your attention to detail shows. Question regarding your decal setting solution-did you use white vinegar or cider vinegar?

Thanks for the comments! As for the setting solution, I used good ole-white vinegar.

Finished pics will be up tommorrow. I would have gotten the build done and photographed today, but I just learned I have to go to a friends barbeque/party(feel obliged to.) Thus that means no finishing my build untill night and no pics to morning.

Before I forget.......hope everyone has a great 4th of July!!!

 Mg Mikael, The extra effort really paid off big time with the M3 build. It looks great. The big boy.050 looks awesome. Very nice weathering too. Thanks for all the tips and pointers on this build.

 

Mobious- Thanks for the comments! Glad your lovin' the build and the tips.

bobbaily- Thanks for the comments and for followin' the build!!

Post WWII Soviet definitely catches my interest... I made some good progress on my Cobra ovr the weekend, then got knocked on my 4th point of contact by a flu bug I caught. I am much recovered as of today and plan to resume work this afternoon and hopefully get done very very quickly now... it's oh so close now...

I'll have some progress pics posted later. Trying a little differeant weathering technique this time and doing a lot of it before any washes. Almost to the point of the gloss coat now once the paints dry and cure.

BTW, your M3 looks great, in case I failed to mention that before. Very impressive looking piece of wheeled AFV.

Your weathering looks good stikpusher-I agree with you that when you add the top coats, it will look great.