finally posted a website....

Nice site E-dog

You have some great work in those galleries as well

Edog,
Very clean, nice builds. You are coming along most excellently! Just a couple observations:
1. On the Tiger, unless there's an engine in there somewhere, you need to ensure that no one can see the bottom of the inside of the tank. The best way to rectify this is to take some sheet styrene, paint it flat black, and glue it in place underneath the vents before you glue the top and bottom hull pieces together. You can put PE over the top of the vents, but that still won't stop being able to see an empty engine compartment.

2. Paint the periscopes. Or you can cut black acetate film to fit and glue them in place as lenses.

3. On the Marder, things were looking really good until those pesky punch-out marks showed up on the seat backs that are mounted to the "bustle rack". There's still a bit of a seam indication on the gun cradle (where the left and right halves join together). I find it easy to simply glue in a piece of .010" styren strip as wide as the cradle, and then sand the end to fair it in to the kit piece. Just out of curiosity, did you complete the smoke discharger box that's mounted next to the muffler? (For those who haven't built this kit, Tamiya didn't supply the back of the smoke discharger box, thinking--I guess--that it wouldn't be visible when the kit was completed. They were wrong....)

3. Where are the Marder periscopes?

4. A burnt sienna or black wash would really make the detail come alive on both kits! A subtle dry brush of silver on the parts contacting the road and wheels would make the tracks stand out.

5. Did you hide the seam on the inside of the muzzle brake?
Hope you don't mind the comments.
Gip Winecoff

Really nice site and work you have there Edog. Keep it up and hope to see more down the road. What's your next project?

"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow to fond of it."-R.E.Lee

edog, just had a chance to glance through it real quick but looks good. I'll do some browsin' at work tomorrow (oops, did I say that out loud? )

Eric

Your site is coming along nicely Edog ..... very easy to get around.
Good concept all the way through.

Thanks guys for the nice comments.

Tigerman,

After the Tiger 1 Mid, I have a DML Ferdinand to finish up, a Tiger 1 Early from Tamiya, and a Tamiya Pz III with a Verlinden interior. Theses builds will all take me a while to complete because of my schedule now that school has started, but I will keep the site updated with pics. Oh, and I may have to do that AVF Club M 10, and Academy M3 Stuart on the side. I will need to vent my frustrations several times with all the Aber PE I will be fighting with.


Styrene,

First, about the Marder: Keen eye spotting the punch-out holes on the back of the seats. This model is hopefully going to be part of a desert diorama. Since I could not figure out how to fill, and sand the punch holes flat, I just decided that they would get covered with storage bags, lol. Thanks for the tip on the gun cradle. I had filled the seam, then glued the rivets on (which incidentally are wrong anyway) and did not no realize a seam was left until I painted it. Well, at this point I could not easily refill the seam because those rivets were now in the way. Oh well…

As for the periscopes, you can see one of the mounts that I fabricated on the left side of the gun shield. The others fell off, but like I said this is hopefully going to end up in a dio and I thought that a tarp strategically placed would cover some of the big things that bugged me about the gun mount anyway.

I was not sure what to do with the smoke discharger box. None of my references show the back of the box!!! I was not sure if there would be canisters back there, or if the box would be totally enclosed. I’m pretty sure that the box was just so that small arms fire would not put holes in the canisters, and choke the crew with smoke. So, I thought either scenario was just as likely. Perhaps Tamiya did not know that answer either. Anyway, the muffler covers most of the back of the box, and I figured that it wasn’t that of a big deal.

And until you mentioned it styrene, I had never thought of cleaning up the seam on the INSIDE of the muzzle break, [:0]but I will be doing it from now on. Thanks for the tips on the vents, the periscopes, and the washes. I will have to give that acetate film thing a try. I really appreciate all the comments and suggestions.


Thank you to all that have posted, I really appreciate the feedback!!!

Oh, and i just posted an article if anyone is interested

Good lookin' site, and good lookin' armor, edog!
I really like the chipping on the Marder.

Hey, there, edog!

I finally got a chance to look your site over more thouroughly. It's really great! I really enjoyed the pics of your models. I disagree with you about the PzII. I think the paint chipping looks real good. I just finished up one of those things and maybe someday, I'll find a camera to get some pics posted out here of it. But it doesn't hold a candle to yours!

I enjoyed reading your article on AS, also. It is sooooo true. I though I might be the only one aflicted with it!
(Although, maybe mine would be a substrain called ES as I usually use Eduard parts!) I do have one further possible technique to mitigate the syndrome...Buy two sets of the pe, then when one part goes off into NeverNever land, you have a fallback piece! Of course, this gets expensive, depending on the pe set, but it makes it easier to "justify" those out of the box builds to ones perfectionist mind.

My first set of Aber parts are for my as yet unstarted Marder III M. (I've actually got 2 sets, but they aren't duplicates of each other. One is the "basic" set and the other the "additional" set with the fenders in it.) Aber sets sets make the Eduard sets look pretty basic and simplistic, so I don't know how much of it will really wind up on the Marder, but we'll see. That's a down the road project. Many in front of it. The Tiger I mid, Tiger I early (Academy with the interior, which I'm going to attempt to accurize), a kubelwagen or two, and possibly Tamiya's Marder II (box stock with the possible exception of am tracks!)

Have a good one.

Bill

Erick,
The AS story is SOO true. I have come to fear and respect the "tweaserpult" for the monster it truly is.
Great site. Easy navigation, clear and easy to read text, well done all around.

demono69

Erick,
That panzer is very cool, Ihave 2 of the same kit, I just haven't finnished either of them, they still have the new paint look no weathering and so on.
what was that straw stuff again? That's a really good idea, I'm still stuck on ideals that prevent us from placeing camo like that on our real vehicles ( my CAT { artillery ammo carrier } and my sections M-109 A-6 ).
maybe some day?

Yah J-Hulk, I too like the paint job on the marder and I was surprised how easy it was to do. I’m quite proud of myself because I usually over do stuff like that. I still have that “one more spray here will be good” affliction. LOL

Bill, I recently had a case of ES myself. On that Tiger mid build that I’m finishing up, I lost a wing nut, and one of those bracket handles for the tools. And yah, your method for curing AS sounds like it could get costly, but I just may have to give it a try eventually. Oh, and trust me, the camera was very kind to my models, especially that Pz II. Hopefully we will see some pics of your marder soon. I really loved that kit, and I have a date with it in the near future. I will probably have to spring for the Aber for it too this time.

Redleg, that hay thing is VERY easy. In my case I used an organic type of twine/string. I cut the string up into about inch long sections. In the case of the bails, I tied the individual pieces together. Only AFTER I tied the string sections together did I unwind the string. It was a lot easier to tie them before unwinding them. I trimmed the bails with scissors, and they were ready to be put on the model. To hold the hay down, I made a thin mixture of Elmer’s and water, about the consistency of skim milk. Next I just dunked the hay into the mixture, placed it on the model, and let it dry. I added a dullcoat once everything had dried.

Demon, that is the best description for it I have heard of yet: “tweaserpult”

Once again, THANKS to everyone who has posted with feedback here, I really do appreciate it.

Edog