Lend-Lease GB (1/1/09-7/1/09)

 Stick Man, the Achilles is looking good. How is the fit of the 1/48 AFV Club kit?

 mgmikael, Very nice work. Always a pleasure to see updates on the M3. The full ammo cans will be a really cool addition with the Tamiya .30 and .50 cals. Looking forward to seeing that honking big .50 setting with a full can of ammo.

 bobbaily, the P40 pit is looking great. I like the detail painting. really birngs out the detail of the wiring and various levers and such. Looking great.

 Great looking builds everyone, looking forward to seeing updates from all.

Mobious & Mg-thanks for the kind words.  Resin adds sooo much to an interior.  Unfortunatly, in a lot of cases, that detail is lost after the fuselage is buttoned up and the canopy is added.  I will attempt to use the "open canopy" option.

Well, the fuselage is together and the wings are on.  Plastic on this RM kit is very soft and the fit is, ....,well, I'll be getting plenty of practice on my gap filling....Hopefully I can fill the gaps without doing too much damage.  I've very thankful for superglue & accelator or things would be worse...I must make it a point to work on a Tamiya kit next build....I have two other RM kits in "incomplete status" in a holding pattern-a T-6 Texan and the bf109 G-10 and neither are as bad a fit as this kit.

The kit in the background is my Fathers Day gift from my teenager....looks like I'll be building a car soon...anybody up for an Auto Racing Group Build? 

Sorry to hear about the fit problems with this kit, bobbaily. Nevertheless, I'm sure you'll overcome those gaps and problems and make this kit a stunner.

Auto Racing Group Build.....nah, last time I built a car(one year ago) I felt sick to my stomach. Maybe it was the flu I had or maybe it was wrong of me to build a car since it was going against the darkside. Either way, I'm not gonna be building a car anytime soon.

It sure is quiet around here.......too quiet.

Anyways, over here on my end I'm gettin' closer to finishing my build. The tools are all done so they can get attached soon. The .50 cal is in place(just waitin' for the ammo) and the .30 cal may go in today or tommorrow. I'm gettin' ready for decals(future on and drying.) Also pretty much finished weathering the wheels with a number of washes, so they will go in real soon. Look for an update tommorrrow, hopefully no unforseen problems will arise.

Looking forward to progress pics tomorrow mg.

No progress on my end.  Tonight is committed.  Hopefully tomorrow and/or Sunday I can get some time to do some seam filling & sanding, between sending out resumes and watching the big soccer match on Sunday.

Okay here's my update, yeah I know it's a day late but yesterday was busy. Went to Cabela's (it's a one hour drive or so to the nearest one) thus that took a bit of time. I did however pick up a new Gerber pocketknife so I'm happy about that. Then when I did try to get some pics up, I had nightmarish time trying to upload the pics(errors and just plain sluggish). My computer was so damn slow, I finally figured out it was the new anti-virus software that made my computer a snail. Thus that sorta wasted a big chunk of time.......but enough with my rant of sorts here's the much delayed update.

The .50 cal is permanently in place along with the box and scratch ammo tray. The ammo belt itself will go in at a later time(already painted). The antenna is in place, along with all four wheels. Also put down some future on the hull sides so I can get the decals on soon.

The antenna base is the kit supplied one, just a little bit of sanding is necessary. As for the top antenna wire, I used some copper wire. The kits instructions say to use stretch sprue(no kit supplied part), but its entirely your choice of what material you want to use.

The .50 cal is in place, painted a base color of Testor's Steel mixed w/Black. Then some drybrushing of a lighter shade of Testor's steel also darkened w/black. I drilled out the cooling holes a bit just to give some depth, along with the barrel.

The wheels are all on......finally. Put down a burnt umber wash then sealed them with some Krylon Matte acrylic finish from a rattle can. I also sealed the wheel wells, so I could move onto the pastels with worrying about them dissapering. I then rolled the wheels in a mixture of pastel colors like sepia, burnt umber, and vandyke brown. Yes the hull sides are super shiny but that's the Future.

Yeah, I know this pic is sorta bad so I'm sorry about that. All the tools and guns have got their wooden parts finished off. Used Testor's wood for the base coat, then applied some Tamiya acrylic clear orange, and finally some washes of burnt umber(to darken the color and to get the wood grain.)

Thanks for looking. I'm getting the .30 cal in place and decals on later today. Hopefully the decals will go on nicely, but I'm preparing for the worst(thankully have some substitute decals.)

Mg-Sorry that you had the computer issues-they can be very frustrating.  But it sounds like a good day otherwise.

Nice work on your build.  Looks great.

I hope to do some seam filling this evening.  Spend the day watching the FIFA Soccer match....which started great and turned really bad for the US and then prep'ed and sent out a couple of resumes-job search time again.  Hopefully I can make some progress later this week on the P-40.

Thanks for the comments, bobbaily. Hope to get some more work done today........hopefully.

I caught that game today too. It looked like USA had a good chance with a score of 2-0. But then suddenly Brazil stepped it up and won 3-2. Sorta suprised.....but then again it's Brazil. 

 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.

Here are a few shots of my P-39. Upper color is Model Master Green Drab 34086 which is a good match for Dark Olive Drab 41. Lower color is Aeromaster Enamel Neautral Gray 43. I will be doing some touch up of the OD 41 to clean up the over spray in the next few days.

More to follow....

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!

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?

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.

Well this is certainly a first for me....back to back updates.

As for those tarps and bags I gave them the tissue-treatment inorder to improve texture and creases. Scratched straps will be made shortly.

After that was on and dry, I applied a mixture of paints(black, tan, brown) to make a dirty kahki color. I will be going back though, to lighten up the color on one or two bags to make them have contrast(that whey their not all the same color.)

Some of the goodies I'll be throwin' inside the cabin, will include scratch maps and a one page document. For the maps I just size down some regular maps(nothing to fancy) of major cities I find on the web(one is of Paris and the other of Kiev) As for the document (I just took some russian writing and sized that down to size#2 font.) Then I take the maps and document and simply weather them with coffee. I personally use some regular brewed coffee and that's it. I find it makes the perfect effect on paper to make something look old and used.

Thanks for looking and for following my build, next update will be the finished pics on Saturday or Sunday.

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!!!

Well, I said I'd get those finished pics up and here they are.

Interior goodies consist of a PPSH-41, an M3 grease gun, some Ruskie helmets, some ammo cans, and the two maps/document. As for the build overall, the modifications and scratch built parts are way too numerous to list. Heck every single part of this build was modifided in some way, shape, or form(if you really want to know what was scratched/modified then you gotta read through the entire WIP.)

Weathering consisted of a grime and burnt umber wash in the interior cabin areas. As for the exterior, a wash of burnt umber/burnt sienna and a thicker burnt umber wash over that. All the washes were sealed in with Krylon Acrylic Matte finish. Pastels were applied sporadically, and final touches were given with a graphite pencil. Thanks for looking and for all those who followed my build. All comments and questions appreciated.

 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!!

Hey everyone, with this GB nearing the end(deadline come and gone) and a few modelers still finishing up in a resonable time. I'd just like to thank everyone that did join this GB, and I hope you enjoyed the GB topic/subject.

That said I hope many of you will be looking forward to my next GB that I plan to start sometime during the holiday season(probably around New Year's sometime.) However this depends upon the 'interest' threads being a success. So look for those threads sometime in the fall. If you want a clue of what this GB will be about......it will focus on certain subjects from the good ole-Soviets(not WWII or earlier, but not very modern either. Plus this GB subject has never been done before.) Hopefully this tease will spike your interest in this GB.

stikpusher wrote:

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...

Glad I'm getting preliminary interest for the GB. Also lookin' forward to seeing those finished pics!!

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.

Well, here is as far as I can get today. The next stage of painting will have to wait for a good 24 hours or so... After the base coat of Modle Master Enamel green drab 34086, I used Aeromaster Enamel Faded Olive Drab 41 to fade the center section of each panel and a light misting in between. The effect is more stark than I had hoped for but once all the top coats are on it should even out a bit. I used Polly Scale Olive Drab for the fabric control surfaces to dupilcate the differant fading of doped vs painted surfaces. On the lower surfaces the base color is Aeromaster Enamels Neutral Gray 43 with Model Master Acrylic Neutral gray control surfaces.