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

White_R34-very nice build going.  I especially like the attention to detail.

Mg-It's always easier to go the extra year while you're already in school, finances permitting.  It's very hard to go back later, either part time/night school or full time.  Surprisingly, our local land-grant college/university, WVU,  is requiring that certain programs, i.e., education, business, etc., are now 5 year programs, but you graduate with a graduate degree.  Downside is that you don't apply to the program until after your second year so if you don't get in, you're out of luck.

arki30 wrote:

mg.mikael wrote: As for my major, I plan on majoring in architecture. I also plan on going for my master's, since to practice architecture in the US you need at least a master's. Not true.  A Bachelor's of Architecture and Master's carry the same weight for licensure, and it's one fewer year which is less expensive.  It's just that there aren't as many Bachelor of Architecture programs as there used to be, which is a shame.

Thanks for the explaination, arki30, but that said it still looks like I'll be going for my master's.

mg.mikael wrote:

As for my major, I plan on majoring in architecture. I also plan on going for my master's, since to practice architecture in the US you need at least a master's.

Not true.  A Bachelor's of Architecture and Master's carry the same weight for licensure, and it's one fewer year which is less expensive.  It's just that there aren't as many Bachelor of Architecture programs as there used to be, which is a shame.

That Katyusha looks like its almost done! Especially love the battle damage your givin' the build through the broken grill and damaged light guards.

Thanks for the comments, White_R34!

Hay MG that looks just outstanding man!

Good to hear you'll have a day pretty much to yourself. Get some progress pics up soon.

Yeah, I guess your right six years isn't too long when considering it's six years of college life.

Mg-regarding school, I remember that six years would have seemed like forever when I was your age.  Now, six years passes so quickly.  Stick with it-the rewards will be worth the effort and the time will pass quickly.

As far as the resin parts, the side panels & IP should fit easily.  The cockpit floor is another issue.  I may play with it some more this evening and see if I can use the resin seat, side panels & IP and not use the pilot.  Either way, I think it will be ok.  The wife will be out of town with some girl friends on Friday & my teenager will be on a field trip to Kings Island, so Friday evening is MINE!!!!!  Pizza & Diet Coke for all....that would be me.  Hope to make some progress on several projects this weekend.

bobbaily- Thanks for the comments and for checkin' out my build. Sorry to hear about the resin part problems, though I'm still lookin' forward to seeing some pics of how your P-40B is coming along! 

As for my major, I plan on majoring in architecture. I also plan on going for my master's, since to practice architecture in the US you need at least a master's. Thus that means I'll be stuck going to school for at least the next six years or so.

Mg-that's a very nice build that you've got going there.  Also, a lot of other great builds in this GB.  Sorry that I've been a bit lax lately-life tends to get in the way sometimes.

Oh that note, I plan on breaking out the Revell-o-gram P-40B, 1/48th, raised panel lines and all this evening and giving it a wash & general assessment.  I have an old resin interior that I'm thinking about trying to fit or just add some old pe bits to make the interior a little busier.  Also, I plan on leaving the raised panel lines, maybe just a light sanding.  I plan on using some left over Flying Tigers aftermarket decals to supplement the kit decals, which are very questionable at best.  This has to be a quick & cheap build.  Again, this is the plan-you need to approve the build first.

And congrats on the scholarship!  Great to have the first year covered.  Hopefully more will come in to cover future years.  Have you picked a course of study yet?  I say yet because I graduated undergrad in 1977 and still don't know what I want to be when I grow up....

Mobious wrote:

Hey mg, the reference photo is cool. It looks like a .50 cal on deck. I didn't know they were part of the Lend-Lease agreements.  the M3 is really shaping into a great build, show casing not only your scratch abilities but your patience as well. I can appreciate that. Really looking forward to seeing updates on the Soviet Scouter.

Thanks for checkin' in(seems the other members of this GB have really gotten lazy) and thanks for the comments. Hope to get another update up in a day or so.

 Hey mg, the reference photo is cool. It looks like a .50 cal on deck. I didn't know they were part of the Lend-Lease agreements.

 the M3 is really shaping into a great build, show casing not only your scratch abilities but your patience as well. I can appreciate that. Really looking forward to seeing updates on the Soviet Scouter.

Okay, here's that update I said I'd get up.

Hinges are still not on though, because their taking a bit more work then I expected. Nevertheless, I finished quite a bit elsewhere on the build. The steering wheel is in, the foot pedals were scratched(simply two rectangles, nothing more since its next to impossible to see them clearly), the lower half of the doors are on(luckily the drivers side fit nicely, unlike the passenger side which needed alot of work of which I showed in the last update.) I also finished the armor slats covering the radiator/engine.

The headlights are also on permanetly now. With the wiring for the headlights also done and painted. Simply used some copper wiring and glued one side to the headlight and put a dab of putty on the other end(sticking that end right onto the fender).

Thanks for looking!

Been stepping up on my production lately. Pretty much got the doors in, though I still got a scratch a part or two for one of them. As for door hinges, I'm stretchin' some sprue later tonight. Hope to get the doors permanently in tommorrow. As for other work, I've planned ahead and will be replacing the kit's .30 cal and .50 cal machine guns with one's from another kit. However that means scavenging the .50 cal mount from the Zvezda kit(which is already pre-attached to that machine gun.) As for a more official update I'll have it up some time tommorrow. While you're waiting here's a pic of a M-3 scout car somewhere in Russia,(it's at least something to look at.)

Basically been doing busy work on my scout car lately. Filling in marks, sanding out scratches, fixing up the paint, and etc. Though I have gotten some work done that's worth mentioning.

I've went ahead and scratched the headlights lens out of plastic. The kit supplies lens but their out of thick green stryene....thus pretty much useless. Luckily the headlights are hollow aka already drilled out, so time is saved there. I simply cut the clear plastic lens in the size needed from the plastic casing from a Tamiya kit. Most 1/48 Tamiya kits come with a cast hull packaged in plastic, thinking ahead I saved some from my last build. I did this because I realized the plastic was perfectly clear, strong, perfect thickeness, not brittle, and cheap. Thus a great product to make lens out of.

I also started work on getting one of the doors to fit properly. There's too big of a space between the door and the hull(yet small enough some flash could have filled it in.) So I took some stryene scraps I had and after trimming to the miniscule size needed I glued it the side of the gap. The hinges had to go, since fitting would have been alot more difficult(I did save them nevertheless they could be easily scratched.) That's why their's gaps between the styrene pieces I added. Now I just have to putty, trim, sand, and slice the parts I added untill I get it matching the door.

Mobious wrote:

Hey mg, lots of great tips and a great looking M3. The gas cans look good. the original kit parts were the one handle molded on everything type. That's a major improvement, along with the ace and light guards this is really coming together. I'l keep that light guard tip handy, I have an AFV Club WC51 Beep I'm planning on building for a freind, He's a diehard Mopar fan and has a PowerWagon of his own. be looking forward to seeing how you resolve the fit issue with the doors.

Glad I'm offering up some future build tips, Mobious. Ahh yes the doors, those are gonna be bloody grim fun. Dryfitting also showed the hinges might need to be improved upon.

Alright here's that big update I said I'd get up today. Yes it is quite big, probably because there's quite a few pics. Also on unrelated news, I just learned I recieved a General Assembly Scholarship!!! That means my total tution for my first year of college at University of Illinois-Chicago is completley covered. How sweet it is.

The jerry cans are pretty much finished, with strap and all glued on. Weathered using a simple wash, and some fuel stains added near the cap were made using ModelMaster Graphite Metalic(it actually makes a greasy appearance if you use it in moderation.) Though I still have to do some more weathering later for finishing touches.

The axe sheath(protective area for blade) that orginally came in the kit was pre-attached to the axe. Thus it meant the detail was pretty sub-par, so I took it and sliced and diced until I had my very own axe. Then I scratched my own sheath(ok not really a sheath) out of some spare stryene and contour putty. Using the axe as reference for size and location.

  Then on a spur of a moment I also decided to scratch the light guards out of copper wire.(mainly because the original pieces look a bit too chunky in detail) Took the original light guards cut out the detail(I cracked one pretty badly, it's the one you see to the right.) Then I sanded the inside the best I could after doing repairs. Then I took some copper wire and cut to size. Curving it slighty to give a better appearance. After finishing the pieces off, I took a tip from Dre and filled in the locating "trenches." I did this with Testor's Contour putty, but before it dried I inserted the light guards in the putty. That way the pieces are on and the putty conforms around the piece. Still haven't sanded away the excess so it may look a bit crude.

I think most of the serious scratching is done on this build, but it seems problems arise out of nowhere, so more scratching may be in my future. Next up is getting the doors in and getting some paint on. Thanks for looking.

Bushi wrote:

Hey MG the scout is looking great. Keep up the good work. Can not wait to see it dirty. Bushi

Thanks for the comments, Bushi!

Hey MG the scout is looking great. Keep up the good work. Can not wait to see it dirty.

Bushi

Mobious- Thanks for looking, I'll be trying to get the cans finished later today.

gregers- Glad to see you back, can't wait to see some progress on that Mustang!

Hi folks.

I've had a subtle reminder about this build, sorry I've been awol for a little while. my computer sort of died. There was Trojan horse poop everywhere LoL. well. back to business. Sherman Firefly, was going quite nicely untill I found that there were no decals for it. there was a sheet in the box but these were for another kit. ho well. thats on the pending pile. I'm cracking on with the oldie but goodie Frog P51a Mustang in RAF colours. And Maybe the Frog TBM Avenger if I'm feeling brave.

All the best.

Greg

 Hey White, The weathering is looking good as is the Katyusha. Inspirational work.

 Hey mg, The gas cans look great. Looking forward to seeing them fixed in their new mounts. The rear bumper looks great too. Nice job on the tail lights.   

Progress is moving along, but I can see hardships in my future.  I'll be having problems with the doors, noticed major gaps after doing some dryfitting. All the tarps and bags Zvezda includes are quite bad, either bad molding, sloppy detail, or some other problem. Looks like I'll be replacing a few and modifying everything else. I also saw some scratching will be needed to improve some tool details. ARGH! Okay, enough of my rant, here's what I've gotten done in the past few days.

I've put on the rear step plate and drybrushed it. Along with putting on the rear bumper. Zvezda doesn't tell you which way is right side up(for correct placement) nor what to paint the tail lights.....so after doing some research I found the left tail light was a normal light and the right was a black out light. Thus it took some work but the tailights are correct now. For those wondering the blackout light was simply done with an extra fine sharpie. If you see some copper wire, that's the tailight wiring I put in place.

I also did some work on the jerry cans. After gluing them in place, I applied the first wash. I also made some straps out of masking tape. Though I still have to weather a bit more and add some fuel drippage from the caps.

Thanks for looking!

White_R34 wrote:

Hay "mg.mikael " that's a lot of detail in that kit and your craftmenship stands out. As for my build I'm closing in on it's end, all I need to get done is the cab and some othere tools and items I want to add to it.

The Katyusha's lookin' good, White!!! I see some weathering has been started, can't wait to see you build all finished up. By the way thanks for the comments about my build.

Hay "mg.mikael " that's a lot of detail in that kit and your craftmenship stands out. As for my build I'm closing in on it's end, all I need to get done is the cab and some othere tools and items I want to add to it.

Bushi- Thanks for the comments!!

Mobious- Thanks for lookin' in! MP3 update?....what kind of update do you want?