Blitzkrieg in the West (France 1940) Sept. 18 2011 - March 1 2012

Snow,,,,,,,,,,,   ACK!  

Sorry I have been absent. Been in and out of thge hosptial twice in the last 6 weeks. Looks like it's under control now. Hope to finish assembly on the gladiator this week.

Andy  ... sorry you have been feelin' bad : (   ... glad its under control and anxious to see new pics of the Gladiator !

get well soon

tread

No snow here Carl. No surprise either. It gets so much colder your way.

Today is college football, and my Ducks start at 5pm. Big game. We win this one and we're back in the title hunt.

Eric, hang in there and don't try to force things...that's usually when bad stuff happens!

Andy (deafpanzer), that indeed would be a miracle result of the MBA...but you never know, I'm just starting out in the program so could have some interesting results before its all over with!

AndyT, sorry to hear that health issues have slowed you down but glad to hear you're back on track with the Gladiator.

Carl, Murphy's Law strikes again! The upside is that I had the ability to quickly replace the airbrush so that helped ease the pain a bit of not being able to work on the kit when the window of opportunity opened up...but others will come along in the next couple of weeks so it will get done, just not sure exactly when yet.

Thanks guys for all of your comments!  I have read them and appreciate them all.  Have had very little bench time or even time to come hear and check in so had some catching up to do.  With that said:

TREAD - Magnificent work on all the details.  They all really do look great and very much worth the time and effort.  Cant wait for your next 16 parts and then paint!

ERIC - Your question on camo - You could go with just the reddish brown on top of the Khaki or you could go the 3 tone and add in a very green color.  For the green I would say something like Panzer Olivgrun #2097 or French Khaki #2106.  These are both MM colors and not sure what those colors are in Tamiya?  I would just say something green like on your King Tiger.

Live long and prosper

WBILL - I too wish you good luck with the MBA.  There's nothing better then furthering one's self.  If your paper's come out just half as good as your WIP post, you should have no problems at all.  Your a master at research and writing

Tough luck with the airbrush  I'm still having problems with mine also and have not been able to order the one I want yet.

Excellent looking IV thus far, great details!  Look forward to the paint.

Do you know if they still make the MK tracks for the Universal Carrier?

MALONE - That is a great looking interior  Looks like she is getting some heavy use.

BILL212 - I'm not very fond of the clear visor hatches on Dragon kits either.  I like all of them being open, they add a lot of character and will really help showing off the interior.  Nice progress.

CARL - You can keep the snow!  I do have to get off my butt though and go cut the grass.

ANDYT - Very good to hear your back and doing well now!  Hope you make a full recovery and get back to the bench soon.  Take care.

Rob , Saying you had to cut the grass made me remember the video i saw of a lawn mower being used as a snow blower .....................................

Thats funny Carl but more so when I lived in MA had tried this method of removing snow.

Shellback

Rob , Saying you had to cut the grass made me remember the video i saw of a lawn mower being used as a snow blower .....................................

well thank you Shell ... that is a fascinating idea.....I bet I could make it work... if this year is like last year i might need it

tread

p.s. that is my wife Pati, we were digging our way to the cord wood to keep warm !

Seems like forever but finally made it back to the bench last night.  This is the results:

Have added the gun pintel, bolt heads on top of the engine cover, Access hatch on engine cover, Engine vent, I guess it is a hand rail (?) on side of the engine cover right side, interior stowage boxes right side, hand rails around the crew compartment, antenna mount, two small pintels on side of crew compartment, stowage box on rear, jack block holder on rear, few other small details in the driver / gunner compartment.

Few more scratch made brass parts and the beginning of the radio.  What does a British / Commonwealth headset look like?  Would it be like the Germans?

The MG and front plates are just dry fit into position to get an idea of how they will look.  After all of these pictures went back over everything and did some final sanding and adjusting then gave the interior a coat of paint.  Had attempted to do some pre shading but this did not work out very well.  Still have problems with my airbrush and am lucky to just get a smooth coat of paint on.  Also gave the wheels and lower hull and suspension area some paint. 

The plan is to paint and detail the interior so that then I can permanently put together then go back to work on the exterior.

Hi, guys just read back a couple of pages, I must admit that I myself have kinda stalled but I'm glad to see that others are motoring on. 

Well I do check in every couple of days on the phone. With a bit of luck I will be back posting soon.

Terry.

Holy crap Rob !... you are a friggin building machine..... I wish I had your time or your swiftness !!

and all the scratch work is so nice and clean .. just how I like it.... ya better look out or you are going to 'up-stage' your beautiful Somua !.... love your work dude!

tread

Hey Treadplate , what the heck man , did you have to put the wood so far from the house ? Poor Pati , looks like she's workin and your just takin pics ..............................

Thats a lot of snow dude . Funny thing is my woodshed is about 80 ft from my house .....guess i dont like to look at the fire wood when the weather is warm.....fun hauling that stuff ...............not ! Stay warm and dont work the wife too hard .

PANZERWAFFE

Thats funny Carl but more so when I lived in MA had tried this method of removing snow.

I saw that on you tube , since you tried it Rob i wont say no more .....................

Great looking progress on the build . all of that scratch building is cool Dont know about the German raadio stuff , but yours really looks spot on .

Shellback

Hey Treadplate , what the heck man , did you have to put the wood so far from the house ? Poor Pati , looks like she's workin and your just takin pics ..............................

Thats a lot of snow dude . Funny thing is my woodshed is about 80 ft from my house .....guess i dont like to look at the fire wood when the weather is warm.....fun hauling that stuff ...............not ! Stay warm and dont work the wife too hard .

Hey Shell... well after I dug the whole thing I asked her to pose there 'cause she is only 5'3"  ... it gave the picture what an artist would call ' depth'   ...LOL... really man she's a great gal and a hard worker thats why I love her so much.. works right along with me and never quits.. but the snow was un-freekin beleivable

frosty the snowman

treadwell

Holy crap Rob !... you are a friggin building machine..... I wish I had your time or your swiftness !!

and all the scratch work is so nice and clean .. just how I like it.... ya better look out or you are going to 'up-stage' your beautiful Somua !.... love your work dude!

tread

Holy cow!  Another great build going on... that was quick but clean and looking great too.  Ditto to Tread's comment... wish I have your swiftness! 

Thanks  Rob. Would that be olivegrun with black outlines?

Rob,,,      the carrier is looking sweet...   great stuff!!

Hey Eric, wanted to answer you first so that you could have some more decisions about your camo scheme.  Spent most of the morning looking through more pictures and this is what I've come up with:  You have a few options for color, this is based off my observations of pictures nothing written or concrete proof.  The lower number vehicles, 1 - 20ish, seem to be painted a solid khaki color.  Vehicles 20 - 35ish had two primary color schemes.  First being a khaki base with a soft edge reddish brown wide camo pattern.  The second had a khaki base with either the red brown or the green outlined in black.  Hard to tell if it was a brown or green in the pictures I was looking at but the color had a very stark contrast to the khaki base.  The color was defiantly outlined in the black though.  There was a third in this number group but did not find many and this was the three tone with what I believe was the khaki base, red brown wide band, and the green splotches outlined with black.  Once again hard to tell in the old pictures but I would say there was defiantly three colors but once again I found very few painted in this manner.  The higher numbered vehicles were mostly painted in the solid khaki color again.  The numbers I'm talking of are the painted on turret numbers.  Depending on which camo scheme was used also seemed to dictate the size and location of the company / platoon insignias (thats the card suits).  All this being said there was many variations in the camo schemes and numbers, the above was just what seemed to be the average.  Further the most common out of all of them seemed to be the khaki base with the wide band reddish brown scheme.  Not sure if this is going to help you out or make things more confusing?  Hope it helps.  Have fun with the decisions, one of these may help you OK make it

Rob,

No idea if MK still produces the Universal Carrier tracks...sorry I can't be of more help! Nice work on the details, that water-cooled .30 looks nice.

TREAD, CARL, BILL212 - Thanks guys.  I will borrow some words I've heard but mean whole heartily, I,m just trying to keep up to par with all of you guys.

ANDY - Thanks buddy.  Recently I've thought I've slowed down tremendously though.  Sadly I need to slow down even more so that I will be able to move when the time comes here shortly.

WBILL, don't think MK makes the tracks any more.  I've searched and have found many places that have them listed but none in stock.  Many of these listings are a few years old on top of that.  I have still not attempted to construct any MK tracks, have always just watched you and a few others and have wanted to try a set.  Thanks for the answer though and glad you like the MG.  Have found that most of the earlier Carriers were actually fitted with these more so than other weapon types.

Have a small update.  Little bit of painting on some of the interior.  Still needs weathering put on though and still more to paint before that.

Have also begun work on the boogies and have decided on this for the color of the springs.  Have all off these parts cleaned and painted to this point and hope to get them all put together tonight.

treadwell

Shellback:

Hey Treadplate , what the heck man , did you have to put the wood so far from the house ? Poor Pati , looks like she's workin and your just takin pics ..............................

Thats a lot of snow dude . Funny thing is my woodshed is about 80 ft from my house .....guess i dont like to look at the fire wood when the weather is warm.....fun hauling that stuff ...............not ! Stay warm and dont work the wife too hard .

 

Hey Shell... well after I dug the whole thing I asked her to pose there 'cause she is only 5'3"  ... it gave the picture what an artist would call ' depth'   ...LOL... really man she's a great gal and a hard worker thats why I love her so much.. works right along with me and never quits.. but the snow was un-freekin beleivable

frosty the snowman

Treadplate , i figured that was the idea behind the pic man . Just cant seem to stop giving you a bad time when ever the opportunity pops up . Sounds like a cool gal .  Them short gals are packed with dynomite dude , i know , my wife is 5' 2' .

Later cornplate .

Rob , super looking interior . Are the gauges hand painted ? Looking mighty fine .

Thank you Rob, yes I'm more confused then ever. I do think this guy needs some camo. The red-brown look is okay, but I do like the spots with black outline, hence that is my preferred pattern for today. I've got a nice olivegrun that should work well.

In my best Joisey aceent...Yous guys are busy.  Bill, Bill, rob.  nice stuff... really nice stuff indeed.

Andyt... dunno what the issue is but gald to here it's better whatever it is

I may have to squeeze a 2nd entry into the build list to stay in touch with you guys

CARL - Yes sir, they are hand painted and thanks.

ERIC - Did not mean to make it more confusing   Might take me a little while but I will go back through pics and see if I can find a good one with the three tone with black outline.  Will also try to make sure to get the turret number and card suit location.  There are some good pictures in that French site that everyone here is using too.  If you have a nice Olivgrun and want to go that route, I say go for it

Hey Marc, that would be sweet!  Would love to see ya go for another!  What could it be....

I have done nothing since my last post!  Been busy holding the couch down...It's tough work

wing_nut

In my best Joisey aceent...Yous guys are busy.  Bill, Bill, rob.  nice stuff... really nice stuff indeed.

Andyt... dunno what the issue is but gald to here it's better whatever it is

 

I may have to squeeze a 2nd entry into the build list to stay in touch with you guys

Feel free to. I'm loving all the subjects and the knowledge that's coming with it.

PANZERWAFFE

CARL - Yes sir, they are hand painted and thanks.

ERIC - Did not mean to make it more confusing   Might take me a little while but I will go back through pics and see if I can find a good one with the three tone with black outline.  Will also try to make sure to get the turret number and card suit location.  There are some good pictures in that French site that everyone here is using too.  If you have a nice Olivgrun and want to go that route, I say go for it

Well now that is impressive .

Keep that couch down ....................