hey bish

where do you want to put the JGPZ-IV as we discussed?

You can either post it here, but then it might get lost in the thread. Or if you want to put it in a PM, I can then put it in the first post.

Well, I worked on the Kanonenwagen this morning.  This is what I completed in an hour.

the undercarriage

and the interior floor

More to follow after dinner

wow everyone has hit the beach running

just a post to show the sprues from my kit and the decals

waiting for a cockpit set to come in before I start any building.

I started on the cockpit last night. I have most of it painted, now i just have to put it together. Pics of assembled cockpit will be  posted tonight; barring any unforseen circumstances that is.

Not much to report here.  I put the Italeri C-47 and Waco glider parts in to soak tonight, and they are drying.  I plan to do both pretty much out of the box (except perhaps a change in the codes on the C-47).  Good thing we've got a year to complete these builds.

And I watched the 2nd part of "The Longest Day" tonight (having watched the 1st part last night).

Gary

Here are the promised pics of the Jug *** pit. Oops it should say cockpit. I wasn't trying to be obscene; Honest Now its time to switch gears and get the Halftrack out.

Front page has been updated, please let me know if I have missed anything.

Off to a great start. Ken, the pit is looking good.

Greg, not bad for an hours work. What marking's are you putting this in.

Well, I spent yesterday evening brushing up on History, by watching the Movie "The Longest Day". It's fairly accurate in most events and depicted the Invasion of Normandie quite well. So an M-3 "CKAYT" will be quite appropriate and probably a GMC 2 1/2 ton 6X6 as well, for me.

Still nothing glued yet . Instead I decided to cut the rest of the parts from the sprue frame and clean them up .

Lot's of little pieces and some very fragile thin parts as well ;

I only accidently broke about four pieces removing them from the sprue but I did glue all but one back together . I think I must have spent close to 8 hours over these past two days just cleaning up the parts , nothing is numbered , you just look at the diagram and go hunting for the parts on the sprue frame . When I was cutting parts off , I started at on end and worked my way along , one piece at a time and I actually found it a lot easier this way finding parts to match the sequence diagrams and I grouped parts together in little piles .

John, That would scare the bejeesus out of me. I noticed the pitot tube last night for my "Jug" and how tiny it is. I stayed from it. as for cutting the parts of the sprue. like you do; with my luck, I'd probably catch the corner of that box with hand, and it would go flying end over end. Just thinking it gives me a cold chill up my spine.

Good Luck

Bish - Thanks I actually did it without losing any parts

Bish

Greg, not bad for an hours work. What marking's are you putting this in.

Bish: my options seem to be pretty limited. 

From my limited research, my options are:

• 12.SS-PzDiv "HJ"
• 21.PzDiv
• Pz-Lehr-Div
• 2.SS-PzDiv "Das Reich"
• 9.SS-PzDiv "Hohenstaufen"
• 10.SS-PzDiv "Frundsberg"
• 17.SS-PzGrenDiv "GvB"
• 116.PzDiv "Windhund"

I have all the listed division markings, so I may go with 12.SS-HJ.

Good choice. It will go nicely with my Pz IV.

Ken, well that deserves an award by itself. One of these days, I might just achieve that.

John, that's some achievement as well, only breaking 4 of those pieces. If anything gives me the sweats, its removing thin parts from sprues.

For those interested, A buddy of mine Dad, went ashore on Omaha Beach today in 1944. He almost had his thumb shot off. They wanted to give him a purple heart for that, but he refused it

Nice to see the work going on.  I'm afraid I'm a day late.  Here's my contribution, "Aries" in the box:

and a sprue shot; it'll take me a while to detach and clean up all these parts, but in the meantime, I'll enjoy seeing the progress of everyone else's builds.

The 486th Bomb Group flew three missions on D-Day.  "Aries" apparently went on only one of them, and not with her assigned crew at the time, which was commanded by Earl McCabe (the decal sheet in the kit has his name under the pilot's window). 

On 6 June, "Aries" was flown by Norman McIntire's crew on the first mission of the day--to Caen.  McIntire's crew had flown "Aries" fairly consistently for the first few missions of the 486th, from May, 1944.  The 486th also flew to Thury Harcourt and Lisieux on D-Day.

Finally some gluing ,

The end pieces on each upper hull structure building were a little too wide , almost as if there wasn't any allowance for the thickness of the side pieces . Anyway it was easy enough to file a little from the sides of those end pieces .

There's a few gaps but nothing too scary , more pic's soon .

Ken, did your dads mate get evacuated or did he carry on.

Check, from what I can see there, that kit looks very similar to the hase kit. And its an H as well, which Hase don't have. Looks like I could have saved myself a bit of cash there. I'll been keen to see how that builds up.

John, off to a good start there.

Bish:  I've built a couple of Academy's B-24's years ago.  They are (or were at the time) pretty inexpensive, at least compared to Hasegawa's when they came out.

I seem to remember that many of the interior pieces were too wide, and had to be filed/sanded down in order to close the fuselage.

Anyway, looking forward to getting started on this--but I'm kind of overloaded with GB's at the moment.

I was dry fitting the deck to the lower hull and I'm not sure if the deck is 3mm too short in length .

If I keep everything flush at the stern

I'm left with a bit of a gap at the front

It's not noticeable if the ramp is positioned up but I intend having the ramp lowered with my tanks and vehicles disembarking

I may need to keep the deck front edge flush with the hull and add a 3mm plastic strip along the rear deck section . I've been staring at this for a while and I can't think of any reason why the deck is a little short , so I guess I'll glue some plastic strip to the rear and hit the sack . It's 22.45 and day 3 of the build and I'm making good progress and having fun . Thanks for all the compliments on the build so far everyone .

That's some really nice stuff here, guys!

I'm still looking for a nice subject, but I'll tell ya as soon as I find one...

Cheers, Clemens

Looks like some nice builds going on.  Guess I had better at least post some previews. 

This is the Italeri C-47 and Waco glider I will be putting together.

Plus, some research material.

I'm hoping to do both in take-off position.  Since I'm probably going to be one of the last to finish this GB, I intend to have them represent the last glider assault of Operation Neptune, "Mission Hackensack".  Hackensack took place on the morning of June 7th and consisted of 70 Waco and 30 Horsa gliders.

You hear a lot about the paratroopers of the various airborne forces on D-Day, but more airborne troops arrived by glider than parachute.  This is a build for them.

Gary

Bish

Ken, did your dads mate get evacuated or did he carry on.

 

I'm told he went back to his unit, which was like the man i knew. he would never talk about it when i was around.

Gary, your very right there. The para's get all the glory, but you do hear some much about the glider troops. I guess its because the para's jumped out of a plane, not that I imagine glider landings were much safer.

I did build that WACO years ago, I had a nice dio even if I do say so myself. Unfortunately its one of mine that didn't survive, I just wish I had taken pics back then.

Its a nice kit from what I remember. Are you doing a scene with the C-47 towing the glider, or will they be displayed separately.

Ken, that sound typical of a lot of the guys from that war, you often hear that many didn't like to talk about it. Which is very understandable.

Joun, could you not put some styrene under the gap at the font and then fill it.

Great idea Bish , I added a little styrene to the front lip of the lower hull and that fixed the gap nicely .

Here's the deck glued and clamped to the hull .

The very front section of the hull is a little wider the lower portion of the front deck section , so I had to use some more super glue and then I sprinkled Bi-carbonated soda to set the super glue rock hard and build up the join to make both sections flush . I'll probably still need to use some Tamiya putty to smooth things out .

It was the same for both sides at the front ,

I still needed a small strip of styrene along the rear deck , a piece 2mm X 2mm

She is starting to look a bit like a boat

More WIP pic's tomorrow

Glad to hear that fixed up nice. That's looking really nice. I have never heard of using Bi-card to do that. Neat trick.

Just going off topic for a second. I took possession of my first Mach 2 kit today, the B-45 Tornado. I had read about this kit and its flaws. But it fits a nice slot in a long term personal project of mine, even if its not what I would usually build. And yep, it looks as bad as the reviews say, lumps and bumps along the top of the wings and a few sink marks. But I think I have been building models long enough now to set myself some challengers to get the builds I want. So should be fun.

Nice going on the LCT, John.  It's a neat looking vessel.

Welcome to the Mach 2 club Bish  

I mentioned earlier on that most of the ladder rungs are broken on the sprue and I would probably break even more trying to removing them from the 'tree-trunk' like sprue frame . So I'll attempt to make some from strips of wire

I stripped some wire from an old extension lead and I then needed to straighten each length of wire by sandwiching it between two blocks of wood

I rolled the top piece of block from side to side a few times and it straightens the wire nicely

Next I cut a piece of 3.2mm plastic strip about 4mm in length and squeezing the wire against the plastic strip I bent the wire around the top and then the side

I then cut the wire to size

I'm hoping it will look okay once I add all of the rungs

There's about 35 to make , so it will be a little tedious but I can't think of any other way of making them

http://www.micromark.com/metal-forming-pliers-set-of-4,7068.html

John, I know this won't help you right now, but Micro Mark sells a set witch would help speed things up a bit. Your Landing Craft is looking excellent! Never thought about all the logistics for such a large model.

WOW , thanks for the link Bruce .

Those pliers would be an excellent addition to my tool set . I'm seriously thinking about getting that set .

Thanks again buddy .

John .

John: Nice work! Funny, I've got a set of those blue Testor's clamps too, I've never seen anyone else with them till now, funny it should be on the other side of the world! Good luck with the ladder rungs, not so hard but so friggin' tedious!

Bish: Is this your first limited run kit? I've only built the relatively high grade ones like Classic Airframes but they're an entirely different experience. Just be ready to put the thing back in the box and walk away a few times.