Battle For Germany 45 GB Starts Now - 08 May 06

TOM not all the dragon kits are such beasts i have a JU-88-C-6 it is my second one and the fit is beautiful my first one was the bomber version and this one is the Zestorer the engine nacelles are especially nice but I am more used to dragons armor kits i am hooked big time on their 1/72 armor line between the level of detail the great fit and the lower prices (between $9.00- $12.00 for my maus and E-100) they are a great bargain

on my end of things i'm mostly completed with my 1/2 track just need to do some painting final assembily and then on to the main paintjob

Looks great Karl.  Very nice work.

Retgards,  Rick

Marc that's an awesome looking 190, are you going to do the white swirl on the prop nose cone or are you going to leave it black?

Karl that Panther looks great, you've really done a fantastic job on it .  How much more weathering are you planning on doing btw because it looks just fine as is.  Oh and what ever you did to fix the wheels and tracks worked a treat because you would never know you had the problem by looking at the kit now.

Tom, I'll update you on page one with yet another build .  Are you going to do this one OOB or go nuts with AM?

Progress Update

The decaling is all done and the kit is re-Futured.  I'll let it cure for a good 24-48 hours before I apply a wash, but apart from that it's almost done.

Cheers

Karl - that tank looks wonderful!!!  When I get around to finishing the Tiger II I'll have to check back on the technique you used... right now I am whole hog on the Anteater... so hope to finish it before moving on to the Atlantic GB

Marc - I apologize on not commenting on your build earlier.  I am still suffering in-law syndrome and slowly recovering.  Actually it is the roughly 48 hours out of my life I had no sleep last weekend and was forced to go to visit museums and such to entertain them.. all on no sleep!  the dogs were prowling the house at night constantly while they were here trying to get in there with them, while their dog howled every 10 minutes wanting to be out with my dogs...

it would be interesting to throw the 1/32 and 1/48 offerings for the 190 in the same display case with the two you did...

Darren - just OOB on this one, not much besides harnesses that it needs.  I'll post pics in the morning... probably the best Tamiya kit I have come across.. and looking through the kit, it looks like I could build a standard version as the normal dorsal spine is included on the sprue.. but no... that wouldn't look wierd enough haha...  I need the big hump in the back.

Tom – Apologize for what?  After what you have been through we are just happy you are here to tell the tale.

Karl – That is a kick butt looking beastie.  Very nice.

Darren – the spiral decal supplied would not lay down no matter what so it is masked now waiting for paint.

As far as the model… this is on of those if it can go wrong it will builds so far (so far?  It almost done).  The lines on the canopy that I thought was just tape residue turned out to be clear gloss lacquer that leaked under the tape.  Sanding and polished and dipped in Future but it is still a bit foggy. Might be time to try the 40 year Mattel vacuform. Oh brother I can’t wait for this one to be done.

Rick & Marc-great work on your respective projects.  You guys are setting the standards.

Karl-the Panther looks great!  Love the camo & treads. Can't tell by the pics but are the edges hard or soft?  And did you mask or free hand?  If mask, what type?

Tom-looking forward to seeing the latest Fringe build.  Almost bought that one the last time I was @ Hobby Lobby.  Oh well, they are about due for a 50% off sale.

No progress this weekend-basketball tournment three hours away.  Fun family time but no modeling.

The 262 is awaiting an oil wash.  Need to pick up the right color @ my LHS-given the camo scheme, should I be using burnt umber or raw senna?  Input is always welcome.

thanks Darren-input is always appriciated.

btw-I feel your pain Sean.  Build many a Monogram kit with a lot of the same type issues.

Progress Report:  Tamiya 1/48 FW190A8 

First coat of Lichtblau has been airbrushed on the model, second coat will go on tonight. 

I should be able to spray the rest of the camouflage this week, decals and future on the weekend, weathering next week.  If I keep this momentum going I should be finished by the end of next week. 

I still can't find the USB cable for my camera, may have to bite the bullet and buy a replacement.

KJ200 wrote:

None since yesterday, busy decorating my daughter's bedroom and installing flooring. She didn't want Dunkel Gelb, went for bubblegum pink instead!!!!! No accounting for taste with 5 year olds!

That's too bad Karl, I have a 5 year old son who is totally into army guys and wants his room done in a camo scheme .  Just have too many other priorities in the new house so will have to wait awhile to get to it.

Army camo eh Dave? well our nursery is painted (a pale yellow) and the border is up, ended up getting pooh everywhere in that room!

In all seriousness though, I now have a little more time for modeling now, I better pick up the pace on the Dora's, they've been ready to paint for the past two weeks but my Bolingbroke is in the home stretch now and I really want to get that one off the bench, it has been sitting there since November. 

Tweety, my Airfix Dora didn't have any of the problems you had with fit, it was actually pretty good overall.  Hope things turnout well. 

Karl nice looking kitty!  I really, really want ot try my hand had a target but maybe 1:72 for space saving!

razordws wrote:

KJ200 wrote: None since yesterday, busy decorating my daughter's bedroom and installing flooring. She didn't want Dunkel Gelb, went for bubblegum pink instead!!!!! No accounting for taste with 5 year olds! That's too bad Karl, I have a 5 year old son who is totally into army guys and wants his room done in a camo scheme .  Just have too many other priorities in the new house so will have to wait awhile to get to it.

tho9900 wrote:

ok I am too lazy to look it up and know the wealth of info here... were the interiors of the wheel weels and other interior parts besides the cockpit area RLM 02 or RLM 66 on late war aircraft?  Tamiya has the interior marked RLM02 including the cokpit, I checked pics of the restored bird at the NASM and it was RLM 66 but can't find any pics of the wheel wells and such...

Tom as far as I know, RLM 02 was standard on the painted parts of wheel wells throughout the war.  All the research I did on my 262 showed late war birds that kept a NMF for the metal portions (the wheel well itself) and RLM 02 was used on the wheel well doors which were made of wood.

Check this out for further information:

http://www.swannysmodels.com/Painting.html

Cheers

cool Darren... thanks!!!  This has been a night of great joy for his-fringeness... (me)

I went out buying the correct paint for the Anteater and BAM!!!!!  There it was, a custom decal set along with historically researched schemes on the D0335's there was 3 sets of the decals.  Well, yours truly got ahold of info on set #3 which is this:

I'm either doing 112 with the NMF nose or 119 in total NMF.  It will look good and best of all "different" this way!!!  the Tamiya schemes were too boring!

I also picked up about 8 bottles of Vallejo to round out the stash, I'm up to about 35 bottles with this order... gotta love it!

Also I went out today and bought one of those ultrasonic jewelry cleaners to test it out as I hate the smell of lacquer thinner when cleaning the airbrush and leaving the jar outside is unthinkable due to the large amount of wild animals abounding hereabouts..  Let me tell you the first test run was amazing!!  I put the tips and needles in from two of my airbrushes and they came out as shiny as the day I bought them... I got a little bolder so stuck the whole airbrush body in... BAM!!!  I could see pigment coming from the front of the airbrush like a tiny could as soon as I turned it on.  The next test was the little wrench to get the tip off, I had over sprayed it with red enamel.. stuck it in and within 1 second it was gleaming silver again.  Tonight I am running the REAL test though.  I had a color cup from the old 175 I had let acrylic dry in.  The first two runs got every bit of paint off the sides, now I have moved up to adding windex to the water in small quanities to see if I get a mix that willl take it off with relativley few cycles.  So far the thick part at the bottom is all that remains.. I'll have pics tomorrow probably of my little experiment.

the best $50.00 I spent recently!!  and it was easy as I told the wide I wanted to buyt her one as her engagement ring had become dull and it was enough to have it cleaned at the jewelry store that 7 or 8 cleanings will make up for the cost.... 

Of course she laughed and said... "I'm sure it would clean your airbrush well too, I overheard you telling your dad you wanted on on the phone"  oh well... it was an attempt at deception!  haha

Tom,  RLM 66 was the standard cockpit interior color from early 1941 till the end of the Luftwaffe.  The primer RLM 02 was still used in wheel bays &  door interiors.

Progress update on the Dragon 1/48 Me163B-1.  This kit looks deceptively simple in the box, but poor fit of many of the major components makes it a bit of a challenge. I rarely use a coarse grit sanding stick, but about wore one out on this puppy.  Anyway, it's about ready to go to the paint shop for primer.  Hopefully it won't look too awful.

Regards,  Rick

TOM I told ya those ultrasonic cleaners were the Cats Meyow it is one of the best pieces of equipment I ever bought .

as for my 1/2 track I put the beast away for glue to set on the S.O.B. so to keep going on Something I pulled out my lil DML T-34/76 and bing,bang ,boom assembled and partially painted it in one afternoon,I LOVE these lil 1/72 armor kits. I was thinking maybe having a 1/72 armor weekend GB sometime in the future,would anyone be interested???

Tom it’s your call of course but I really like the look of that one with the BMF nose, it really stands out from the crowd IMHO anyway.

That ultrasonic cleaner sounds like a great idea, I might have to check one of those out.

Cheers

Karl outstanding effort on the Panzer!!!

Tom Am curious to see your pics after the cleaning of the airbrush, it's the one part I loath and would look kindly to an easier way of cleaning mine.

Well I have to admit defeat.

I tried to fit the nose section and found it was WAAAAAY out of wack (gee what a surprise). This is what I had to do to get the sides to pull in.

And now after glueing it in place there are just to many gaps where the leading edge is supposed to mate up with the cowl and the nose insert has some vicious over hang and will look totally ratted after I sand it to fit.

So back into the box she goes, and I'll back the work ute over it on my way to work tomorrow.

Might have to get the Spit out of the cupboard and try to resurrect her cause the idea of having a go at the 1/72 Dragon 335 really isn't filling me with hope.

So here a few pics of my Fw190-D9, it is ready for paint but I'm tryin to finish off my bolingbroke for the Canadian GB first.

Rick and Jay,  looking good keep up the good work!

Sean, too bad about the Dora, all that work for nothing, what a shame.

Dave, Thanks.

Sean, sorry about the bad luck with the Dora.  Some builds are cursed by the Modeling Gods.

Jay, good work on the Dora's.  Keep us posted.

Regards,  Rick

Sean - sorry to hear that your -190 is being such a pig to get together, that's rough, man.

Boyd

Rick – Lookin’ good.

Jay – nice work so far.

Sean –Bummer.  Just don’t get a flat when you “take care of business”

Rick - Jay --  looking good!! 

Bob - at first I was using just water, but on the paint cup that was thickly crusted with dried acrylic I ended up adding little by little more windex until it got it mostly off.  Abotu 30% is what I stopped at, but judging that there is a little paint still caked in there I think 50% would have done it.  The airbrush and pieces were all warm water though and it handled those well... Even some aluminum enamel I had on the cap for the color cup came off with that...

Tweets - thinking about that 190... do you know anyone that shoots skeet?