king derelict

I added the majority of the Eduard PE. Its all flat stuff; no bending or unpleasantness. The plastic build continues with the rear supports, the diving planes and rudder and the linkages. The linkages are really nice and could probably be made to operate but I decided not to explore the idea The linkages are only present on the starboard side so I'll need to do a bit of filling and filing on the port side where the locating slots are not used. I drilled out the remaining drain / vent holes There are quite a few details still to add. I think I will leave the saddle mines off until I have painted and weathered the hull. I would imagine the mines would look a bit fresher than the submarine itself. This is a very nice kit for fit and quality of the parts. I'm not sure the Eduard PE is really necessary; the kits own PE covers a lot of the spots anyway. Thanks for looking in and the likes. Alan

Thanks Ken I may try to mask a bit f the painted sections during the primer and initial colour layers so some of the PE colour comes through later during chipping and weathering. Alan

Thank you very much EG. There are some weird and wonderful attempts at complicated camouflage schemes towards the end of the war with the British bringing artists in to create paint schemes. Some are incredibly detailed and complicated dazzle style schemes. In the end they mostly got covered in mud anyway. Alan

I'm regretting not getting the Lancaster now Alan

That cockpit is absolutely beautiful Alan

I now have the Eduard PE for the X craft and it looks very nice. I'm a little puzzled why the deck parts are already painted. It would seem that they get fitted before the primer so will be covered. also some parts are part painted and part bare brass. Again the Eduard brass seems nice and "dead" and cuts easily. I added most of the deck parts. I had been holding off on building up any more of the model in case there was a conflict with the kit parts but looks like the PE just enhances rather than replaces.so I will return to the plastic now The hatches are quite nice with PE handles Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments Alan

I broke a lot working on the corvette. Unexpected break though into the mesh below the parts surface would snap them. They are nice and sharp so I persevere Alan

I bought about three sets and now have about one sets worth. They don't like any side load Alan

Thank you very much as always EG I spent a lot of the morning reading various opinions and looking at museum sites. There are a myriad opinions out there and some pretty limited hard information for the later years of the war. The hard facts I found are. Britain ran out of chromate based paints by mid war and that stopped them making deep greens. Instead they were forced to use ochre based colours which produced greeny browns, browny greens, khaki and browns. The tank in the Brussels museum (which supposedly has original paint) and the tank models from 1918 at the UK tank museum are brown (described as a chocolate brown. It seems that this is such a vexed subject that some modellers will not touch WW1 vehicles for fear of being wrong. It seems to me that you can actually plough ahead within reason without much fear of being proved to be wrong. For reasons that soon will become apparent my little set piece is spring of 1918 or a little later. So I plan to use a series of colours for the various parts ranging through from a modified olive drab to brown. I think its unrealistic to have the FWD, caisson and gun all exactly the same colour. Its likely they were drawn from artillery parks and not necessarily kept together from their initial debut. This is likely to revert to a background project now that the X craft can be worked on. Alan

Thank you very much OC It looks nicer than I thought initially. It was a pretty basic kit Alan

I resisted until Sunday evening and then somehow a 1/35 Rye Field Model Leopard fell into the cart as well. I still feel virtuous because I ignored the HK 1/48 Lancaster that was nudging me as well Alan

I thought I was having the same problem this morning. I would get a short puff of paint from the sir brush and then hardly anything. I cleaned the nozzle a number of times and then gave up and stripped the airbrush and cleaned it. After three cleanings it still wasn't getting any better. It was then that I noticed that I had somehow accidently screwed the shut off valve in the quick disconnect almost fully closed. 😁 Alan

I fixed the Churchill to the base and blended the tracks in with some more sand / dust - and then dropped the whole lot. Thankfully it sustained almost no damage and was easily restored. Playing around with the White Balance and the remaining images are more like the real colours I need to work out a better set up for the photos. The colour rendition is too hit and miss this way although I like the black backdrop While reading the BBC news this morning I came across this article. A rather counter=intuitive design really but interesting The tank that could fly into battle - BBC Future Now that would be a project to play with I will declare this one to be finished. Many thanks for looking in and the likes and comments Alan

Thank you kindly Craig I'm getting better at masking I think Alan

Moving along here. This is one of those kits where you sit down and think "Oh I'll just add a couple of bits to the cab before I do some work in the garden" and three hours later you are still immersed in it. Lots of fun really The gun is very intricate and the instructions don't always show exactly where some of the parts are attached. Quite a lot of looking at old photos and the box art for some guidance or reverting to logical options when in doubt. It all went together The kit provides black tank track like plastic for the gun wheel rims. It is quite nicely detailed but the strips are too short I tried carefully stretching the track - and it broke without gaining any appreciable length. I glued them on and made up the gap with a piece of card of suitable thickness. The cab is quite nicely done with the old acetylene lamps and horn The caisson and remainder of the FWD went together without fuss so everything got a dose of Mig One Shot black primer I'm starting to think about the colour scheme. The kit just gives a three colour scheme for American use in late war The FWD Model B was in general use by the British and later the American forces and the howitzer (originally Vickers) likewise. Per Wiki The Four Wheel Drive Auto Company of Clintonville, Wisconsin launched the Model B in 1912, initial production was very slow with only 18 produced in 1913. The US was the first nation to show interest in the military potential of the vehicle, with the US Army testing one of the earliest production vehicles.[3][6] The British Army became the first military customer on March 23, 1915, ordering 50 trucks to be delivered in only 40 days.[7] An American export agency was set up with a reception base in Liverpool and a repair depot in Islington to check and service incoming vehicles before handing them over to the Ministry of Munitions. A total of 2,925 Model Bs were purchased by the British Army, 1,599 of these were used in France on the Western Front, predominantly for heavy haulage of artillery, ammunition, and pontoon bridge supplies For the small diorama I have planned I want a British gun and i also think the three colour scheme will be a bear on such a small and rather fragile model so I plan to duck that and go for a single colour British paint job. As usual with WW1 vehicle the problem is - what colour? Todays research seems to suggest that the Army would take trucks, tanks and guns in any colour except white. The main colours seem to be grey, brown or olive green / khaki. Tomorrows decision but I am leaning towards a green - brown shade I ordered some 1/72 British infantry figures from Hat and Emhar and hope some can be adapted to be standing around and looking untidy Thanks for looking in and the likes and comments Alan Alan

Great recovery. Looks really good Alan

I painted the rocks with a very light buff and then highlighted it with white while it was still wet. The sand is buff which a trace of yellow and some white worked into areas of it while it was drying. After it dried a sprayed it with craft glue and spread some ground ceramic dust between the rocks. I gave the whole thing a coat of matte to get rid of any glue shine The Churchill is placed. I need to paint the edges of the base and add a bit more "sand" around the rear of the tracks Thanks for looking in and the likes. I hope everyone has a great weekend Sprue Brothers has a 25% off weekend deal on a 1/32 Infinity Vampire - do I dare? Alan

Hopefully the tests will provide good news. All the best and hope it gets fixed quickly and painlessly Alan

Thanks Mike It is going together well so far. The instructions leave a bit to be desired. I haven't worked out if I'm building the gun in towing or firing configuration. Parts numbering is a bit iffy too. I spent an hour looking for a "missing" piece that turns out I had already used as per the earlier diagrams but was a completely item. The "missing" part was still on the sprue - but with a different number. They do provide a sprue diagram at the start of the instruction booklet but the numbers there are different again. Alan

Thanks Patrick Its really a lot of fun. Lots of fragile parts but so far they are all in one piece still. I just started the howitzer and that is incredibly detailed for the scale Alan

Craig This is going to be a beautiful model. The rigging would worry me though. I have a Roden Gotha to build and it leers at me from the shelf. Alan

Oh no; I never liked that spoonful of castor oil as a kid.🙂 Alan

Thank you OC. It isn't the ultimate in high quality kits but it went together well in the end and the painting is fun. Alan

I made a homemade wash with burnt sienna oil paint and used it to pick out the panels. I think I like my own wash better than the Mig; it flowed better along the panel and detail lines. The Mig stuff needs more thinner to get the same result. The few decals that go with the El Alamein version have been put on and some more detail paint applied. I dry brushed some bright metal onto the tracks and edges of hatches and likely scrape points along the skirts. I suspect i will lose some of that in the upcoming dust application. I then air brushed several thin layers of light buff onto the model with the emphasis on the lower sections. Unfortunately I lost a lot of the panel detail but that was sort of expected. The dull coat will be the last thing to do I got impatient and instead of waiting for rock moulds I used the old crumpled kitchen foil method. I got some decent low outcrops (and a surplus) so they were added to the base and then blended in with toilet paper and diluted white glue This needs about 24 hours to dry and maybe another coat of gesso. The plan is to end up with something like this Showcasing the Churchill's ability to climb. Thanks for looking in and all the likes and comments Alan