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Mike, I have three kids; Alex 15yrs, Nick 12yrs, and Lizzie (Elizabeth) 9 yrs. I have spent time with all of them on models. Each has bulit models and each has been to contests and entered models (well my girl will this coming fall for the first time). My oldest still hangs out in my model room but does not do models anymore. The point is this is a gift that not only are you sharing with your son , but a moment in time that will lasts forever. Even if he never builds or completes a model again. The future of our wonderfull hobby. Thanks for sharing this story. Fantastic!!!!!!

Very nice job on this kit. Looks great. I remember seeing this actual vehicle twice. Once at the old Plattsburg,NY SAC AF Base in the 80's and when I was in the Navy on Guam at the Naval Magazine used to guard the fence line for the Nuke bunkers. I always liked the look of this vehicle. Thanks for sharing it here.

Mike, Looking good so far. I to like the fact that you are working with an older kit and bringing it alive with all the great after market stuff out there.

Absolutely!!

Rick, As a lover of Tamiya kits, both new and old, I must say that you are right about Tamiya not adding molded on Zimmerit. But I perfer it not added on. For one I am one of those modelers that likes to add my own. Either with after market photo etch or slapping the putty on and molding it. If you look at German AFV with Zimmerit you will see 1) there are different patterens of zimmerit and 2) most offen the paste gets dinged and damaged in the field. Sometimes by being hit or running into something or by small arms fire/ shell hits. I suppose you could sand down the areas tthat you what to have this look with molded on zimmerit, but for the real depth noting beats adding it yourself. Molded on or using PE gives you a factor fresh look, but when you can add your own you can get the pattern you want/need for modeling a AFV that has been in the field. I really do not know the answer as why Tamiya does not add molded on zimmerit, but maybe this is one or the reason.

Paul, Welcome to IPMS. As an armour builder it is really nice to see another armour builder on board. As for the kit collecting, well welcome to the club (kit collecting club). We all (Except for MARK- he is just sick) build slow, have and want more kits then we will ever really be able to built in our life time. Again Welcome, Chris Graeter

Duke, I went back an searched my links file. I found this link to Bob Lettermans site. He is probably the only one to give you a run for your money as far as the amount of models built. For those who do not know of BOB, he is the master of the large scale diarama. Here is a link to his site. http://www.bobletterman.com/wordpress/?cat=5

Kevin, Sorry to hear about your loss. You where obvious very proud and loved your Pop very much, as he was proud of you and loved you very much. May the many wounderful memories help you enjoy his life as well as yours for all the years to come. Sincerely, Chris Graeter Fellow Modeler

WOW!

Tim, Great photos! This is a side of the war that is not published that often or very limited. The distruction of towns, cities, building, etc. is one of the very nasty side affects of war. I have planning a coatal bunker diarama for sometime now. This will help a great deal. Thanks again for posting these photos here. Oh the sign is a warning in German about the broken water system. In Fench I have no clue.

Mike, This is coming along nicely. I was thinking that the only DML kit that I have built, was a BMP-1. I have to say that I was not impressed with the kit. Thought about making it a apart of my model room wall more then once. I have entered it in two contest and both times it took home a 3rd place. Goes to show you what I know. After seeing your photos of this DML kit, I am rethinking my view about DML. Well back to your model. You have me hooked now. I want to see more. Post more after wash and weathering, oh heck, just keep um coming, I'm glued know. Chris

Mike, Nice work so far, the pre-shading looks great. Chris

Eric, Checked out your ship models. Love what your can think of. Very refreshing. The FED EX Cruiser rocks. Wonder what kind of UPS ship you come up with. Better yet, as the joke goes; FED EX and UPS merged and are now called FED UP. Try that one an run with it. Great models. Chris

Eric Welcome aboard. I look forward to seeing your stuff. I am an Armour builder, but love to look at all models. Oh as far as your skills when you were younger. I like the rest of us modelers have been there too. Firecrackers and gasoline do wounders for poorly built model kits. Chris

Mike, Costly yes!, But so is everything else now a days. I to have a ton of the older kits and still build them. In fact I have one on the bench now. It is a great kit, but I am adding a lot of extras. Not that the kit needs it, just my choice. I believe Mark the other poster on here had a Britsh tank at the IPMS Regional Noreastcon that was OOB and looked great. So yes the older Tamiya kits were and still are great kits. But the newer ones have newer tooling and a lot of great extras that the older kits do not. Either way new or old, Tamiya kits rock. Again great job. Chris

Mike, Great job on this kit. This was my first build this year. I to replaced the tracks with a set of fruil tracks and I replaced the barrel with one from JB Models. Only reason was I wanted riffling inside the barrel as the kit barrel did not have this. This was a great kit to build as are most of the new and old Tamiya kits. Nice to see somebody elses work with the same kit. Chris

Welcome aboard John, Very refreshing to see new blood come into the hobby. After awhile when you are bored with these planes and cars, you will feel the need to build an ARMOUR kit. It is a matter of time. Don't fight it, it is just the force calling to you. You will see. Again welcome aboard. Great to have you with IPMS. Chris

FYI The AMPS site is up an running again. Enjoy

Way to go Bill. Chris

Welcome Bill!! I'm not a car modeler or even pretend to know much about cars. There are a couple of good car modelers in my local hobby club. I will ask them about this for you. It will take awhile as we just had our monthly meeting. See what I can do for you. Will get back to you. Chris

Hi All, the AMPS web site will be down for a few days as announced on May 22, 2010. The reason is that their webhosting provider is upgrading equipment and moving their web site to a new servers. Stay tuned for more updates or if someone hears something that I did not, then post it here. Chris

Here is a link for a new release by Great Wall Hobby. The link is to Missing Link site about this news. http://www.missing-lynx.com/reviews/german...reviewbg_1.html Enjoy!! Chris

Sorry guys, First time trying to post a picture. My mistake.

My latest built. Old kit. DML 1/35 scale BMP-1 in russian markings. Placed 3rd at noreastcon and took a bronz metal at Wings & Wheels in Chicopee, MA this year. T-55 and a german sdk 223 on the bench right now. Enjoy.

My latest built. Old kit. DML 1/35 scale BMP-1 in russian markings. Placed 3rd at noreastcon and took a bronz metal at Wings & Wheels in Chicopee, MA this year. T-55 and a german sdk 223 on the bench right now. Enjoy.