Stikpusher

First rigging session did not go well. So back off regroup, get some advice, and do it again. Well, attempt 2 went far better than attempt 1. It did not turn out perfect, but I am not gonna put everything else on hold until I do get it perfect. My order of effort was: attach the EZ line to the upper front cabane strut/upper wing junction, cut a slice of tubing and thread the EZ line thru the hole in the slice, attach the EZ line to the front cabane strut/fuselage junction after achieving proper tension, adjust the position of the metal tube slice and position it. Unfortunately, due to the

Thanks Mark. I’m very happy to have found all of these, and at good prices... for 2021... 😉

This one?

When I was a teenager and this kit came out, my friend got it, and I thought that it was a pretty cool build. It was much nicer than my Hawk 1/48 F-104 kits that I had at the time. I’ve bought other better F-104s since then, but have always wanted to try my hand on this one, so I keep scanning eBay from time to time. I put this one on my watch list, and a day or two later the seller sent me a 25% off offer, and who am mai to say no to such a deal. Of course with shipping it cost far more than the original 1977 sticker price... 😉 I plan on building this as a G, since I alr

That turned out very nicely. The yellow markings all look a bit subdued. Is that the decals being a bit translucent, or perhaps just the photo?

Well, the back dating of the kit is now complete. I added the wire cage style brush guards to the commander’s and gunner’s periscopes, modified the sledge to reverse its positioning, and then added the hatch handles, rangefinder housing lifting eyes, and rear turret stowage bin. All I need to do now is add the mantlet dust cover and armor foundry casting marks

Mark, as you well know yourself, Bruce is a great guy! A very kind and generous soul. So lately I have stumbled across a guy on eBay who sells decal sheets for a much more reasonable price than most are going for nowadays, so I have picked up a few sets. For early A-10s: pre “Charcoal Lizard” For the F-5A in my stash And for the F-89D/H in my stash I also finally came across a guy in France who makes the Matra Super 530 missile in 1/48... nobody makes them in AM, and unless you scavenge them from another kit, there are no options in 1/48 to get

Mark, are you saying that there is another 1/72 AFV madman here besides you? Uh oh! In any case, nice work on your latest trio of completions here! What’s next?

One more update- I finished adding the cast armor texture a bit more rapidly than I thought that I would using Mr Surfacer and a Microbrush. and a couple close ups it should look good under a coat of paint... This will be my last update on this until next week. Have plans for the weekend, so I won’t get any bench time.

A little more progress to post. Over on Armorama, it was pointed out to me that the turrets had some external “dimples” welded into the armor where the gun trunnions attach to the turret sides. So I cut some small pieces of tube styrene and glued them into the appropriate spots Then I sanded them to a more scale thickness, doused them with liquid cement, and gave a bit of weld texture around the edges with a toothpick. Now I can proceed to adding the cast armor texture where needed... nearly all of the turret and much of the front and rear hull...

The thought of packing a build for air travel to take to the Nats just sounds so daunting. Even as a carry on, it has the risk of being roughly handled by aircrew or other passengers in the overhead bins. Good luck!

Nice batch of work there Mark! How many of these did you work on Saturday during the AMPS meeting?

Tamiya 1/48 armor kits are perfect for “speed builds”. And since US tanks usually have just an overall OD scheme that makes them an ideal choice as well. Less time spent on changing colors in the airbrush cup. Yours turned out very nicely!

Thanks Gil. I know what you mean about films. I vaguely recall from photography classes how some types of film made reds dark and blues light, while another type of film did just the opposite. But it is nice to have something a bit different for the tire color. And the decals are now on! Next challenge is the one that I do not look forward to... rigging... yikes!

Thanks Mark. You know our clubs... tough crowds! But sometimes you can get lucky in spite of yourself. I suppose if I fine tune a few things on this, post twelve hours, this could be a contender... 😉