Armourfast 1/72 Panzer IV D ( part 1 )

1/72 Ace Rauppenslepper OST

1/72 Esci Fokker DVII

Airfix 1/72 Bf109 G6

My first 109. The kit has its inadequacies, notably no cockpit detail, but the decals are great. You get 3 options, I chose the Finnish version because of the shark mouth. I've just got hold of the 109 Tropical, which is excellent, and does contain a decent enough cockpit and bulkhead, which I had to scratch build for this version. You'll notice that the wheel sruts are too upright and should come down at an angle following on from the aircraft sides. I'll remember this for next time, and infact the correct angle is noted in the instructions of the Troipical version. Weathered again with Mig powders and vallejo steel.

Airfix 1/76 Universal Carrier - Suez - Part II

Just finished this one in the past few days. Decals are from the Bison set on the Suez crisis, of which I shall be using more in the coming months. I cut up some plastic rod into small equall bits a glued them onto the tracks as there was no profile whatsoever. Sand guards were made from tin foil and the bolt effect was acheived by pushing a blunt needle into the foil from the reverse side, and then putting on a wash and dry brushing afterwards. Rust was made by using blobs of enamel leather brown brushed downwards with a damp brush of thinners. It was the first time I've tried to use depth in my scratches by first using a lighter colour to make the scratch (yellow) then painting an even finer line of tank grey in the yellow, leaving a slight yellow colour outside of the grey. Chipping around the edges was done using a small sponge. I also made a headlamp from sanding down some clear sprue then painting it silver first then the base colour and finally chipping it with tank grey and painting a gloss varnish over the lens.

This was the actual vehicle I was basing this kit on, and is the only picture of it available anywhere I could find.

Airfix 1/76 Chi Ha tank - Part II

Can't believe I haven't been on here since the end of March, that's just being lazy, but in my defense I have been bust building and finishing off models, this Chi Ha being one of them. I decided to make it really muddy using weathering powders overlaid ontop of each other, building up the effect. The tracks were about 10-15mm too short. After trying to stretch them by leaving them dangling with weights on the end I wrote to Airfix explaining my dilema and within the week they had sent an extra set of tracks out which I managed to marry up with the existing set. Once weathered you can't notice the join at all so I was made up with that. all in all a great little kit, easy to build however I think the colours mentioned on the back of the box are wrong. Instead of the light green, it should be more of a browny colour. I'll know for next time

Airfix 1/76 Chi Ha tank

This is a great little tank and very easily put together. Cammo is painted, and an allover wash of dark umbar followed by a wash of buff then a gloss coat was added. Next up decaling and a pin wash, then it's time to get messy and some serious muddy weathering.