DocRob

Very nice, like Lothar mentioned, great weathering and a interestingly strange looking tank. First thought, the umpteenth Tiger, but then... Cheers Rob

Nice and timely save with the fuselage. The details like Spitfire mentioned look great, BUT, will you see them when finished. Since the TA-152 build, I'm a little sensitive to the ZM approach of showing so much of the innards and structures of the plane. On one hand you get some nice detail, but if you would go an open up approach for a maintenance scene, you will have some areas with heavily simplified detail, where you have to put some work in. The downside is a ton of panels to align, multiple part fuselages, which always are a bit hard to assemble flush and gapless. Good that you mastered this critical step with your build. Cheers Rob

Thanks Phil, but you do not need to be especially brave for this build. Planning ahead and taking the necessary time is the key to get the Arado done. The build is challenging, but also very rewarding. I've seen a lot worse, where I didn't expect it. The Arado to me is a very good kit to prepare yourself to full resin kits or builds with a lot of scratch building involved. Speaking of resin, it is so masterful casted, it's fun to work with and being specially made for this kit by Fly, makes the fit exceptional. Cheers Rob

I'm preparing for closing the fuselage soon. You have to think ahead and plan your steps, because there are only some markers, which indicate positioning and there is lots of dry fitting. First I glued in the wheel wells, adjusting them , that they don't interfere with the inside of the cannon pod mount and have the wheel struts symmetrical. Next I glued in the operator seat area and the bulkhead with his technical equipment, using two component epoxy again. After that has dried over night and after testing if the fuselage closes up, today I glued in the front cockpit and aligned everything and checked again, if the glasshouse will fit correctly. I feel, this is the phase of the build, where errors are really critical. To be able to close the fuselage at least with tape, with most of the innards glued in, gives me the possibility to evaluate the needed nose weight. After adding this, the fuselage will be closed permanently. Cheers Rob

Sad to hear that nothing worked out. Are there maybe different types of Chrome out there. These Americans used to be heavy handed with automotive chromium in these days . I tried removal twice on different kits and got the chrome removed easily with one minute of soaking and no further brushing. My kits were from Ebbro and I used the above mentioned degreaser / cleaner which I other ways use to get rid of the sooty black residue on the inside of my fireplace window. Wish you luck mate. Cheers Rob

Very nice B, I like the plain look of yours. It always seems that every Mustang was covered over and over with individual markings, so yours is a welcomed exception. How did the Trumpeter kit build up? Cheers Rob

They do look good, thanks for the review. The only thing I notice is, they seem not be weighted, at least I can see no bulge on the pics. Cheers Rob

I'm not complaining, I have lots of space in my workshop, which is the coolest room in summer. Actually, my wife likes me to do modelling and sometimes likes the output, but she has an intense dislike on the spendings and she doesn't like to have models in the house. Kind of funny, because she is an highly qualified Engineering consultant for various technical products from ships engines, to automotive, etc. We share a deep interest into Technologie, but with her that ends with modelling. Cheers Rob

Nice shelf and good to hear, that your wife does approve your hobby. Mine is not fond of my hobby, displaying built kits in our living area is no option and until now, I had no place and no desire to display kits, other than here on LSM, but the ready built kits took away a great deal of space, when boxed and I decided, that it will be better to have a shelf in my workshop. Last week, I got my Ikea Syvde shelf, which is not too bad, considering the usable depth of more than 40 cm. Cheers Rob

Thanks Carl, compared to your neighbors, mine is the light version, with about 40 kilos including the slate base and when I moved from Berlin to my tiny island, I saw that as a benefit. Turntables and listening to vinyl is a similar fascinating hobby like modelling. The amount of maintenance, adjusting and testing is tempting, but in the end you get rewarded with a great sound. Composing the components and experimenting with different cables, base materials,... , its endless like a well filled stash . It always fascinated me that a tiny needle, following a microscopical canyon on the record, altering the movement into electric signals via magnetic field, amplified various times, reproduces a signal which is able to sound better, than a digital production. And there are the records, you have to take care of, searching for the rarer ones, cleaning them, adoring the artwork on the sleeves (similar to reading a WNW manual, sometimes). I 'am taken away and will not continue here , but may start something about it in the 'My other hobby' thread. Cheers Rob

I always prime, at least large parts like fuselages and where PE or resin is involved, because I hate to see paint lifts after removing masks. I feel more safe with a solid base for painting and weathering. For Extreme Metal paints I use Tamiya rattle can stuff, except for polished aluminum, where I follow the AK recommendation of high gloss black priming and would do the same for chrome. Cheers Rob

It's a Transrotor Fat Bob S with a Benz Micro ACE S-L cartridge and a Lehmann Black Cube SE pre amp, a very fine combination. Not the very highest of high end, but highly configurable and working since 15 years without any issues except for one new belt for the turntable. The weakest link might be the tone arm, which is a modified Rega one. There are better ones, but it does it's job, so the urge of exchanging it is not to present at the moment and. It took me a very long time to discover this combination, working perfectly with my amp and speakers. Cheers Rob

I tested about ten different tones now and am amazed with the results too. Most of the Colours spray extremely well with very fine grain. A few have a weak coverage, like copper and polished aluminum as you discovered too. I especially loved the bronze and brass, which I used on my Nautilus and the different shades of Aluminum. I still have to test chrome with a gloss black undercoat. Cheers Rob

P21S Alu-Polish , yesterday I received the ordered paste and spent five hours polishing my turntable, which started to look a little ugly, with humidity and hints of salt in the air. Hand polishing for hours in a heat wave, man I was exhausted. I have to make a second session, to get it right, but had no more power left yesterday. The paste worked better than expected. OT-end, just being a little sensitive to polishing lately . Back to topic, sometimes, it is not necessary to polish at all. The part Bill has shown might only need a dip into Future to enhance clarity, which I generally do with clear parts. If polishing is necessary, because of a scratch or a seam, my method depends on how much material has to be removed. a protruding seam, I remove carefully scratching with a blade and start to grind carefully with my Albion pads from coarse to fine. If further polishing is needed, I use my micro drill with a soft cotton disc and some fine polishing paste by Tamiya. If I can get away without polishing the last step, I do, because it's so easy that lets say a canopy is caught by the cotton disc and sent airborne or I crack the brittle stuff while holding. A coat of Future is preferable here too and often sufficent. The benefit here is that besides enhancing clarity, you can glue e.g. PE parts or frames with CA, without the risk of fogging. Cheers Rob

Every step with the Arado is tempting, but in a funny way it's a rewarding kit. You have to check everything thrice and then recheck, definitely not shake and bake. As nice as the resin parts are, some of the plastic parts are lousy, specially around the front wheel struts. There is no given connection between the cylinder and the right frame part. As a solution I inserted a 0,5 mm brass rod here and another 1mm rod for the wheel suspension. This is, how it will be build into the wheel well (not glued yet). On the pic above, there are two PE frame parts, which supposed to connect the anchor points for a little bit more rigidity. I decided to leave them off, because the whole construction is a little too wide and I haven't found any traces of these frame parts in my Kagero book. I glued the tub for the gun pod into place, as an alignment aid for the (not glued yet) wheel wells. This seemed to be the best way, because alignment is crucial here, the lower part of the resin wheel well has to snuggle around the organic shaped tub, which resembles a part of the inner wheel well. bad positioning would cause a gap here. BTW: I had always problems to pick up tiny PE parts with a tweezer from my hard plastic tile, I use for PE, sometimes feeding the carpet monster while doing so. with that foam material in the picture it is much easier to get a grip on the tiny parts with a pointed tweezer, simple but I never thought off before. Cheers Rob

Same here, I checked mine. The weight does not fit inside the alignment tabs, that's what causes the gap. I will either cut away the alignment angels, or file away some material of the corners of the weight and hope that these grams don't make it a tailsitter. Cheers Rob

Looking good, seeing your kit, these gunports look to be laser cut. The last I did with my Kutter was to drill them and to give them an equally square contour with sanding. Not very funny and not so simple. Cheers Rob

That's how they do it in AK or Ammo of Mig, I ever asked myself. You solved one of the big mysteries of modelling . BTW: A burger without a bun is a Boulette . Cheers Rob

Cool ride Cheers Rob

If it is a leather seat, my method, I tried first with my RSO build might work. I love the result you get using cigarette paper for leather. Here is an excerpt from this build. Cheers Rob Next on my RSO schedule was the interior and I wanted to try something new. The leather bench painted in Tamiya semi gloss black looked way too new, so I decided to do something good for the health of my part time smoking wife and took some of her cigarettes, got rid of the tobacco and crumpled the paper. Then I applied some white glue-water mix to the bench and backrest and applied the paper. After that I dabbed some Tamiya earth brown onto the still a little wet cigarette paper as a background for the crackles. Looks ugly, but that was what I was expecting and the rib structure of the paper pays off. After everything was dried, I applied first some semi gloss black with a near dry old stiff brush carefully only stroking in one direction. After doing that several times, I changed to flat black and continued. While stroking I emphasized the places, where the crew must have left the most wear with the fewest color and added a little volume. The effect was a bit to glossy for my liking, so I mixed some drops of future with Tamiya flat base and applied again nearly drybrushing. A little shine should be left, like worn old leather develops. I like the result and the bench looks much more realistic and textured that way and sports the wanted crackled effect. The interior with all it's levers got some treatment first with Uschis steel pigments, some yellow penciling an

Love it, your progress looks great. These dozers and tractors have a very addictive appeal. I was urged to take out my started Doobi kit. The yellow seems to be a bit - err - yellow - if it should be factory Caterpillar stuff. Cheers Rob

That sentence, beside your Avatar, makes me think about the quality of my build . Cheers Rob

Thanks for the warning, I will inspect the nose gear closely. Cheers Rob

Indeed, but maybe it is a different seat, because it is from a SU-27. The odd thing is the general difference in size. Somebody missed out big time . Cheers Rob

Lovely internal work and like Gaz mentioned, those Ammo belts look the part. The pre painted Aluminium forces you to alter the painting process with the masking work to be done at an earlier stage, where normally overspray would not be an issue, but hey, no risk of paint lifting, I guess . Cheers Rob