DocRob

Great Carl, but without any AM and delicate PE, pah . Cheers Rob

Great paintjob with the fading colors Bill, what a beauty. Cheers Rob

I was contemplating about that from the beginning, but wanted to try the camo the other way around. In fact, I had the idea for a French WWI tank some time ago and wanted to give it a try. When I saw the scheme of the Lancia, I had to try it. Even with the marker, the camo will be very difficult to apply, especially in tight spaces around the wheel housings and front fenders. I have to let that sink in for a bit and then I will decide how to progress. Cheers Rob

So far so bad, it seems, I have to settle with a different paint scheme or a different approach with the Lancia. I tried all my masking fluids and had nothing positive to show for, but lots of problems applying them. This is how the Molotow masking pens showed, unusable. The ragged outline is no splatter or sputter, it's adhesion, which shows some seconds after application That's what I tried. A little better than the Molotow's was only the Abteilung 502 masking fluid applied with a brush. Very tedious and not satisfactory in the end. Besides, the blue fluid dries near transparent onto the black background, which makes it hard to see later. Worst was like every time I tried the Micro Mask liquid, which left marks on the base layer . This bottle is history. Cheers Rob

Indeed Hubert, but my favorite Batmobile space is occupied by this cool fellow. Every time, I see the Romfell in my stash, I have steam punk in my mind and maybe I do some scratchwork with this and make something batish out of it. Cheers Rob

Have you checked the Yahu IP's Peter? Way ahead of Eduard they look extremely good. I like them better than what I have seen from Quinta or Kits World. 3D printing looks great mostly and you have all the consoles included with Quinta, Red Fox,... but for IP's, Yahu is the best choice for me. Cheers Rob

I have the same one in stash. An odd vehicle for sure, optimized for hit and run . Cheers Rob

What happened here? Has Lancia build the new Batmobile? Sorry but nope, I primed the car with Mr. Surfacer and airbrushed Tamiya's semi-gloss black lacquer paint for my camo experiment. As a testbed, I also sprayed the quark pot the same way. I will try to apply the thin curved lines with a Molotow masking pen, then spraying the first camo color (green) and last the second (sand) after masking again with liquid masks. So far the approach, let's see how it works. Cheers Rob

Thanks for the build review Fran. The kit hit my interest, since it was first mentioned. I drove one of those for some weeks on a Spanish finca 15 years ago. It was a dinosaur even then, but a capable workhorse. Cheers Rob

Close to the painting stage now with the Lancia. The body panels fit like a glove, kudos to Copper State. I left the rear part and turret unglued for now, as I don't want to mess around with protruding machine guns while masking and painting. For airbrushing, the front fenders are only loosely attached, as are the rear fenders, which will not accept the wheels, when finally glued in place. Cheers Rob

Thanks for the reminder, I think, I have bought the PE set for the HO-229 a long time ago, but am not sure, I'll have to check. Cheers Rob

Fantastic progress Peter, you seemed to have sailed easily through this build, where the kit is not up to Tamiya's standard. This shows your experience and building qualities. I can't wait to see the colors on the Whirlwind. She's a strange looking beast with the thin nosecone, protruding guns and hefty nacelles in these lengthy wings. Not the nicest of airframes, but even more interesting and with your magic, she'll be a beauty. Cheers Rob

Hola Mike, I had the same problem some years ago with my tiny booth. I removed the plastic sidewalls and bottom parts and used a large plastic container sawed in a rectangle opening into the bottom and duct-taped it to the vent unit. Then I spun some flexible LED strips around for lighting e voila the booth is enlarged and takes a wingspan up to nearly 60cm's. The modification was a cheapo and it works very well, even better when you use highly thinned colors, which escaped the old booth layout much easier, than after the modification with the higher volume. Cheers Rob

Very nice build. It's scratch build, I understand and not based on a kit? I like your Cutty Sark a lot and even more, as I ventured into the build of my first wooden sailing boat lately. Welcome to the forum and if wooden ships are your mainstay, you will start to close a gap here in LSM, where there are only a few builders of wooden ships present. Cheers Rob

Hmm, GB's, I'm not sure about. I don't want to spoil the party, but my recollections of GB's aren't the best here. I attended two, finished one in time, but both GB's were never finished. As I'm exclusively here on LSM for plastic modelling, these were my first experiences with GB's. Don't get me wrong, generally I like the idea of group builds, as they drive members (me included) out of their comfort zone and it's a great tool to have a bit more interaction in LSM than is at present. There are a lot of builders and 'presenters' recently and not as much discussion and interaction as there were some time ago. I am guilty of that for different reasons actually and all the others do have their own reasons for sure. That is, where a group build can help to stir the situation up a bit, like I have seen it with the Ukrainian GB lately. I like Martin's wide idea of wetties for a GB, where I guess, everybody can find a subject to attend, but have a few questions about possible entries from my side, if I'm in. - What about a 1/72 Schnellboot? - If I make a dio of a 1/48 Walrus, floating in a rough sea, with a lifeboat aside, would that do? Cheers Rob

No belts, no go Rog just my . They are clearly visible, even with the canopy closed. Cheers Rob

Today the post woman was well loaded with parcel for me. Since a long time, I longed to build a second Tamiya Corsair, which is really odd by my standards not to do redundant things. Being a man of consequence, I chose the F4U-1A for my next build, the other one was my re-enter hobby build of the birdcage variant, when it came out. This time it will be tri-tone camo, where I try the AK real colors and mostly oob, except for the Brassin wheels (I hate rubber tyres), HGW seat belts and possibly a Yahu IP. I plan to use masks for Stars and Bars and for stenciling and added a mask set from 1Man Army. For my USS Arizona with wooden deck and tons of PE project, I chose the relatively new US sailors from ION Models in 1/350 for adding some life to the decks. They should be relatively easy to paint still attached to the printing connectors and touched up after cutting them off. Hera is my giant tweezer (beware ) in comparision with the little guys. Cheers Rob

The Lancia is shaping up. I painted the inside of the engine cowlings and glued them to the frame, except one panel, which will be opened after painting the body. I did some detail painting on the interior and some light weathering on the floor and chassis. The interior will be almost invisible, even with the open door on one side, so detailing is sufficient. I wanted to leave the body and the engine cowling removable for easier painting of the camo, but that didn't work due to many parts to align. Cheers Rob

I built their Kai Phantom recently and there were no issues with the build. As Carl mentioned there are no seat belts supplied in fact no PE at all. I bought the belts from Kits-World, but I didn't like them too much. They seem a bit oversized and the protruding parts like levers and pull rings bend easily. The good on these parts, they are printed on both sides. Canopy masks, were purchased from New Ware, which have sets, to allow the painting of the canopy seals and as an add on I bought some Res-kit burner cans. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the kit, but ZM has pointed out the multiple changes they made for the EJ- compared to the E-version. The kit went together very well, fit and engineering were great and the Cartograph decals worked exceptional. The detailing of the cockpit with decals over raised detail was sufficient to me at this scale. Cheers Rob

Nice choice of kit and good to see you jump into the water first. On your pics, all looks like a typical ZM kit, but the manual looks positively unbusied compared to the Kai Phantom. As for the possible schemes, Eduard has a G-14 and a set called 'Wilde Sau' or Saudämmerung' in their portfolio. The manuals are there in PDF with many paint schemes shown. Cheers Rob

I quote myself here Paul Cheers Rob

Muchas gracias amigos, it is indeed a great designed kit with good fits. The manual is on par with WNW or even a tad better, as it shows rigging (not in my case) and wiring on the engine in detail. I really like CSM kits and have more than a handful in Stash. There are the Caudron G.III and Nieuport in 32 scale, the Dolphin and the Armstrong-Whitworth F.K.8 in 48 scale and 35 scale armored car kits, like the Belgian Minerva, the Austro Hungarian Romfell and the Lancia as the first one I build. CSM is about to release the Ehrhardt E/V-4 M.1917 armored car, which was used in the troublesome years of the early Twenties in my old hometown of Berlin, so it is another must for me, maybe with a little dio. @Peterpools: Like you, I'm waiting to see, how my plan for the camo works out. If it fails, I may change for another scheme, but is fail an option ...? Cheers Rob

Some more progress on the Lancia armored car. I finished the chassis with engine, transmission and axles, sans exhaust and some weathering pending. I did test fitting the body parts and there is absolutely nothing to complain. The fit is great on the whole kit. I want to keep the body seperated for the delicate camo painting and that seems to work, when I use the base of the cabin with it and don't glue it onto the chassis now. From the interior, not much will be seen, so detailing and weathering will be only minimal. Cheers Rob

Phew, better now than never Peter, that was a close shave. Your surgery seems to have been successful. Doing a WIP can avoid a lot of trouble with the ever observant members here. Cheers Rob

The Hetzer with it's simple undisturbed shapes should be easy to mask. Like Carl said, there are some mask sets out there. I used J's Modelwork masks on another build an they worked with a little bit of improvisation. You can also opt for disc camo, where Uschi van der Rosten has stencil masks. Cheers Rob