belugawhaleman

Love them as well. Growing up we lived on a lot adjacent to a larger wooded property (Now part of a forest preserve). Whenever we heard frantic cawings, we knew that there was a Great Horned owl about. For some reason, the crows would surround the owl, but keeping their distance. Not sure why they did this, but clearly, this was some kind of organized behavior. Anyway, this gave us a chance to view the owl and the crows. My mother, however, has a dread of crows........A bad omen of sorts

Two more items today: First, coming from Sprue Brothers, came a model by Tiger Models. A kit I've been looking for some time of a subject I've been wanting to build. It's their Panhard AML-90 in 1/35 (4635). Both Takom and Tiger Models kits were always out of stock. The kit, while very small, looks pretty impressive. It looks well-molded, has a complete interior, engine, a choice of rubber or styrene tires, metal gun barrels, the suspension features metal coil springs, and there's some photo-etch. Everything is packaged separately in very Tamiya-like, stapled soft plastic bags. Pretty cool model kit......but small.. Very small. Also today, another barrel by ABER. Their 152.4mm tank barrel M-10S for Soviet KV-2. for the Tamiya kV-2 I got last week. I'm still waiting for a couple of kits from overseas; A Brummbar and a Hetzer. Probably no more kits for at least a while......unless, well, nevermind.

From Tower Hobbies two items today; First Tamiya's potent Airbrush Cleaner this is an extremely strong solvent that smells ,suspiciously, like their extra thin cement. It works very well and quickly to remove paint from airbrushes and paint brushes. I use a glass eye-dropper to put A small amount in the cup of my airbrush, scrub with a large soft bristle paint brush, then spray the rest out of the airbrush. Simple and quick. Makes color changes easy. Most of the time disassembly of the airbrush isn't needed. Anyway, be careful, it will mess up plastic, and painted surfaces. Of course, make sure to use proper ventilation when spraying this stuff. I keep two bottles one for brushes, the other for airbrush use. I also got a small, photo-etch circle template set from Tamiya (74150). It has hole sizes from 1 to 12.5 mm. Might be useful.

I ordered a kit again from Hobbyeasy. Yes another Tamiya kit this time their Hetzer kit (35285) released in 2007. A hard to find kit kit in stock unless you buy it in the costly With "metal barrel and photo-etch" version. I don't expect it anytime soon and really don't need it right away Anyway, but I'm glad to have found it.

Thanks Carl. I looked at your build last night. Well done.

Thanks

Your Mig looks amazing! So does the little Gaz. I have Tamiya's 1/35 version, Tamiya Includes one with their Korean war Easy Eight Sherman. I built the kit in the early 80's

I think I dodged a bullet by not buying this kit. Anyone must be given a lot of credit for building this one. I think Monogram had a 1/48 kit of this aircraft...I don't remember If I had it or not.

How did I miss this? Very nice!

Congrats! Making modeling a profitable endeavor........ What a concept!

Wow! A spectacular finish to an interesting build! Wonderful!

Thinking of doing the Tamiya Marder III next....... One of the options is winter camouflage over grey...My question is what's the best way to tackle this? Can the white be simply over- sprayed with an airbrush Over the gray in kind of a mottled finish? Is it hand brushed? What do you guys do? I want to do something different with this....either winter or the German 3 tone camouflage. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks; Paul

Great job Peter!

Thanks Harv

Finishing up on the Cuban M3 Suart.

Yes, this will probably not have much in the way of weathering. I may add a little dust on the lower chassis and tracks. The Cuban tanks did not see much use prior to the revolution. This one was based in the town of Santa Clara . Because I display my tanks on a shelve or on a coffee table I don't see heavy weathering as making too much sense ....if displayed in the context of a diorama, well, that would be different. I think of my models as sort of recognition models. Only to display to show a certain type.

I have a Dragon Saladin that I may build soon. I did notice that the prices are higher.... I had my eye on their Marder II I think it was about $ 70.00 for a very small 1/35 kit. It had some interior detail... That was cool. I like Tamiya, good products.......and NOT Chinese.

They still have the private warehouse as they call it.

It's their Brummbar kit. (35353) Couldn't find it anywhere.

Just had ,this week, a very pleasant experience ordering an item from Hobbylink Japan. The item....A hard-to-find Tamiya kit. But first, let's back up a bit.... Over the weekend, I got an email from Tower Hobbies that a kit I wanted to buy was back in stock only to find out on Monday that this was not the case it was marked as "currently not available" and now the message is that the next shipment is expected in September.... Ok, so I could have waited a bit, but I wasn't aware of this shipment until this morning....and I already ordered from HLJ. The price at Tower Hobbies will be $ 56.000. The price I paid at HLJ was $ 27.00 US. Shipping, of course, is a killer at $ 25.00 US for FedEx but the combined total will be less than the price for the model at Tower Hobbies. Meanwhile, my order order status at HLJ has progressed quickly, the staff there has answered my email correspondence quickly and professionally and the item will soon be on its way. The last time I ordered from them shipping took forever, but Covid was big at that time. I hope that won't be the case this time. Anyway, it's not like I don't have plenty of kits to build in the meantime. This kit has been out of stock EVERYWHERE! so I'm glad I found one.

I wonder if solutions lose their potency over time? Walther's Solvaset is usually very strong and it it sort of worked with the STAR decals. The last time I used it was with my panzer 38(t) build the decals being Tamiya, and it worked very well. Sometimes I press the decal down with a paper towel or swab dampened with hot water...this works Well. Last night on my Stuart I pressed down on the decal with the tip of one of my silicone rubber brushes I got from Ammo/Mig this helped the decal to conform to some raised detail on the kit.

The decals are by STAR DECALS.

Yup, got another one. This one came from Tower Hobbies today. From Tamiya it's their Russian Heavy Tank KV-2 (35375). I've heard good reviews of this 2021 release and despite its weird looks, I decided to give it a go. Oddly enough, whenever I see this tank, I'm reminded of a parrot our family once owned. Ramon, (the parrots name) was an ungainly, gaunt, bird with an enormous head and beak. It never could be taught to speak and was afraid of people. This tank's big turret and gun - very like Ramon's head....to me at least. Anyway, the kit looks good. The tracks are the Tamiya link & length type with great detail and the turret has nice metal texture detail.

Glad to see you're building this kit as I feel it's one of the coolest looking designs of the second world war and I'm sure you'll do it justice. I may leave the beaten path of countless purchases of Tamiya armor to buy this kit....it's just that cool! Anyway, I've been having decal issues as well...the Star Decals that I've used Lately, well, are weird. They, at first, don't appear to soften with decal sol, but if you press down slightly, (I use a ammo rubber brush) they conform to details nicely. They also lie very flat.... I kind of like them and I have a lot of them. I have a set for Korean war "easy eights" that has a two-tone camo option for a Sherman..... Funny, I thought all Shermans were greenish......well anyway, On with your build!

Thanks.