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And we're off to a great start! Carl

I ordered the late version from Hannants and the Special Hobby release is the same price. Oh well. Guess I'll have to pick up one of those too.

"Mistakes were made"

Another dog that liked tobacco! My sister's first dog Portia (Rottie/Shepard mix) would steal a whole pack of smokes out of guests' purses, eat the tobacco and spit out the filters. I had a get together one year and right after a friend lit a cigarette, she jumped up and snatched it out of his mouth and ate it. He said all he saw were teeth. She once drank a Mickie of peach schnapps. My sister's roommate came home to a very drunk dog.

Nice Rottie! My brother in law loves them. He only takes in rescues and sometimes they've been a challenge but he doesn't give up on them. He and his fiance currently have two, one's a long haired Rottie.

Thanks for the thread Martin. Here's our current menagerie. Sunny, my bench companion. He does like his German armour. Next up is Fursnake who's a Spitfire fan. She's also adept at overheating laptops and fridge surfing. Zoe, who gave us a big scare last month but is otherwise back to normal. The newest member is Jimmy. He's named after Sue's favourite coffee shop. Which is fitting as Zoe is named after a local bakery. Sue thinks he might be a big boy. He's nine weeks old in two days. This is when we picked him up this afternoon. Here's my first dog Checkers. With Zoe: She was an absolute diva but also one of the smartest dogs I've met. Tasha was Sue's other cat (along with Fursnake) when we first got together. She still misses her.

I know but Sue picked him so I don't want to scare her. He's 9 weeks old on Tuesday and I think he's around 15 lbs already. He was one of three in the litter which partly explains why he's so big but we'll find tomorrow at the vet what they say.

Meet Jimmy! Probably not going to have too much bench time in the short term while we get him acclimated and trained. Carl

Medium well burnt iron?

That's quite the prize and extremely generous of you Hubert. Carl

Wanted a quick build so started on a Bandai dreadnought. I'm planning to do the Prometheus.with all the stripes. Started painting on the red bits. And masking off for the grey. I'll see how it went tomorrow.

Looks good. If it's the tracks that are killing your mojo, just get a Dragon Wagon and throw it on the trailer. Done and done. Except for building the Dragon Wagon...

Speaking of German kitties with big guns, I got this in the mail today.

At first I thought you're building a Christmas tree to put it under.

You're going to like that kit Martin. Although I suspect it'll only take an hour to build and paint based on how long I took to finish it.

Peter, it hadn't crossed my mind that they wouldn't be available in the US. It is strange since they've been here in Canada for at least a couple years now. TBH, I just use Mr Color Leveling thinner as it's about a 1/3 cheaper compared to the Tamiya. Carl

Here you go. Ignore the ABS cement. Gunze had an article on their website on how to best use retarders and their Mr Color Leveling thinner. They say they're best with semi-gloss and gloss paints but not with flat ones. Supposedly the longer drying time doesn't makes flat paints more glossy. I found that bit interesting.

Just catching up on your build Harv. The floor looks great and there's not much left of the kit fuselage is there? And no, I can never get through a bottle of CA either. Carl

Very nice results there Peter. Nice and smooth. Tamiya make their own retarders. They have two, one for acrylics and one for lacquer. The lacquer one has a dark blue top. They also have a lacquer thinner with the retarder mixed in. It has an orange cap on it. I'll try to post some pics of them when I get home in a bit. The Tamiya lacquer thinner is definitely on the cool side. I've used it to strip paint off model parts including clear bits without it attacking the plastic. I found that it even helps polish bare plastic and have done it a couple times on canopies. Carl

Looks great. All that track cleanup definitely looks to be a bit of a pain. Hopefully it's not too stressful. Carl

So Martin, did you get this to replace the Mustang? I know you were complaining that the 'Stang couldn't handle winter but....

Ernie, thanks again for organising the raffle. I'm in for both please. For a gift, I'd like to contribute a $100 USD gift card to the winner's choice of the following online hobby shops: - Sprue Brothers - Hannants - BNA Modelworld. Carl

Sue dropped her favourite coffee mug. She found most of the pieces to it. I broke out the epoxy and tried to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Still missing a couple bits. I told her not to use it anymore except as a pen holder.

On the Cold War Studio turret, I have to figure out how to get it in and in what order. After some trail and error, here's what I came up with. First, reduce the diameter and length of the pin that mounts the 0.50 to the turret interior. This is trial and error but it's about half as long and a third narrower. Then put the gun in place. I've also added the shield but it's only dry fitted. Trim down the tabs on the inner walls that hold the parts together. I've found almost all the tabs in the kit are way too long and need trimming. I also had to sand back the rear edges of the interior bits. You can see where that is by the bare plastic. Don't glue the halves together. You need to slot them but glue the middle parts (Z8 & Z9) to one side. Insert and position one of the sides in the turret. Add the opposite 0.50 in its place (same as the first one). Then juggle and slip in the second half. Squeezing the rear bits together slightly helps it to slip in. One rear turret. Friction is the only thing holding everything in place at the moment. The nose turret can be inserted from below in one piece as it has a much larger opening.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I appreciate it and it helps keep me going. The engines() are done. The rear faces don't even have cooling vanes moulded into them. Good thing you can't see much of them. Next up was figuring out the turret interiors. At least the rear one anyways. I think one of the reasons HB split the turrets was so they could get the interior into them. Which meant I had to figure out how to get them into a one piece shell. Here's the kit parts inside the rear turret half. And closed up. A bit hard to get through the bottom opening if it's one piece.