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Me too! And a -1D to go along with it. Just need to figure out when I'll do them. So true for many people. Sue is the primary wage earner in our home and with me already a stay at home dad, it's made things a bit easier. The part time work I had while the kids were in school is gone so that's my modelling budget with it. Likes others on here, I've got a decent sized stash and there's stuff I've got preordered and paid for to get my new car smell fix. Back on topic, prior to the current situation, I had just a couple kits in mind. - Italeri 1/12 Lancia Delta - Special Hobby Whirlwind Carl

Why did I know you'd be the one to bring up Girls und Panzer? Nothing like watching a Tiger 1 do drift turns. I wanted to get the big T-28 tank after watching the film. The Dragon kit is hard to find these days. The BT-42 scene is great fun too. Carl

Great pics Ernie. I was looking at the pedal assembly and thinking no way that'll work but you've proved it goes together the way they show. This is definitely a labour of love for the kit designers.

Yellowstone posted this handy poster to show correct social distancing

Ernie, this really looks to be a fantastic first release of a 1/32 kit. I'm curious to see how they tackle the cowling knowing how much trouble it gave you on the Lukgraph kit. Carl

I believe that RN seatbelts are on the PE fret too. Considering Robert Hampton Gray is the only Allied soldier honoured with a monument placed by the Japanese and that he flew a Corsair, that would be great if they did. Carl

I've heard good things about the Sherman kit John. I wouldn't mind getting their new Sherman Firefly. Carl

The King Tiger would be fairly easy and possibly by default, the Jagdtiger it's based on the King Tiger. Carl

I was on the Ikea website looking for some storage options for the boys' video game systems and saw that they've got a display case on sale that should fit some 1/32 stuff nicely. https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/fabrikoer-glass-door-cabinet-white-20400573/ The regular price of $299 still applies to the other colours but the white seems fine especially at $169. That's Loonies too so just around $120-ish US. The Ikea near me has a pick up option so now to find the cash. Carl

I think those were called Torbeau. Great story about building with your dad. Ron, any idea how they connected the Townend ring to the exhaust pipes? Just wondering as it doesn't look like it would be easy.

Man, all I've got for home defense is a couple of Blade Runner blaster water guns. Good for dealing with those marauding gangs of squirrels but that's about it.

Cool! Talk about a fast turnaround.

Confetti explosion! Ambush scheme? Is that the Trumpy E-10 kit?

My LHS is closed to the public but will open by appointment for orders placed by phone or on their website. You have to pay first so when you show up, they just hand the order to you. Keeps the contact to an absolute minimum. Carl

Ive been working away on the Marder but haven't really logged my progress. It's pretty much finished at this point. Here's the turret assembly. And the hull All that's left is the hull MG and the exhaust.

Thanks Phil! Try de-tacking the paint masks first. Some folks will gently apply the mask to their hands or another clean surface first so that the adhesive isn't as strong. I generally don't do that as either the masks are too tiny and potentially fragile or I've repositioned them a couple times which helps reduces their adhesion. Here's my favourite mask that I've used so far: Just need to build the rest of the model to go with it.

It's made by Hasegawa. I use it for cutting quick circles but mostly for masking off wheels. The diameters go up in 0.5mm increments which makes it easy to find the right size. https://www.hlj.com/cutting-template-c-hsgtp-7

Sadly, it's not much different here in Canada. One of the conservation authorities here decided to close all their parks as of Sunday. We were at one on Saturday (their smallest) and things were fine. It wasn't crowded and people were doing the social distancing thing properly. Apparently that wasn't the case at their larger parks so they decided to close them all. Which is a shame when you've got small kids who have excess energy to burn. Guess I'll have to go to plan B:

No pics but received a bunch of paint in the mail. For those of us in Canada, Sunward Hobbies carries Gunze, AK, Tamiya and some other brands of paint, even cement and CA. They'll ship orders over $60 free via ground too. Since many of us are stuck indoors, this may be a bit of help. https://www.sunwardhobbies.ca/ Carl

The F-16 tail looks good there Tony. Thanks for the heads up on the decals as I'm planning to do the same one.

I masked and painted the wing stripes last night. This just leaves the fin flash left to do. Which I nearly forgot about.

Thanks Rob! I followed the instructions included with Victory Productions decal sheet which shows the irregular cutouts. I think the Spitfire was painted that way so as to avoid painting over as much of the fuselage codes as possible.

Happy birthday Hubert!

A small update. I assembled the lower cowl and intake but didn't get the intake aligned correctly so there's a step in it that would be a bit of a pain to fix. Thankfully I have extra Spitfire parts so I pulled out another cowl and put that one together. The misaligned one is on the left while the new intake is yet to be joined to the cowl.

Space Battleship Yamato 2202 is a Japanese anime series. It's the second season, 2199 was the first one. It was renamed Star Blazers for us round eyes. Oh wait, I'm Chinese. Anyways, it's a remake of the original series which came out in the late '70s. 2199 is about the war between Earth and the Garmillas Empire. Earth has been bombed into submission and is near defeat when they get an offer of help from an alien planet called Iscandar. To get there, the UN Cosmo Navy is given plans for a faster than light engine and build a battleship using said engine to make the journey called the Yamato. Long story short, the crew make it to Iscandar, get the cure and home again in time to save the planet. 2202 is the second season and is 3 years later, hence 2202. This time there's a bigger threat called Galantis that's wiping out everything in the galaxy. So off they go again. Here's the opening credits if you're interested: