Luft46's Blog

Whilst I was hoping to finish this loco today and hence be three kits for 2012 I have left my run too late. The grey went on last night but there are too many thungs that require seperate runs of time to succeed. I have done the decals but this will require matt varnish all over to be finished and in this humidity it is not a good option for spraying so will probably leave this for today. The wheels are also proving troublesome and even using wood glue means it will require a bit of drying time and then I want to do a little weathering so I have run out of time unfortunately it will just be the Minenraumer and LOTR figures for 2012.

Below is progress to lunch time today

May actually finish a third kit for this year as I have applied undercoat tonight.

Top left of photo, citadel green stuff on brake cylinders to be sanded down, the engine is now attached to the body, the lenses have been test fitted to the lamps, the one on the right will be painted black with mithril silver from Citadel then the lense  put on top, the hole was done by a standard drill bit by hand. The lenses will be fitted opposite to how the light in the cab was done with the silver backing removed, ie the flat part at the front rather than the back, the lenses in the kit seems wrong compared to photos on the blog mentioned earlier.

This is just to show progress, test fitting the engine to the main body.

Not much work over the last few days after a pleasant trip to Newcastle and a night away in Sydney. Have returned to the workbench tonight for more on this kit. Following on from the info in the Braillescale blog I am painting the cabin now as well as the wheels. The cabin floor is wood so have used an old bottle of Humbrol Acrylic Matt Wood 110, first coat natural, next a wash from the wood mixed with Citadel black. Last coat will be a drybrush of wood mixed with Citadel white. I do love how the Citadel paints will mix with most other acrylics regardless of brand.
The wheels etc will be painted in Humbrol Matt 174 red that was given to me to help with this project, thanks again for that one!
Will be glad to stop house type projects over the festering season.

I am halfway through stage eight now, leaving off the wheels to allow seperate painting has also meant other parts nearby must also be left off. As I will be doing some weathering after assembly this should allow the feel of the model to be integrated at the end. Another build I have seen on a blog called Braillescale about 1/72 armour mostly advises suggested colours and leaving the parts seperate till the end. The only real criticism of this kit is the plethora of mould tabs that must be removed. As suggested on that blog I will be replacing the moulded solid lenses with clear ones from redroomodels.com. I have to work out the size but that wont be hard.

This is the Hobby Boss 1/72 kit that I have just started. Step one is concerned with the tracks and I always replace these on train dios as they look somewhat contrived on the road bed material, I prefer model rail type stones for their colour. Nothing too hard about the first three steps which concern the wheel section, more about parts cleanup with lots of small plastic mould tabs to remove. I will return later to do more, I suspect I will be leaving the wheels off as they are red and best painted seperately.
Not a great fan of the plastic colour,  this will definitely need an undercoat to remove its effect, would be better if I was doing a late war version which were painted sand gelb in some cases.

This is the resin kit of a proposed EMB for the Germans. The pulse jet was fine in theory but average in practice and the boat was too slow being slower than the Schlitten. This kit was a pain in spite of its few parts requiring a fair degree of fettling incluing boring out the intake and exhaust, its not often you get to use a power drill in modelling. The Lifecolor paints were very average ti Airbrush but did have the required colours. I have reverted to hand brushing to get the job done hopefully in time for Christmas.

The fin at the back has popped off again, not the first time by a long stretch!