Luft46's Blog

Nothing to really see as no modelling done in the last week. Between work and a weekend in Adelaide I’ve had no time. Compounding this was Jetstars decision at 4.00 am this morning to cancel my flight at 9.30 am and to then generously offer me a flight via a Melbourne 10 hour layover back to Sydney which ruined any hope of modelling this arvo. The photos are of my workbench and Melbourne airport.

Just a quick update.

The sub is now getting prop blades added and the Triebflugel is getting stuff done in the cockpit area. I’ve also done the central hub that the three wings are attached to.

Not much progress to see here.

The week was mostly work and sociak stuff yesterday. The submarine is stuck around the prop area as some careful sanding is needed. A little but more on the Triebflugel cockpit and engines was done but not much.

Last year for something to do I recorded in an Excel spreadsheet all the books and magazines I had read for the year.

This year for something different I thought I’d try and do a workbench photo every Sunday to show how things are going. I’m not quite as cool as my kids with the bReal app that randomly generates a request for them to take a photo and share a la Instagram with friends during the day. This will just be a few progress shots with occasional comments.

Kaiten

The back end around the props is giving me trouble so back on another day when I’m less tired.

Triebflugel 1.35 Miniart

So just a quick wrap up.

Only two kits finished this year – the multi barrel AA gun from Takom and the ICM Sdkfz 222 AKA Lt Grubers little tank.

I’m also still working in the Kaiten 10 sub in 1.35 from MicroMir. I’m now down to the tail end fins etc. and closing in on needing to do a primer coat. As you can see it just needs the Milliput clean up and maybe one more PSR cycle.

I’ll also need to assemble and test fit the props as well as doing the control rods. I’ve also had a closer look at the V1 tank launcher and that mostly needs masking and painting now. A job for the new year. The Triebflugel is on a rest whilst I do the sub unless I get some extra modelling time.

Happy New Year to everyone!

The Kaiten 10 kit from Mikro Mir in 1.35 is this week’s kit. Once I get the main body finished off I’ll be adding the tail section without the props. After that it’ll be time for the control rods with the guidance hooks. The rods will be 0.3mm wire but I’m going to need to find something from the spares box for the 6 u shaped hooks. The box top only shows 2 and is wrong as the RH one goes back into the body just before the tail fins.

There’ll not be much modelling till Boxing Day with all the usual Xmas stuff.

So here’s the beauty shots. The very light weathering may not be visible. After all Lt Gruber loved his little tank so it’s unlikely it ever got very dirty.

Would I recommend this kit – definitely not unless like me you really needed a Sdkfz 222 in 1.72. I imagine a 1.35 one would be a much easier proposition.

Luitenant Grubers little tank is now finished. To be accurate this is the correct version of this armoured car if ‘Allo ‘ Allo’s producers had have had access to the real thing rather than mocking up one based on a Humber armoured car.

The kit is from ICM and seemed to fight me a lot. I don’t think it helped that it is so damned small and fiddly. Highlights at the end were decals that were slow to release and then brittle when released. The number plates were oversize and trimming the edge film was necessary. It tool about five attempts to get these to not break up. The crosses were out of register and replaced by Popy 1.144 decals from an aircraft kit.

The other major problem was the gun barrels which both broke but fortunately glued back on ok. I really do love metal barrels and must remember this for the next time.

Years ago I used to often work on two or three kits at once but with the recent weather of the last few years I haven’t been doing thus in part due to not doing any airbrushing.

Currently I’m working on the lovely Eduard Mig 21 and the older ICM 1.72 Lt Grubers armoured car which I airbrushed a few weeks ago. As I’m using Humbrol Satin White for the front bumper marking it is taking a whole to paint these especially as my masking didn’t work that well and I’m hand painting instead. In spite of all this hassle it’s starting to come together slowly.

I’ve now finished 3 stages on the Missiles in a container kit and about half the parts count.

I’m at the point where I need to start doing some painting and there is too little likelihood of sunny weather soon so I’m going to put this to one side.

Stay tuned for the next kit of the month.