Luft46's Blog

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.

Yes this is the current month’s model. No it probably won’t get finished but I’ll get stuck in anyway.

It’s the Trumpeter missiles in a shipping container kit.

This kit comes with one missile to display whereas the 40 foot container has no missiles so isn’t interesting to me. The missiles tunes certainly have plenty of mould pins to clean up!

The instructions are a little confusing so be careful or maybe that’s just the Covid speaking.

It’s got plenty of decals and a small etched brass fret so nothing too complicated at least. It comes in at over 220 parts so there is plenty to do.

The only difficulty so far has been getting the %^$## cabin to go together- three straight pieces with edge contact only has made this a fun exercise. After a few attempts it is now secured. I need to fit out the cabin and then onto the joy of the undercarriage/ sorry I meant tracks but I need to watch a video on how this is done as they really do dangle a bit off the main body.

I forgot to include the winner of the Miscellaneous section, you’ll know it when you see it as it is truly unusual.

I wasn’t the only person who thought so either going by the two guys nearby.

It’s been a month so here’s some Expo photos starting with the Swap and Sell crowd. Felt more like the old not so good days. For Covid conditions it seemed quite crowded.

The above is the arcade to Flinders Station that usually hard an ad hoc art exhibit and a great coffee shop.

First port of call after getting the tickets was off to Swap and Sell. This was more like the days of old with too many people in too small a space but this arrangement was supposedly Covid compliant.

I bought a tiny model car kit.

There was a good range of kits etc but nothing I desperately had to have.

Next stop was the traders downstairs and here I just got two books and a display stand for that Jap amphibious tank if I manage to finish it.

The first is an updated version of the NUTs & Bolts book on German AA Panzer IVs. It’s much thicker with lots more pictures and a modelling section.

The second book is the Ammo book on German armour in Italy which has quite a bit on the Panther and has lots of photos.

And lastly is the diorama base.

Next up is the actual models. I expected that given there was a two year hiatus there would be lots but some sections were still quite sparse. Perhaps others suffered my problem of lots of building but very little finished.

Customer numbers were reported as down on Saturday and I’m not sure making it mandatory to get kits in for judging on Friday really helped.

I suspect they will go back to the Queens birthday long weekend next year if at all possible.

I visited Hearns on Friday and didn’t buy anything as I often don’t. They seem to be moving more into Gundam and DnD areas with other areas especially model railways diminishing.

I think his writing is usually pretty silly but I did like the bookcover I saw at the airport recently.