Luft46's Blog

Yes finally finished it. After lots of backwards and forwards, including having to reglue the tank on in a better position it is now complete. Whilst I wanted to put the pistol port chains on these were just too tiny in 1.72Otherwise I am very happy with it though nearly ran out of one weathering dust colour and that caused some worries. I’ll probably have a bit of a break and clean up before resuming the railway stuff.

I got these in the mail yesterday from Poland. 5 different weapons I had ordered to go on some Luft46 planes.

All are 3D printed. The printing is better than past examples I have seen but you can still see the lines a bit so you must choose whether to sand these off. Given the size of some of these I’m sure this will be difficult. Complicating that decision is that some of them have quite amazing level of detail.

The R1000 rockets and the Hs293 derivative have extras like the arming screws and a tiny propeller on the Hs293.

The Rottkapchen is very small and after reading the instructions included I am now more inclined to use it in a armour setting maybe on top of a tank with a rail.

Other points are that a quick wash with detergent is advised as they are a bit greasy.

The R4M rocket container is a true joy. Instead of taking the easy way out and moulding it as one piece – e.g. Brengun with their Natter nose this has 4 parts…. a nose and rear cap , pylon and a main body. The pylon is keyed to the main body to get it’s position right.

The main body has the rockets and exhaust tubes moulded as one piece but each rocket front sticks out part of the way so painting each nose in white is possible. The photos do not do this justice.

I think this is as good as it will get for L46 weapons until 3D printing can be done completely smoothly. A bit of Tamiya primer does help.

Just trying this out on my tablet. A serious post to follow later.

Finally sprayed my 3 storey KV2 tonight.

I’ll be away in Melbourne later this week so this is all the progress for the next 2 weeks.

This was from Metro Hobbies in Melbourne via the usual average service of Australia Post. As is so often it was left as a note in my mail box with no attempt to ring my doorbell. Three days later with a day off I could retrieve it.

Its a big box tightly packed with plastic and a nice box art.

Overall it looks very buildable with a lot of detail and a 30 page instruction manual. Only 2 negatives are the lack of decals for the various dials on both kits and the gun barrel kill markings and the split plastic halves for the gun barrel.

Fixes for these are a set of generic instrument decals I have somewhere and a new metal gun barrel if that exists from one of the aftermarket firms. I’m off to model expo in Melbourne in 3 weeks so

I’ll try and find one there.

Wandered into Hobbyco in Sydney and found this Hase J46 kit combo. Neither flew in real life but should be fun and the camo schemes are easy. Not sure of the decal though. I thought it was a bargain for $72 AUD.

On the news front Hylands books are due to close next month so there goes the last big military bookshop in Australia. I’m a bit sad at this but like many they failed to adapt to the internet and just got caned in the market place. Still very disappointed.

On other fronts I’m doing some modelling. Nothing major but slow progress on the train stuff. I’ve done some weathering on the tracks and the hut courtesy of some new paints specifically for weathered wood. Pictures next time.

The last picture is the Miniart 1.35 scale Triebflugel due in a while. It’s going to be ridiculously tall and the scale is strange but I gots to have one. Amusing Hobby are doing one in 1.48 and that will necessitate 2 versions being day and night fighter. I may try and stretch the night version

The other thing occupying my attention recently has been the 2 sets of drawers I have bought.

The wooden set ( library catalogue card drawerd ) were the ones I really wanted but refurbishing them has meant that they are too good for the garage and they are now destined for the front room. The only hindrance is that polishing the knobs and brass card holders is a slow process even with a Dremel.

The metallic set were not what I originally wanted but are now great. The only work involved was in creating many balsa dividers and the labels for the front of the drawers. I can now find all my many small parts and accessories.

Last up is a disturbing visitor to my work bench and the view out of my window recently.

Progress so far on the rail items including the Ratio kit

It’s been four months since my last entry and there is a reason, mostly work related.

I quit my job due mainly to a difficult boss, my replacement lasted 2 weeks before she did the same. The play out of all this has dragged out over the last few months and my modelling has suffered. It’s not that I haven’t modelled, it’s just that it hasn’t been very effective. The last KV2 is still unfinished.

In the meantime I have been dabbling with some OO/HO kits. The first is a abandoned wagon in 5 pieces from Ratio that apart from a little filler and some wood strip took very little to do. This came from the front of a railway hobby magazine. The other 2 kits from my stash are both from Dapol being a JCB excavator and a BP tanker. Both are 60’s vintage kits and needed lots of part thinning. In the case of the tanker I am replacing the ladders with etched brass ones. For the excavator the two buckets needed major thinning to look vaguely prototypical. The cab also needed some clear plastic for this which was not supplied.

Images to follow later.