I think I can be done by July 4th.

No problem making the deadline, Kelly: It's Tamiya kit so just drop a tube of glue in the box and shake it a few times! I love Tamiya!

Nice 250, Richard! Good luck not breaking that antenna!

If you work half as fast as Richard did, you'll be eating BBQ by 4 O'clock!

Somebody call for an Uber Driver? ...



Just the base colors for now — shadows, highlights, matte varnish to follow. 🎨

—mike

The smoke is a great touch.

Mike, that driver figure looks great. Wonderful for atmosphere!

The link and length tracks are now installed.

Easier than the running gear had been to clean up, line up, and assemble, the treads too were nevertheless more complicated than they needed to be. Despite the impressive parts count, the simplified tracks still lack the complex surface detail of the originals. Together with the running gear & chassis mounts, the finished assemblies consist of 83 separate parts.

They ended up looking ok, but honestly, I’m glad to be done with this part of the build!

I didn't think Uber drivers were allowed to smoke

How are the eyes Tim?

So damn small....that's beyond me!

As you can tell from my absence in the Gallery, I jinxed myself and failed to meet the original deadline. Even with a much appreciated extension, I'm still in a hurry to get where I'm going, so I'll be giving this driver a pass! ... Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

—mike

You mean if you have ammo rounds and targets to use them on don't you?

Personally I prefer to damage my lungs with solvent based paint fumes, styrene dust and the odd trace of candle smoke when stretching sprue... the liver is another matter

I'm getting close, not much really to show at the moment. Had a hiccup where the overstressed join on the upper hull to lower hull side popped after I used white spirit to do the fading, so that needed repair, filling, sanding and touch up painting. Waiting for that to dry so I can fade that in, add some dust and the straps on the rear... then ready for the final reveal....

The tow pintle provided by PST was awful, but a replacement from the scrap box (originally from a German Sd.Kfz. 251 halftrack, I believe) was an easy fix. Mudflaps and a spare tire round out the details at the back.

Very nice, Tim! Are you going to put a small boat in the bed?

Mark, that's not a bad idea – the Soviets seem to have had the same thought!

Build it and they will come...

Richard....Cant wait to see your paint job.

The forward tow hooks supplied by PST were ugly J-shaped blobs, flat on one side, both of which I managed to break trying to remove from the sprue. The scrap box didn’t yield any replacements this time, so I raided a Revell 1/285 scale USS Burton Island icebreaker kit for its crane hooks.

Cut down and slightly reshaped, they became 1/72 scale halftrack tow hooks!


Other details included the a .020 inch plastic disc radiator cap made with a Waldron Model Products #3 (.081) punch, and a streering wheel & gearshift from the scrapbox.

Tim, Nice work on the USS ZIS-42. I really like the added details.

—mike

Great work so far Tim

Well I'm calling mine done. The ammo magazine for the 20mm went AWOL, so I have to paint a spare, but I'll do that when I paint my next build.

Tried some of the 'new' techniques, fading with oil and mixing pigments with resin fixer. Obviously need to develop these more as I'm not totally satisfied with this one - but that is what the Hobby is all about.

Also did the tried and tested use the foil from a crisps packet to make the shiny mirror face (punched out a disc. A bit hard to photograph that, but you will get the idea from the pics).

Super work Peter, that looks great! Thanks for participating!!

Fabulous work Peter! I like it a lot - the paint job really pops!

I'm trying.

Who needs sleep Kelly?

Thanks for the kind words guys.

Plenty of time left, Kelly, 11 more days...