Thank you for the votes of confidence. I'll see about commencing construction ASAP!

Cheers,
Jan

Greeting fellow campaigners! Just a couple of points before I get going on this build. Firstly, I noted that I didn't really show the kit box and the camo that I was concerned about, here it be:



Secondly, I promised that I'd take images of the kit tracks for John ((b) YellowHammer(/b)) so here they are, Inside and Outside.





Cheers ,
Jan

These tracks look like they have some nice detail on them. The maker looks like they have improved them over the ones on the earlier kit.

I like the camo depicted by the boxtop illustration. Does it have the thin lines of separation? I can't make them out on the screen.

Paul ((b)Hudson29(/b)), The black outlines between the colours are there but are rather fine compared to the painting illustration in the instructions. I "may" need to buy a new Sharpie marker that is "Extra Fine" as opposed to the "Fine" I have. This should prove interesting in 1/72 scale!

Cheers,
Jan

Jan,
Thanks fort he photos of the tracks. They have quite a bit of detail, especially for 1/72. Here's what mine looked like at the start:

Greetings All!

I finally started on the Vickers 6 Ton and the kit so far is living up to my lowest expectations. The Mirage kit "appeared" to be a bit over engineered much like IBG kits. LOTS of parts but are/were they all necessary?

Spent a good part of yesterday afternoon constructing the lower hull tub (usually a one piece affair with Dragon and a few other companies). Locating features for assisting pin parts placement are minimal and each part needed some time to be cleaned up due to the numerous sprue gates (attachment points). Example: the lower side panels:



Anyway, the end result, finally, was getting the lower hull finally together. There was a bit of warping of a couple of the parts and it'll need a bit of clean-up but at least I finally have something to act as a base for all the other pieces.

Here's were it stands(sits?).







Cheers,
Jan

Some very nice builds going on! And actually quite a few familiair kits being built. Kits i also have in my stash

My PzII is on hold for the moment, waiting for some other builds to be completed. But there's still plenty of time

Ok! Several things in order for this update. I finally finished an event at work that sucked up all my time for the past few weeks and finally got back around to the little tankettes.



Probably went a lot of overboard with the weathering and freehand brush camo, but on the whole I'm happy that I didn't completely destroy it. I'm less pleased with the tracks-which has been a common theme with my builds lately. These little tracks were particularly infuriating. I'll need to work out something better for the TKS-D. Anyway, now I need to add a matching quantity of dust and dirt to distract away from the copious streaking and we can move along!

Hi all, I am joining the campaign with Bronco's recent Pz.Kpfw.III Ausf A.

I tried building Miniart's Ausf. B kit earlier and had to shelf it in frustration, lots of tiny parts and brittle plastic. I believe Bronco and Miniart collaborated on this kit as they share many of the same parts. The plastic is much better and the suspension less complex.
Great looking work everyone. I am glad I went with a welded tank...

Steven,
great result with tour TKS!

Jeff

It's been almost two months since my last post here. Progress went really slow as I worked on other projects but now I've turned my attention back towards the saurer.

Painted in my approximation of what panzer grey would look like. Not exactly sure how well represented it is but I think I struck an adequate compromise between realism and artistic license.

Tracks were a bleeding pain to say the least. At this small a size, I would have preferred link and lengths. Nevertheless, the perseverance paid off and I have a good looking roll of tracks on. Photo references showed that the tracks were quite taut with hardly any sag. I decided to build the saurer in its wheeled configuration





I'll move on to weathering the vehicle after this and touching up the figure beside it which was a spare from a Tamiya kit.

Also as an added bonus, I'll also be building an extra kit. I couldn't get my hands on the BA-10 but I have the next best thing



A zvevzda gaz-aa truck which I got relatively cheaply off the net. This should be a far more relaxing go. No miniscule indy links to deal with! Because its a truck...hah!

Looks great, Bryan...I have this kit in my stash, thanks for the heads up with the tracks...

Those tracks are looking quite good!

I had link-and-length on my TKS and they still drove me nuts...which probably contributes to the less than great look I achieved. I need something like testor's glue I think, something gloopy and slow drying-my bottle of Revell's (the only thing I can get within 15 minutes) just isn't cutting it.

Anyway, I did a little more painting and then added a Meng Hotchkiss M1914 to the mount. You never see guns mounted to the AA mounts in kits...probably for the same reason I've never seen a photo of one mounted on an actual TKS. I thought it looked out of scale and ridiculous and so I couldn't resist taking a little liberty.

Edit-now that I look at it, there is no way that the MG would sit like that in its pintle-it'd pivot the other way naturally. Something to fix I guess.

The gun is almost as long as the tank

Update on my Arsenal Model Group's version of the Steyr ADGZ...sort of glad to be at the end of construction on this one. Virtually no positive attachment points, vague instructions, parts left off the instructions, yada yada yada...
and it must have been cheaper to print a set of parts in PE instead of molding an additional sprue, as there are PE parts that would have been much more suited as plastic. But I've got through it and it's an interesting subject. One day a major company might come out with this car and do it full justice- this thing cries out for a full interior and workable windows and doors (and steerable wheels!). But, a ray of light, I was able to find Bison Decals that will place this car exactly in Gdansk on Sept. 1, 1939. So, ready for priming...

Wow some really great work done these past few days. I going to have to get some of my progress pictures posted ASAP.

WO, quite a bit of activity today and at least some have shown good progress. I decided to start on the suspension of the Vickers 'E' today. The suspension on the Vickers tank appears too be nothing short of the worst nightmare I’ve ever seen in a kit!😖The instructions show numbered parts placement where they can’t reside as their orientation would end up being wrong. Been at it all afternoon and don’t have even the first set of four arms together or in position. It’s no wonder I can’t find a build review of the kit on the Internet!😝Back to my penance I guess.

--Jan

Jan - I'm glad to see you are making progress on your Vickers. Did Hobby Boss make one in 1/35?

Its good to hear that Bronco has a version of the early Panzer III out. I too have the Miniart kits but haven't had the courage to tackle them yet. Plastic quality is an important factor in the ease of a build.

Bryan - Your Saurer is looking terrific, an interesting vehicle that is rarely seen, well worth your extra effort.

The truck is much welcomed as I have the same kit and intend to build it hauling a load of scrap metal. I have plenty of wrecked model parts to make up its load . . .

I wonder if Fruil makes a set for this kit?

Steven - Your TKS is looking great! I don't think the MG is a bad thing, it shows off just how tiny this tankette was.

Hi guys.
Great progress on your builds. Some really fine models being presented. Here's my current progress on my 1/72 R35.









I still have a lot to do, including decals, clear coating, weathering, finishing the tracks and crew figure. Comments welcome.

Jan, I used a Sharpie Ultra Fine black marker to do the black outlines. It gave me much more of a consistent line than I would have been able to do with a brush. You will want to keep some scratch paper handy to blot the tip occasionally to keep it moist as it sometimes dried quicker than I drew.

My gunnery ship is on hold pending the arrival of some PE ladders. I've got the railings on the foredeck but they aren't the greatest. I'm using 1/350 3 bar railings on a 1/400 ship. They were over scale. So I removed the bottom bar and they look much more to scale to me. And I only broke off the mast and a searchlight in the process! When it comes to PE I'm all thumbs.

Keep those builds coming.
John

John,

I tried using a sharpie on a Somua S35 recently, but I found it didn't react well with my acrylics, so I ended up using a paint "pen" which worked quite well. You did really well with the lines though!

Paul(Hudon29), kit was made by Mirage and they do have a Lego(1/35) scale Vickers 6 Ton. No idea about if anyone else produced a similar kit but the larger version may have the same flaws as the Braille one!

Cheers,
Jan