It's about time I got underway the Airfix Walrus still isn't due for release yet though you can pre-order it but no idea on delivery time. SO with time marching on I've gone through the stash and come up with this wee gem. The Eduard 1/48 Bf110E weekend edition kit. Love the colour scheme and the subject should look great all bombed up even has a corrected fuselage so I'll have a spare possibly for my 1/48 scale Fujimi Bf110 although I'm unsure of exact fit but it could be a fun conversion.

Chris, I've wondered about that kit. Looking forward to it!

Welcome aboard, Chris!

Well, that's it!

I've put the pictures into the campaign gallery.
Thanks for this great campaign, I will follow it.
Maybe I stumble into another kit to build for it....

Great job, Peter, that looks super!

Thanks for the welcome guys.

Peter I've always liked the X-15 since I had a Rocco tank kit (I think) of it as a youngster. Looks really good, does anybody do a 1/48 scale kit of it?

Got a bit more painting completed. Need to work on all the tools and exhaust. Then add the r/c equipment.

Thanks guys for your appreciation
@Chris -You should look for the Special Hobby(CZ) kit if you want one in 48 scale

Dan, fit problems and all, it still looks great. Your X plane too Peter. Impressive builds the both.

Very nice camo job, Mark, was it easy (easier than normal) at that scale??

1:16 scale is much easier to work with.

Ive completed the Sherman and currently working on the base of the diorama. For the Sherman I attempted to replicate the one in the picture as best as I could. Unfortunately there isn't a picture of the left side of the tank so my work on that side was completely speculative. Once I finished the assembly I applied some coats of putty and stippled Mr. Surfacer to mimic the pitted steel and the likely numerous coats of paint on the real tank.

Im in the process of collecting up materials to finish up the base.

So after several hours of careful snipping cleaning and gluing I've reached this point in my build. There's more than a weekends worth of work in this kit.

Let's build a wall....no not that wall.

As a reminder, I switched from the Miniart Crossroads Base to the Miniart French Farm Gate kit. The plan is to build this as a graveyard wall for an idea I'm mulling over. Why a graveyard wall? It seems to be a popular place...people are just dying to get in.
First up is clean up. For those not familiar with Miniart's building and base kits...they are vacuum formed kits. They require alot of cleanup. This one is actually pretty easy...the edges are mostly straight.
The kit comes with a nice looking gate with double doors...one with a smaller walk-through door. Like many Miniart building sets, they include a sprue of mixed details. For this kit it is the ironwork for the walls. The rest will go into the spares and includes an assortment of doors, windows, and blinds.


We'll start with the gate. Being a vacuum form kit, the interior is hollow...these are shells. They tend to be a bit flimsy and the edges rarely line-up well. There are various ways people fill the interior, mostly to make these things sturdier.
I used a lengths of styrofoam for the gate.


For the wall sections I used cardboard. I didn't have any styrofoam sheets thin enough to fit.The cardboard worked very well...a perfect fit. In hindsight, I probably would have used sprue or styrene rod to make support/connectors for the sections.


Wall sections and gate halves together. I added styrene strips to the bottoms of the wall sections and gate. These help with assembly and give the bottom a flat, even surface to sit on. I made them short so the ends were not covered. I plan to add more strips to connect the sections all together. It should help strengthen them.


Gate posts and wall end sections. The wall bits have cardboard cores. The posts have styrofoam. The edges needed alot of clean up. I also scribed the edges to have the stone match up better. Some of these post halves look better together than others. The bottoms will be covered by the wall sections so I didn't worry about the lower half of each side.
I will cut the end pieces (note the marked line) and make it look like an undamaged wall. I have some extra ironwork pieces in the spares from another kit. I'll use these for the ends.


Wall assembled. I decided to leave the small wall end pieces off for now. I'm not sure if I want to add them straight, at a 90 degree angle to give a corner (or corners), or mix one straight and the other as a corner.


Now the doors. The kit comes with two pairs of doors. As mentioned, one door is solid. The other has a smaller walk-through door. It would have been a nice touch to send a second solid door so you could have two solid doors. Both sides are different so you can't flip one solid door around
The kit comes with six large hinges and wants you to use four (2 each) for the large doors and the remaining 2 for the walk-through door. I think they are too large so I gave each large door three hinges. These are bulky looking doors and three per door looks workable. I'll scratchbuild and add smaller hinges for the walk-through door.
I am thinking about cutting the tops of each door along the top frame beam. But I'm going to think on that for a bit.



And that's where I am now. This is actually a nice little build and I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to cut their teeth on a Miniart building kit. Next update I'll probably start on the ironwork...which will require a lot of careful modification. I'll decide on a base for it and start planning the grave markers and shrubbery.

Looking good Alex, and I appreciate the detailed build!

Hi Guys Almost forgot about this campaign. This kit has been sitting in the back of my stash for a while and its always good to have some bases to display built kits on


I used a broken exact o blade to score the plastic sheeting before snapping it off

Now to smooth out the edges with some sand paper before gluing the half's together
10 pieces and 7 steps in the instructions

Looking forward to the paint treatments on these buildings!

A bit of a rough build there Shawn. actually looks quite effective for what you plan.

You think that is not a weekend build, Chris. Try cleaning up individual track links. The instructions say 138 per side, with 3 attachment points to clean up on each .... I don't want to contemplate the math, lets just say.... quite a few hours work.

The rest of what I have been up to in the pic. Cut down the inner wheel rim sections and fit to the best of the 4 Resin wheels. Filled the air holes and scraped out the flaws, then sanded and buffed the rim faces. I hope they will look okay after I prime them and see if there are issues.

Also added missing detail in the rear axle and differential housing. The oil drain plug of the kit is right in the center, which anyone with an ounce of sense knows is wrong. That was removed and relocated lower, so the weld seam that runs right through the centre of the housings could be added. The two tabs on top will have actuated rods attached to them, that come of the mechanism on the main missing cross member




Closer look at the scratch built cross member's etc. There is more to be done here.


The rear of the just the kit has some big flaws in shape and accuracy, not in the design of what I scratch built, as Hobby Boss just don't provide any of it, but the main chassis rail ends and where the lower hull and chassis meet. They are shorter than they should be and the end horizontal section that is shaped like a dog leg has the angle upward too steep as a result. It is like they got to this part of the design and someone said "Okay, pencils down, time is up" - and someone quickly finished the design while the papers were collected.

Rather than do a whole scratch build of the rear section, I accepted it as close enough, but then built the missing parts to fit the kit.

Yes. Peter, I have heard about some discrepancies with this kit, thanks for the heads up, hopefully we'll get through it!

Nice progress, Shawn. You have gotten quite far already.

Alex, great work on the buildings. I have these kits test the sanity of the builders

Peter, those track links. My eyes hurt just looking at how small they are. Looking forward to see more later.

Pete I hear you about individual track links I used kaisen tracks in my PzIV build recently and that was tedious enough at 115 links per side!

Well here we are further along with the build some minor fit issues with a wing but nothing that couldn't be remedied. I've got the cockpit painted and assembled although there still are some details I need to paint and add.

Here a few pics for you to see where I am at right now.

I recently got a wild hair about the Sheridan. Hope I get it done in time. BTW I am looking for a GPS sight cover to replicate the TTS version if anyone can help. The Tamiya M-60 doesn't seem accurate enough though as there is no circular piece depicted on the right side.

Welcome aboard, Doug, and there's nearly 3 months left...

Hi All,

This should count, at least it gives me someplace to document my build.
When visiting my son in Seattle I went to the IPMS Seattle show and My son and his wife really liked all the Anime and Gundam stuff. They both wanted to build one so they challenged me to a build with them. We each purchase a MG kit and will build them before the head off to Japan late July. I usually build Planes/tanks/ships/cars. 1st time for everything.

Here is my choice, But I think I will turn it into a semi-Samurai figure.

Welcome, Jeff!