Thanks for all the comments, guys! Much appreciated!

William, Great job on the Ostwind turret! Sharp skills on a turret with so many weird angles. Looking forward to see more 🙂

This will be Western Desert as well. They give you decals for the ETO but no figures. Also most of my Allied stuff is ETO green so the desert tan is a nice break from that.

I am calling this one done. The Italeri 1/35 Sherman Calliope from 1995. A nice kit although it shows it’s age in a couple of places. I tried out some new products and techniques on weathering and very satisfied.

Comments welcome

Real nice, Jesper!
Love the weathering.
Question though; are those tracklinks at the back? Were they painted OD?

Very nicely done Jesper.

Seeing as the thread is an old school build, here is an old school trick to help overcome the gap inside two half cylinders like rocket tubes or two part barrels.

Get a piece of aluminium foil - the thick stuff like in trays you use in the oven - and roll it on a paint brush handle or BBQ skewer to make a tube of foil. Make sure that the foil is wide enough so when it expands to fill the cylinder hole the foil join overlaps the other edge of the foil. Twist it to make it smaller than the hole. Add a little filler on the outside and insert that into the hole to apply putty to the kit part joins. Slowly turn the cylinder a few times to expand it in the hole and to smooth out the filler over the join - roll it so the edge of the foil is the trailing edge, not the forward edge or you will just gouge out the putty. You may need to insert a brush handle into the foil tube to keep the tension up a bit. Leave the foil in the hole but make sure the foil edge is not on the join of the kit parts and let that set.

Make sure you get some filler on the join visible on the end of the cylinder too.

When dry, you should be able to remove the foil easily as putty does not stick to the foil's coating (might want to check your brand of filler doesn't stick first). Then roll some fine emery paper into a tube so that when you let expand inside it is reasonably firm. Turn that inside the cylinder to smooth out the putty over the inside join and keep the hole circular.

Works a treat..

Update on the Universal Carrier. Major paint work is completed and washes and filers are on. I am even moderately proud of the driver (figure painting is not my forte)

I will be doing some light paint fading with oils and leave it at that.

All I will need to do after that is paint the various gubbins. Rifles, Bren guns, personal equipment etc and attach them to the model.

Sorry about the lighting, I will setup with proper lights etc for the final reveal

Lot's of nice work going on here!

Finally getting some done on mine.

Cheers Rob.

Howdy Y'all
Posting a couple of progress shots:

I had the same nasty gap everyone else is running across if they build a Monogram Sherman.

Major construction is complete. Ready for priming after I give it a soapy bath to take off the dust and oil. I'm enjoying your builds, keep up the good work.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Howdy Y'all
Progress shot on the Revell (Monogram) Sherman:

Major construction is complete, model is primed but I found a few gaps and seams that will need some putty. I'll work on this and then put away until the weather gets warmer and I do some airbrushing.
Take care and stay safe,
Don "Lakota"

Well, since it looks like I'm going to be home until at least May 20th, maybe I can get some model work done!

Stay safe out there everyone and model on!

A little more work, I have parts left over from an earlier build of this kit so will be putting 2 full engines in I have been filling the ejector pin marks and using some fine wire and stretched sprue I made the handles for the gun sights!

Cheers Rob.

Jesper, wonderful work on that vintage kit. Your added details made a heck of an improvement.
Peter, great technique. Thanks for sharing.
Rory, fantastic job on the universal carrier. I like the paintwork and the figure.
Rob, great to see a plane in this campaign. I built this kit as a kid. The build is progressing wonderfully...nice detailing.
Don, great job taming that old kit. Love the paint shop line up. A Blockade Runner....cool!

Good luck to everyone on your projects. Bill

Update on my British Paras vs Ostwind diorama.

I sourced a 37mm gun from a time frame suitable kit...a Hasegawa SdKfz.7/2. However, the gun cradle was completely wrong. So I scratchbuilt a correct one.

All of the components are ready for assembly.Again, I sourced the Hasegawa Ostwind kit to use as a template for making the parts.

Completed right side of the gun assembly.

Completed left side of the gun assembly.

Thanks for viewing. Good luck to everyone on their projects.
Bill

Calling my Universal Carrier done.

What a fun little build this was and I think it came out super snazzy.

Still working on my figure painting as its not my strong suit but gets the job done I think. Pulled the seated figure in the back from another Universal Carrier kit (dated 1994 so he was eligible)

@ William; awesome scratching there!
@ Rory; nice job! Painting came out very well!

I made some progress too!
The RCAMC-conversion, which in all honesty, actually is a fairly easy one. Easy also, because I had 2 stretchers (not the best though) that I can use.
The conversion consists of 2 tubular frames; one with the dashboard and one on the rear of the vehicle. No measurements were taken, since contemporary images appear to be all fieldmodifications with slight variations between them.
This one is the one I used as a basis; it shows most detail in one picture.



However I did deviate from it in that I covered the not so good windshield with a canvas cover. That cover is actually made from the foil bag in which the decals and clear parts came. I also made a round bridge classification shield and the cover for the left front light. In the pictures you can see that I forgot the front of that!
The stretchers I use come from Tamiya's old Land Rover ambulance (I think). They had small holes in the that needed filling. A bit of stretched sprue and a bit of glue did that trick. The hood, grill and wheels are not attached. I need to paint first. I also selected an array of accessories from the sparesbox, all in line with the age of the kit.







You see I am having some figures as well. I am still unsure whether I should merge the figures or convert the female. She is supposed to become a so-called Nursing Sister; one of the unsung heroines (horrible world!) of the Second World War and thereafter!

Great work everyone.There's enough inspiration there to last through this pandemic. Great work on the Ostwind cradle scratchbuild, Panzerman.

Cheers!

chuck

Here's my update on the Monogram Hedgehog so far:



Front needed a bit of putty, but not as much as I thought. I've seen others that needed way much more.



The molded on grab handles had to go and it was within my meager scratch building skills to replace them with copper wire.

All the entries are looking exceptional. It would make Shep very proud.

Cheers!

chuck

Next fase in this build was focusing on figures. I had some selected, but was not satisfied with the female. She is out of scale and her pose was not optimal either. Rummaging through my stash I came across a set from Masterbox, called the Maquis.

(I admit, I have to cheat on my own rules here. This set is from 2008, BUT.... the reason why I wanted to show progress on her is that I think I used Paine-techniques here.)

Not only is her size suitable, she also has the right type of clothing on her upper body and the right kind of shoes. Her hairdo would also suit the planned beret nicely! I "only" had to fabricate her pants.
Looking at the references I noticed that Nursing Sisters did wear fatogues, but with a rather poor fit. Especially the trousers appeared very loose and baggy.



So that's what I was going to make. I used 2 bits of leadfoil and that turned out quite well; only a little modelling was needed to create that baggy look and the folds into the pants. She then received her webbingpack, complete with metal mug and her right hands holds her helmet and canteen. I had to give her a haircut, so that the beret would fit in a nice female manner.
The driver is a standard Tamiya figure from the Crusader tank-kit.





I also turned my attention to the Jeep. Something I should have done earlier!
All the references showed that the spare wheel had changed sides in order to accommodate a third stretcher besides the driver. Now I had to relocate that spare wheel and that required dismantling the entire rear. That did not make the rear look any prettier, but much will be hidden by the sparewheel and jerrycan.

Ron,
Nice work. The female crew member came out rather nice. I like how you added her accessories. I like the scratch
building on the jeep also.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Shaping up very nicely guys. I am shelving the Italeri Schwimm. I really cannot justify all the work it needs, there will be virtually nothing left of a kit if I do it, which kind of defeats the purpose here.

I am changing plans and will go with the old Tamiya Horch. I have the car on its own as well as one with a flak gun, so just deciding which one. I will be scratch build detailing that one too, but at least most of it will be a kit.

Few more updates to the Monogram Hedgehog.



Adding the wooden "armor" and the wire tie downs was kind of fun to help spice this kit up a bit.





Cheers everyone.

Chuck

I have entered into the most critical phase of the build: painting!
And so far I am proceeding well....

But first some images of added details:
I added a flag, depicting a red cross flag, as shown on most of the jeeps in my references. I tried several solutions; plastic card, copperwire etc, but settled for a piece of umbrella cloth and real thread. That mimics the field-made look I was going for most.
Those jeeps often had something that looked like a broomstick tied to the radiator grill or a pole attached to the bumper. Since mine is supposed to show a field conversion, I went for a wirecutter on the bumper, used as such a pole. The stretcher racks will get a different shade of olivedrab to show they have been added later.
The stretchers got their "feet". At first I was using metal strip left over from PE-sets, but I ended up having too little, so I had to go for plastic card, which unfortunately makes for uneven rests. I also glued them inward to much.
One learns every day...
The stretchers got some stains to hint at a more serious aspect of this jolly scene...



Basecoat; Warhammer chaos black
Colour; Tamiya olivedrab
Frames and pole: mix of Tamiya olivedrab and fieldgrey.
Tires; Vallejo Panzergrau

The gloss and matt paint used for the red cross decal on the hood, the one you actually do not see, created a colour difference that has to be mitigated later.
The blanket/tarp pile from Tamiya's M3A2 kit was needed to fix the rearseat. The backrest had broken off and kept breaking off, so I had to fix that in place. There is also a small issue with the bindings of that pile....

Ron, thanks. Good job making your ambulance jeep.
Chuck, thanks Brother. Work on your Hedgehog looks good.
Ron, excellent work on your figure conversions.
Chuck, nice tie down detail on your wood (armor) slats.
Ron, paintwork looks terrific. I like the Red Cross pennant detail.

Good luck everyone on your projects. Bill

Update on my British Paras vs. German Ostwind diorama.


Painted and assembling the lower hull and suspension components.

As with most kits from that time frame, I had to fill the void under the fenders. I also battle damaged the fender ends to replicate the original tank.

Finished detailing the upper hull. I even cobbled together the wounded crewman. I left off the tank tools till the end. Time to paint.

Thanks for viewing. Good luck everyone on your projects.
Bill

Hi gang, took a break from my TD build to do a little more on my Shep Payne M48A2. Kinda reached a point last night where I need to sort out the base so I can set the angles on the suspension arms. I've raided deep into the spares for enough decorative junk - I mean useful stowage - to make it come alive!





And yes, whittling the rubber overshoes was both fun and therapeutic!