Here's my entry:



I'll probably build Free French "Loup" shown in middle, and I'm less likely to use British markings this time.

Oh! A Free French subject is excellent. We've got a lot of great entries.

I like Stuarts, cool subject!

Gloss coat applied and a first light weathering.


Still waiting for some AM to continue the build. All deliveries from overseas seem to be on hold.
More to come when the light is back and AM is on my doorstep.

A GRAVE FOR SEVEN BROTHERS


Part of the Lend-Lease plan, a shipment of 1300+ M3s were delivered by convoy to Murmansk and put in operational use by Soviet armored brigades, notably around Leningrad and Stalingrad. The tanks were designated as the M3S, the S standing for Sredniy, meaning Medium. For a long time it was believed the tanks sent to the Soviet Union were M3A3 and A5 Diesel powered sub-variants. But recently found documents suggest that all M3s sent to the USSR were the standard model, fitted with the Continental radial engine.

The Soviets quickly realized this model was not a winner and, after one year of hard fighting realised it was hopelessly outdated. Surviving vehicles (infamously called “A grave for Seven Brothers”) were retired from front-line operations and shipped to quieter or less well-defended sectors, like the Arctic front.

THE KIT
Has been review here: https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/14757

PHOTOS

Hi. Some great information with your build to start.
Enjoy your build, I will be following close.

Robert, Looking good!
Pasi and Stephen, Looking forward to your builds!

Cheers!🍺
—mike

Inside the fuselage a lot of work is required to get the cockpit installed. To the righthand side first components are glued in with CA. I did a lot of dry fitting with the flimsy resin. Learned my lessons from a former build, I started in the back this time. This will be the most visible with the seat. Closed it, all ok and another fit, etc, etc. So decision made after diner, just start glueing, with patience and a nice cold beer.
Righthand side shows the best in detail, so once that is ready, I will do the touch ups and install the instrument panel, seat and harness.
Also did a quick check for fitting the fuselage to the wings, which are ready.
Tight fit, but ok. Another lesson learned, do not shave or whatever with the fuselage and wing, it will set itself, with patience and another cold beer.
Upside down, but you get the picture I hope. The silver part is the backside of the cockpit.

From above. Tape holds it together with no stress on the parts inside, not to force to much, it still needs some sanding and tweaking to get it right.

Other views


Underside of the Spitfire is just beautiful, love the silhouette!

More to come later this week.

Hello.
Under construction.


I removed the Merlin. after a lot of attempts to get that right, decided to show it separate.
So this AC will be the second on the set. Actually the Spitfire I was planning, I made a mistake with the wings, not to fit the later air intake for the turbo. Now I maybe have to remove the wing bulbs for the cannons, will check that first.
Other Spit is buttoned up. Final fitting to get married with the wings.
Pictures of that sensational event will come later.

Howdy Y'all
I haven't had the chance to start my build yet but I'm enjoying watching this thread.
Robert: Which kit has the "Elenore" decals? I'd like to buy one, would you be able to post a photo of the box top?
Pasi: I'm looking forward to your build as I also have that kit in my stash.
I hope to start my 1/48 armored car soon.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Hi Don. the Elanor Decals come from the Black Box offering by Eduard. It is the Royal Class Edition of Spitfire Mk.IXe. OOP I know, but it still offers me plenty of spare parts and decals.

Thanks, I think I'll buy the Weekend version and use the decals from my Italeri version. Should help me save a few dollars.
Take care,
Don "Lakota"

Very nice work going on there Robert. More than a fair amount of effort going into the Spit.

Thanks Peter. Spitfires are just awesome birds and the Eduard kits are just great to build. But I never did a build out of the box. that means trouble with resin. I'm getting better so I managed to button up the original build for this campaign.
So here is a glimpse of the interior. I had to shave of the small gun blisters. Because stupid me took the wrong upper wing parts. This morning's considerations, do or die. Looks ok for now, will have to sand some more.

The silhouette

I try to make photos of the interior, but they come out blurry, so I leave that for now. All is complete inside, except for the gunsight that needs some black paint.
Last one from the righthand side.


This is one goal achieved for my short holiday. Last day I hope to get some primer on the fuselage and work on the other one, cockpit work and Merlin detailing.

And to prove the Spit has Bit.
The bad blue has a new color added.

Dutch East Indies Spitfire IXc - H-65 (1949)

More to follow

I've started on the Valentine. It begins with some interior stuff that probably won't be visible, but I'm doing it anyway. I think I'll be getting an interior kit on a T-34/85 soon so I'm taking the opportunity to get a little practice. Once I get some paint on those bits I'll post up a pic. Now searching for info on engine compartment colors on British tanks....

Jumping in with a Lend Lease Valentine

Another Valentine will be great. I'm doing a late version, a mk ix. And I've started. I did the interior bits. I need to put a little weathering on them (just experimenting really). Next is starting on the outside of the lower hull.





I've read through the instructions and there are some decisions to make, but I have no idea how to make them. There are instructions for an early version or a late version. I don't really want to buy a reference for the Valentine....

The inside that comes with the kit all put together and painted, fwiw. It's not very interesting, and none of it will be visible, but it was good to see what doing that might be like.

Even so, it’s somehow satisfying when you’ve made the effort and those parts don’t wind up in the spares box. ... Leave no sprue unclipped! 🔪
Looking good, Phil!🍺

—mike

Great build so far Phil. Like Mike said, don't leave a sprue unclipped. It's like therapy, we want to know it's there, you paid for that plastic, so do it.
Have fun and stay safe.

Had a couple of hours to work on it this afternoon. The instructions call for doing the suspension before moving onto the top of the hull. I did the first piece which has a rather delicate rod sticking up and after I glued it on I thought - if I have any trouble with the hull I will surely knock that off. So I decided to go do the hull because it looked like it might be troublesome. The hull is mostly done and the part is still there though I did hear it scrape against my shirt once - close call.



As you can see from that pic the rear inside parts are no longer attached. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but the rear plate would not go on with that stuff in there so I pulled it. I had to shave some of the rear shaft that is inside and still attached also. I'm sure I did something wrong somewhere. Looking at all the pieces and seeing how everything goes together now one could make a nice maintenance scene with this I think. Would require some patience.



The hull behind where the turret sits requires some care and in flight adjustments. It ended up fairly gappy. I was able to close the big ones with adjusting some parts and applying some glue, but there are a few little gaps where the hinges go together on the top and one between two parts that were just malformed. Nothing major. There are a lot of parts that make up the rear hull and until they are all together composing the hull it's not obvious how any of them attach to each other. You can see the filler where the big gap is - will clean that up presently.



Putting the front together was a breeze.

So after I fix and clean up the gaps I'll attach all the handles (LOTS of handles) and move on to the suspension.

Nice start Phil. I have done my fair share of builds with parts that only I know are there...

Nice job on the Spit, Robert!
Looking forward to see your Valentines, Phil and Nigel!


I started my Bedford QLD a month ago, as a holiday-week-build.

I had the pleasure of having a regular company of 5 boys(aged 5-10 years) and a teenager girl during my building sessions

To answer the hundreds of questions(some recurring like-Why Do You Do This? What's This?) reminded me of what a pleasant experience interacting with curious children is (I spent 3 years teaching geography and history at a Foreign Language HS 25 years ago).

And the "boyscouts" were very helpfull with those tiny bits, that tried to "brake free", effectively recovering all AWOL's but one

I've basically built Bedford QLD's chassy and primed it:


And I'm in the process of finding out what British colours the lorry should be painted in, so that it represents a late 1941 vehicle.
And also- what colours were used for the chassy, the cab interior e.t.c.

Any help and/or advice is warmly welcomed,

Nice work Angel. I recently joined TWENOT forum, Dutch btw, and the same question came up, how to painting this case a Bedford. Should be a Brown / Khaki, certainly not OD. That came after 1943. They have code for that, will check now.

Edit(1): SCC2 ( to depict as milk chocolate brown, after 1943 it became SCC15, a more greenish OD than American OD.
Edit(2): But this is a Lend lease, so think it depends on the nation it served under. Forgot that.

Thanks for your feedback, Robert!

I'm more inclined to look for the British Dark Green colour, that is close to the Soviet 4BO(I don't think the Soviet did bother to repaint the lorries they received).I'm sure lorries sent to Russia were not produced specificaly for Russia, but were taken from the pool of vehicles, produced for the British Army.

I found that before introduction of the mild brown SCC 2, the BA used 2 Green colours-a dark and a light one- in a 2 colour camo scheme, but I'm lacking confirmation such vehicles were shipped to Russia.

I intend to mix these colours from Tamiya XF range paints(courtesy of Mike Starmer's excellent research) and will see whether they're up to my expectations