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Fishwelding

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Everything posted by Fishwelding

  1. Fishwelding
    Ah well. I'll get it right next time around! I can still act on this, since I'll need to mess up the rear ramp, too. Not much to report this week. After adding exterior details, I began painting, starting with a coat of lacquer primer. Figuring that the division shape/color/number marking (1-36 Infantry) was a red circle, I painted for that, and added a mask on either side of the track. That is pure speculation; the period black-and-white photographs I have seem to suggest a different color than yellow (since it doesn't look like the same shade as the
  2. Fishwelding
    All closed up. Time to start detailing the exterior.
  3. Fishwelding
    This build is usual for me; it didn't seem like it would be much more work to do an interior, especially with details only really visible through open hatches. But it turned out to be more work than I anticipated! So this is ready to close up. In the fall/early winter of 1963, these M113s were still fairly new. So weather was confined to some floor panel chipping (overdone! I got lazy and tried using a fine-tipped sharpie) and some dirt (Vallejo pigment, mixed with one of their washes.) I got some pads and belts on the seats, using Kneaditite putty and masking
  4. Fishwelding
    Message board sources claim that early M113s were simply white inside, rather than the pale green seen in M113s for most of their service life. I like using Archer dry transfers, and eagerly employed their M113 interior markings, but in retrospect these might be for later units. Perhaps I should have stuck to Tamiya's old decals. Now, I need to figure out how to add and arrange some interior stuff, visible through the open hatches. If I build the vehicle on exercise, my sources suggest that the units participating in Big Lift drew ammunition just like a war situatio
  5. Fishwelding
    An Update. I still need to complete the infantrymen, but the BRDM guy is done.
  6. Fishwelding
    I sense that we're about to get a new crop of M113 kits from Asian manufacturers, which is fantastic news. Meantime, I figured I'd go one last round with Tamiya's ancient kit. I built a lot of these, including a few as a kid. When I didn't have a lot of money, it was good value, as it includes a basic interior and has potential for improvement by a determined modeler. The included '60s-'70s era U.S. infantry aren't bad, and could be used to easily depict other nation's troops as well. This time around, I'm building toward a 36th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division M113 "s
  7. Fishwelding
    After trying this with their acrylic lacquers, I don't often use their alcohol-based thinner anymore. The lacquer stuff speeds up drying to such an extent that I can mask over paint just after cleaning the airbrush. This means very quick painting, and the finish seems pretty hard, too.
  8. Fishwelding
    Trying to finish a 1/72 P2V Neptune. It's been going fairly well, but it just seems like a lot of work for some reason. I'd like to get it done by Spring. In general, I'd like to finish a lot of started-but-unfinished models in 2017. That doesn't mean I won't start some new projects, too, though.
  9. Fishwelding
    If my hobby is a dangerous addiction my wife is decidedly an enabler of the worst sort. She supplied me with an old DML Light Seal Support Craft for a diorama with a PBR kit (Who isn't planning to build that diorama some day?) Even more impressive, she authorizes me to take big advantage of post-Christmas sales. Plenty of Soviet-era aircraft and artillery on the way.
  10. Fishwelding
    This is the big problem with my enormous supply of unbuilt and partially-built kits. It's the reason I've sold some in the past, but I still have quite a few I'm increasingly doubtful I'll build. I'm now trying to stop buying new kits until I finish some builds. About the very best that can be said about my hobby shop-like shelves is that I have a large supply of figure parts and accessories for armor modeling. If, for example, I'm building a Soviet-era ZSU-23, I can on a whim decide to make in the centerpiece of a small diorama. I can find figure parts, Kalashnikov rifles, a
  11. Fishwelding
    Here's an interesting episode from the interwar period: the SS Hoover's grounding on the Taiwanese coast. I can imagine possibilities for dioramas (1/700?) or just for building the ships involved. USN and IJN ships are available, at least in some scales, although meticulous modelers are looking at some research and modification As I have two Revell 4-stacker kits to build, I might make one of the tin cans involved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_President_Hoover#Aground_on_Kasho-to
  12. Fishwelding
    Unless I find substantial differences between NVA rifles and what I'm getting in plastic out of Italeri's "Modern Weapons" set, I'm going to use the stock Italeri items. At really small scale I'm not as concerned with details. The ICM troops included AKs, of course, but bizarrely my copy of that kit had some sort of weird stickiness on the plastic parts. Alcohol wouldn't clear it. Diluted acetone cleaned up the troops' parts, but this wrecked the kit rifles. A few updates about the pen I used: I wrecked a tip adding the pattern to two troops. Replacement tips (and ink) are avail
  13. Fishwelding
    Faces and hands done in oils. I'm not thrilled with the result. I feel I did a sharper job on past figures, with more dramatic color variation. I'm getting old, and it's probably time to start using magnification, either reading glasses or even an optivisor. But these are good enough, especially after the infantryman gets a steel helmet. I don't know why it didn't occur to me until now, but the pointing soldier should probably have his mouth open, as if he's speaking.
  14. Fishwelding
    Danke, Hajo! There's a guy over at Armorama who printed his own Strichtarn decals, but I've never seen them from decal makers who sell camouflage sheets. I agree! I picked up AFV Club's M109A2 a little while ago. Very glad to see the return of the M548, too. The hilarious thing is I've got a bunch of old kits squirreled away to build: Academy and Tamiya M113s, Esci M60s, Italeri M109s, Escl and Dragon BMPs, and so on. I figure these are still good for dioramas, though, since generally the scene is more important than detail or precise dimensions of the vehicles therein, especially aft
  15. Fishwelding
    Somehow, a set of dinkies made it to the United States in (I think) the 1950s. My father had 'em, and I inherited 'em. For an USian kid they made me unusually familiar with British military hardware. I spent hours refighting El Alamein after watching (on our Public Television station, that ran British TV) British war propaganda films. Later, as a modeler, I'm fond of building these old friends when kits are available. I've built Tamiya's Quad/25lb QF set a bunch of times. Last year, while in Edinburgh Scotland I picked up an Airfix Saracen at Harburn Hobbies, planning to display the fini
  16. Fishwelding
    My local hobby shops are either not very local or are uninterested in plastic models. When I'm visiting far away places, though, I do buy models in "local" shops. Otherwise, I'm about 95% internet purchases. This gets complicated, though, since many of my internet purchases are smaller shops with brick-and-mortar retail, although I order through their own little e-commerce site or Ebay.
  17. Fishwelding
    As a regular Cold War modeler I have plenty of U.S. and Soviet hardware on my shelf. Recently I've paid more attention to other Warsaw Pact and NATO states' forces. I'm building a BRDM-2 in East German (Nationale Volksarmee) colors, and have a few troops to display with it. The trouble is strichtarn, the NVA's characteristic "rain"-pattern camouflage printed onto field uniforms and other textile equipment. I've tried several experiments to reproduce this pattern, but only recently have something I'm semi-satisfied with. I'm not attempting scale results, because they probably wouldn't
  18. Fishwelding
    A little work this weekend: I added some extra plastic to the cockpit parts to suggest more detail. The pilot gets a stick and throttle, supplied by the kit's included photoetch fret. The backseater, per the U.S. Navy's RIO tradition, does not have flight controls. This effectively means I'm building some sort of combat ship, and not a pilot trainer. The kit's included photoetch parts are some sort of steel alloy, and so not as easy to cut from the fret as brass. On the other hand they bend neatly where required and don't bend easily when you don't want them to. Some of the added deta
  19. Fishwelding
    Hasegawa imagines the VF-1 canopies’ cross-section to curve past 180 degrees, so that at their widest the canopies bulge past the canopy sills. This is nifty but production leaves a mold seam running down the top of the canopy piece. To remove that I used fine-grade sanding and polishing sticks, followed by some plastic polish. The YF-19 pilots don’t fit perfectly into the VF-1 seats but I thought these pilots looked a little lean to begin with, so I’m adding some plastic to them to “snug” them into the seats. Plus, I sanded away some bulk from their helmets for better fit and appearan
  20. Fishwelding
    This build will be mostly out of the box. The exceptions to that are weapons and crew. I considered some “modern” jet crew but instead opted to install Macross VF-19 pilots. I’m modifying them somewhat because, as with Macross VF-1 pilots, I think the helmets look too heavy. I'm not yet sure what I’m doing for weapons. Hasegawa’s VF-1 set is seemingly the obvious source, but I’m eager to employ some of the ordnance from Bandai’s new set, too. I might (also) include some missiles from Hasegawa’s Starblazers Cosmo Falcon kit. They’re small enough to be easy to fit in a variety o
  21. Fishwelding
    Nah, not really. I just had some jars of Testors enamel paint that were low, left over from various other projects, and getting old. So I wanted to use up old paint. It sort of looked like a Swedish finish, but I after masking the nose I wanted to paint the thing in a day, so I didn't want to mask the ambush camouflage. Besides, while I am willing to be inspired by historical or contemporary finishes, I like to do sci-fi stuff in a finish that is at least somewhat different than something in real life.
  22. Fishwelding
    This is not my finest work, but it’s done enough that I did the official photo shoot for my records. A tragic shelf-case begun around 2002, I finally wrapped this kit up in a drive to finish some of my neglected, half-built projects. (Some details remain to be added, which I’ll put on in the next few weeks.) This is the first Hasegawa Valkyrie I’ve finished. I bought a bunch as soon as they appeared and launched into this one the day they arrived. The kits are jewels, collections of finely detailed parts that build into surprisingly intricate models, given that their prototypes are from
  23. Fishwelding
    A few comments above point to the internet as a culprit. It's certainly an enabler for me. I work essentially two jobs and am in the process of fixing up the house I live in. I don't have a lot of free time right now to build, but very little free time is needed to shop for and buy model kits, on my computer or even my phone. So my interest in the hobby is "satisfied" by buying kits, since I realistically have little time to build them. Not good. It's kind of like eating calories you're not burning, and gaining the wrong kind of weight as a result.
  24. Fishwelding
    This is particularly attractive to me, as I've always wanted to weld, and I'd prefer steel over wood. Might be awhile 'till I get the free time, though. That's awesome, too. I forgot to mention in my original post that the bench I built is on casters. All subsequent benchwork, and even a lot of storage racks or shelving units, will be wheeled as well. I have no trouble with the bench moving when I don't want it to, and unlike living space furniture (my workspace is in an unfinished basement) appearance is not an issue. Therefore, it's nice to have everything mobile in order to get
  25. Fishwelding

    M48A5

    Fishwelding replied to JB2013's topic in Cold War

    Academy made an M48A5 kit. I realize it's older, but would it get him closer to an A5, with less work? Or are there good reasons not to start with that kit? I'd be interested to learn when the last M48 battle tanks were phased out of U.S. service? The Zaloga/Laurier title in Osprey's New Vanguard series isn't clear on that. Wikipedia vaguely suggests that reserves used the A5 into the 1990s. I assume some got the chance to wear MERDC in U.S. service. How about NATO Tri-Color?
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