Category: subassembly
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Renault R-35 – Part Three – Running Gear
There must have been as many designs of tank suspension as there were designers – so few seemed to quite agree with each other. Even when one tank was the norm – like the Sherman – there were a number of suspensions and wheel arrangements This Renault R-35 seems to make use of the squeeze-a-rubber…
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Academy SPAD XIII – Part Three – Not Goin’ Nowhere
And not surprising – it’s 38º C outside and 43º C in my work shed. I shall be lurking near the beer cooler and doing the final assembly and decal work inside. I praise the luxury of the choice. The ticklish job of assembly with a bi- or tri-plane is the stage at which you…
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Academy SPAD XIII – Part Two – Ick…
Perhaps I am getting too fussy – or watching too many YouTube speakers complaining about sink holes and ejector pin marks. I am starting to see them more and more. Of course some kits make them more obvious than others – the Academy SPAD XIII being one of them. Note the pink spots of sprue-goo…
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Airfix Boomerang – Part Two – Furrows And Fillers
How appropriate – I am writing this post on Australia Day 2023 – about a distinctively Australian airplane. And I’m eating a sausage roll and drinking a XXXX. I may go out and wrestle a crocodile later… The Boomerang has distinctively British grooves in it – down the wing roots and in the tail assembly.…
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Pfalz D.IIIa – Part Two – You Only Find Out By Cutting
Scale model building with a new maker’s kits is really like draining an abscess. You never really know what is going to happen till you plunge the knife in. The Rodin Pfalz is actually quite nice, if you can forgive a few inadvertent flash episodes. The fuselage sides came together after being flattened on a…
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Italeri F/A 18 Hornet – Part Two – The Mock-up That Doesn’t Mock
I’ve given up a lot of things in my old age: marathon running, ballet, and regular bathing. But I have not given up dry-fitting models. As a kid it was a major part of a build, with gradual dry assembly taking weeks before any cementation. I’m faster these days ( no school homework ), and…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Five – Fiddler On The Workbench
Oy! The various sub-assemblies of the ZIS-5 have been models in their own right – the Hobby Boss factory having moulded them in such detail as to justify taking a great deal of care with them. This is good practice anyway, but here the diagrams of the instruction sheet were particularly useful – the sequence…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Four – Yes Or No?
Do I take an extra day – and undercoat the body parts of the ZIS-5? Or just spray paint straight onto the tan plastic and hope it doesn’t scratch off? Well, I have decided to be moral, and careful, and cowardly. I have seen too many finishes ruined by me when I try to take…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Three – Non-Rolling Chassis
You can say what you like about Tamiya paints – I swear by their Dark Iron for nearly all the chassis I make – tank, car, or truck. I’ve been under motor vehicles and I know what colour they are… In this case the ZIS-5 truck ( made by the Ural factory, I surmise )…
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Soviet ZIS-5 – Part Two – The Truck Factory
Well, that’s what it feels like as you sit at your bench with a kit of this type. You are working in the factory. This same feeling was encountered years ago with a 1:24 scale kit of a Bedford fuel tanker made by Emhar. They obviously had an original vehicle to base the model upon,…
The Little World 