What's on my desk? Part 135.

See how smooth the bottom wire is? Big improvement there!

Next, I added some dusty footprints on the turret and glacis, and glued some dry leaves here and there.

You can see a footprint in between the hatches, and some more faded ones going up from the turret front.

Another thing that's very obvious from this angle, is the gap in the fenders on the front sides of the tank. I can't really fix this, because it allows me to do this:

Yes, I can still open the whole thing up to show off the interior. Looking underneath the turret, you can clearly see how cramped these Soviet tanks were:

The open hatches and the black/yellow spent shell ejection port add a little extra to the turret. The small tactical flag hanging fromt he antenna was a decal, which immediately tore in half, so that will probably fall off at some point...

One more shot:

Next up: the FAA Corsair.

Last week I sprayed the underside. I wasn't entirely happy with the Sky Blue I used at first. To give it a bit more colour, I added a thinned layer of Ammo Sky Type S (a more grey-green colour) to slightly tint the blue:

Once this was done, it was time for the inevitable masking. In the end, the entire underside of the plane got covered with masking tape. I taped the nose to the fuselage to make sure the pattern flows smoothly. The next colour I used was Dark Slate Grey from Vallejo, which is actually a grey-green colour. I approximated the camouflage pattern, as I'll need to mask for the third colour anyway.

 

Last week I was planning on using fishing line for the engine ignition wires. That plan has been abandoned. The fishing line is not flexible enough, and it kept breaking off when I tried to bend it in shape. Pity, because it's a nice colour and thickness:

New plan: brown thread. I'm not sure of this yet, it may be too thick and the braiding may show thoough too much. What do you think?

With the T-72 done, I needed a new tank to build.

Staying in the Nordics, I selected the Swedish Strv103C. Strv stands for 'Stridsvagen' (literally 'battle wagon' or 'chariot', but it's the generic term for 'tank' in Swedish). It's sometimes also called S-tank, from its Alternativ-S (Sweden) designation during development. The others were Alternativ-A (Anglo-American), and Alternativ-T (German-French). The Swedish design was chosen partly for political reasons, although the British Centurion was also ordered.

The special thing about the Strv103 is that it doesn't have a turret. The gun is fixed to the hull and doesn't even have a recoil mechanism. Aiming is done by adjusting the tank suspension, one of the reasons why the 103 is so short with only 4 roadwheels. The only reason the 103 is classed as an MBT (Main Battle Tank) is because the Swedish insisted it is one. And who's going to argue with an armed, blond giant looming threateningly over you?

Anyway. The Trumpeter kits are the only options you have in 1/35. It's decent, but not overly good. Trumpeters are pretty cheap, though, so you can go ham on after-market. I couldn't find a metal barrel on sale anywhere, but I definitely want some better tracks. 

It requires some work. First off, there are deep knockout marks everywhere. These need filling before they can be mounted on the tank:

Second, the tie-downs. This is typical for Trumpeter. They mold the brackets with the attachment point on the top side, making it nearly impossible to clean off properly. I replaced all of them with the metal wire that's included in the trash bags from the city of Mechelen. Just cut away most of the plastic and burn off the rest:

Without a fiddly interior to complete, the work goes quickly:

There's a whole lot of detail I'm leaving off to paint separately. The camouflage scheme will be difficult. It's comparable to the Viggen: a 4-colour splinter scheme...

I started the Jolie Brise! This is a pilot boat built for duty in Le Havre in 1913. It did its job for about a decade before it was replaced by a motor launch. Since then it has been a racer and school ship and still sails to this day.

As per usual, you start with the spine and ribs. I also skipped forward and assembled the name plate and stand:

This is step 1. Step 1 is followed by a whole lot of sanding, and my Dremel battery died and won't charge anymore. :-(

So lots of elbow grease and wood dust later, I was able to mount the deck:

The deck Artesania supplies only has the longitudinal planking lasered in, so I had to make incisions and pencil the individual planks myself:

As you can see, it's not overly large. The deck is about 34cm long.

Still lots to do!

Finally, I'll be building an oldie for a customer: an Airfix Fairey Battle from the early 70's:

Stay tuned for more!

See you next week!