What's on my desk? Part 48.

Good morning,

December has come. I hope you're keeping warm. 

So, where am I on the Tortoise?

Construction is done (apart from the tow cables, but these can come later). There were still some small PE details to add. On the back there are four small brackets that hold a small rod. Voyager supplies a length of springy metal wire to use for this, but it's nearly impossible to fix that. So I heated some sprue, stretched it and used that. These stay in place with minimal effort.

You can see them on the left fender and rear engine wall.

The smoke grenade launchers were also glued to the front and cupola. The PE fittings on the cupola were pretty easy and went on without any major problems.

The ones on the front need bending and shaping with rounded corners. I tried it for the first one, and found it would have driven me mad, so I just used the plastic ones from the kit...

Finally, I taped off the tracks in preparation for priming. Of course, one of the track pieces came loose. Again.

So after fixing that, the vehicle looks like this. The holes in the side will hold spare track links later.

With that done, I could turn my attention to the Daimler. Interior construction was pretty straightforward. There's a lot of stuff on the walls, all held down with PE straps. Apparently British armoured cars were unpainted on the inside, so I primed with white, then brush-painted the interior with Ammo 0194 Matt Aluminium. The seats are done with oil paint (my usual Burnt Umber) to give a faded leather effect.

There's still a lot of detail painting and weathering to do. When closed up, the interior is really busy. Only the right side door will be open, plus the turret hatch, so a lot of these details won't be very visible once it's done. Still, I enjoy doing this. It gives you a feel of how cramped these things were.

To be continued...

See you next week!