What's on my desk? Part 89.
Hello and welcome,
A reminder: next week Modelist will be closed from 25th until 29th of September. The build meet on Wednesday will still take place.
On to the models!
The PZL is basically done.
The radio aerial went together pretty easily. I started by measuring out two equal lengths of elastic wire, attaching one end of each to the small masts on the wings. I cut a small brass tube (Albion 0.5 x 0.3 mm), threaded the loose wire ends through that and fixed these to the attachment points on the fuselage. Finally, I cut a third length of elastic wire, glued it to the tail mast and ran it through the tube. A bit of tension and a drop of superglue fixes it all together. Snip off the excess and voilà:
There's a bit too much of an angle at the tube, but I'm happy with it as is.
I glued the windscreen with Ammo Ultra Glue and removed the masks when dry. To finish, I glued the bead and ring sights on top of the wing (these are small PE parts) and painted them Gun Metal:
Some finishing touches: clean up some paint (especially the leading edge of the wing needs work), and add some soot behind the exhausts and some dirt on the wheel & taildragger.
The Williams racecar is finished and has been picked up by its owner, who dropped off the two next F1 cars to build:
I'll be starting the MP4/4 sometime this week.
I also had some nice progress on the Bergepanther. German tanks of the era were painted on the inside with two colours: red oxide primer (usually indicated as RAL8012) on the bottom, and 'Elfenbein' or 'Cremeweiss' on the top half of the crew compartment. This necessitates some masking (I painted the cream white first):
Once painted, it's time to put together the lower hull. The Panther has a double torsion bar suspension. The wheels are mounted on swing arms, which connect to one torsion bar, running to a swivel on the other side and a second torsion bar running back. Very efficient, allowing for a more roomy vehicle (but slightly higher) than an external leaf or coil spring suspension would. Takom has the bars moulded on the swivels, glued to the side plates, and you need to fit these through two longitudinal mounts on the botto. Can you spot the one that I broke? :-)
The ends fit into slots on the opposite sides, and especially underneath the transmission it's hard to get everything into place. But once everything is properly aligned, it looks really cool:
There are some floor pieces and seats to be fitted inside. I painted and weathered these using Dark Wash, Light Metal drybrush paint and some earth-coloured pigments. The seats were first painted in tire/rubber colour (any dark grey will do really) and once installed, given a coat of black oil paint.
I've put the fenders and engine bulkhead on display for the photo:
The bulkhead was treated with Neutral Wash to provide some contrast to the details. The back side is completely red brown and was weathered with Dark Wash. The fenders haven't received any detail painting or weathering yet.
Here's a detail picture of the interior, looking forward. You see the chipped paint on the big grey transmission and the dirt on the floor plates. The seat backs have springs molded in, which I drybrushed with light metal to show off that detail. The floor on the left was twisted a bit and doesn't fit well, but that won't be very noticable when the upper hull goes on... The small black tank still needs some weathering and then the whole inside a bit of flat varnish.
Next up: some small parts and the big 40-ton winch.
Lots of fun work to look forward to. :-)
That's it,
See you next week!