2012 Armor Models in Progress by the Duke.

[SA Dave]

Great builds and progress Duke

 

[Duke Maddog]

Duke:

Those are all some fantastic looking models. I like how that Russian train is coming out. How are you fixing to show that and the German train off once you are done with the Russian one? You may need to set up a new storage cabinet for those separate from the rest of the armor. I do like how the M-1 turned out and I like the 4 color cammo on the Japanese tanks. Great job all around.

Dave

Thanks Dave! I appreciate that so much.

I'm planning on having the German armored train on a 7-foot long by 18-inch wide display board that will have a cover on it so I can take it to shows and keep the 'landscaping' secure. The Russian armored train will be on a separate board that will have two sets of tracks on it as well since there is another Russian armored train that I plan on getting. That board won't be nearly as long, since the two trains are only about three and a half feet to four feet long themselves. I do have plans to put mounts above my closet and my window in my Hobby Room solely to hold those two "train boards". It's the only place they will fit.

Now to figure out where to put Dora. :idonno

Wow, just had a flash of thought..... On some future IPMS Nationals I could have a Train Collection on the Collections table displaying two Russian armored trains on it, a German armored train, the Br-52 towing a Leopold gun and a Morser Karl on railcars, and the Dora......

That would be a collection to see!! :geek :yipee


Dave and MP, thanks for the comments. It's always great seeing you guys post here.



Now on to my latest progress...


Here we are in a new month and some new progress. This will be a short and sweet update here showing my latest work to date.

I'll start out with my three little Japanese tanks. They are fully camouflaged, all the tools are on them, and their tracks have been installed. All that's left is clearcoat, decals, dullcoat, then weathering:

Ha Go:

Ha Go, North China version:

Chi Ha Early version:

And one big happy family all together:

Moving along, I managed to beat this little car into submission some more. It finally looks relatively aligned and clean now:

Rommel's Car:

Next I applied most of the photo etch to one of the Russian armored train turreted cars. Everything is on except the grab handles and steps:

I have three more to do like that, then I can start laying down paint. I also filed down some of the edges of the photo etch panels that I'd applied to the engine and tender. Meanwhile, here's how the one turreted car looks with the completely photo-etched engine and tender:

Yes, it's a small update, but then I did finish four other models along with completing all of this. Feel free to check them out in their respective Forums.

Thanks all for looking in, comments are always welcome.

 

[Dave wahl]

Marc:

I'd say set a timetable for setting up the train display at the 50th anniversay nationals in 2014. That would set some folks on there ears. I'm just wondering where that show might be held. I'd like to make it to a show like that. That would be special.

Dave

 

[Duke Maddog]

Marc:

I'd say set a timetable for setting up the train display at the 50th anniversary nationals in 2014. That would set some folks on their ears. I'm just wondering where that show might be held. I'd like to make it to a show like that. That would be special.

Dave

Thanks Dave! That's a brilliant idea! I do hope it's someplace I can get to as well, especially when I have so many large display boards to bring! Man, that is gonna look awesome with all those 1/72 scale trains on the tables! I think I'll need at least a 3x8 table all my own for something like that.

Okay Dave, it's on!! Make plans to see this then!

 

[moon puppy]

Mark I missed where you were talking about the Wash Failed, why, what happened? Post a picture of the failure and let's see if we can figure out what's wrong.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks MP. Take a look at my post on the previous page. It is the one where I posted my final pics of the Abrams and Neubau Fahrzeug before they got finished. It is on the previous page at least. You'll see how the wash looked in that pic.

 

[jknaus]

Looking good
James

 

[Duke Maddog]

Thanks James!

 

[Duke Maddog]

Okay people! I have a nice looooong update here for you all. It's been a couple weeks and I've had some great Hobby Days to get things done. I apologize in advance for some of these pics. They were taken with my camera phone and it isn't always easy for me to get clear shots. Anyway, on with the Factory Tour. This is the Armor side, the Aircraft Branch can be seen in Wesendorf Field.




I did all this work at St. Crispin's Hobby Day Monday. First thing I did was paint Rommel's Car with a basecoat of grey:

Later on, after that had dried for awhile; I finished detail painting the car and added the wheels to see if they'd all sit right:

Looks good to me so far. I did notice that the front fender was put on wrong. I'll have to fix that.

Next I made some progress on my bus. I got the interior built up and cemented to the chassis:

I then decided to assemble the main body of the bus:

The top of that bus is not attached. I'll cement that together later when I get the windows inside.

Here's a dry-fit of the body on the chassis to see how this is going to look:

That is so cool! I love this little model!


Fast forward to Friday when I got to go in and help set up the Hall for the Saturday Hobby Day the night before. I had brought some things to work on that Saturday but after having gotten everything set up; I found I had some time to work on some things. Earlier that week, my friend Harmon and I had built my train display base. So I decided with the help of my friend Ken to try and determine my track and building layout for this base. Here is the preliminary layout for the tracks and station we came up with so far:

The tracks will extend all the way to the end of the board. The main straight line on the one side will hold the Panzerzeug BP-44 armored train that is six and a half feet long.

Well, on Saturday, since I was all fired up to do rail models, I decided to get started on a big project. Remember this monster?

Well out she came and this was the first ever assembly I did on this model:

That's eleven pieces on that assembly, and I had to make sixteen of them! This is what they were for; here's the first of the rail trucks assembled:

I later fixed that gap issue on the side of that wheel truck. Some time later, I managed to finish the four inside trucks:

Then I went to work on the four outer trucks:

Now seeing that made me want to see just how big this bad boy really was. So, I pulled out the connector trucks and the main carriage parts and dry-fit them all together. Man this thing is gonna be HUGE!

This is starting to get scary!

Okay, moving along, the connector trucks that hold the wheeled trucks together needed some reinforcement braces underneath for the pegs that go into the wheeled trucks. So, I took one of those plastic DVD title covers and cut 32 little shapes from it after having measured out the size I needed. Sorry Harry Potter!

Here's how they look underneath these support trucks:

Finally after about an hour of tedious sanding and fitting of these braces, I got all four trucks done:

Finally, I pulled out the photo etch screens they had in the kit and hit them with a grey primer. When dry, I re-bagged them until I was ready to use them again:

To wrap this up, I also finished my three little Japanese tanks and my C-130A Hercules, but my batteries ran out so I couldn't take the pics. I'll see what I can find in this house and hopefully get them posted later on.

Meanwhile, that's my progress for the last couple weeks. Enjoy the pics, and remember that comments are welcome. Thanks for looking in.

 

[tanktrax]

Awesome Dora!!!

 

[MrT]

:huh: hmy:

Terry

 

[Sherman 18]

A Dora!

Your crazy

 

[SA Dave]

Dora GOOD - Dora bloody HUGE

 

[Duke Maddog]

A Dora!

Your crazy

YEP!! I gots the marriage license to prove it too!

Yeah, Dave, Dora indeed bloody HUGE! Getting pretty scary too!

Thanks guys for the great comments!

 

[Dave wahl]

I guess you're gonna be needing to start investing in Tim Hortens by the Tanker trailer load, LOLOLOLOLOL!!! That monster is gonna be totally cool. I am really impressed by your abilities in 1/72 scale. I really hope you have a separate building to house all those big projects. I guess you need to get some little jobs to cool yourself down from this monster build. Great job so far, my friend.

Dave W.

 

[reconron]

Greetings,Ron.

 

[Duke Maddog]

Ron, thanks!

Dave, thanks for the great comment! Actually all I need is my intravenous needle for my coffee. As for a separate house, I wish! I have no room for anything; still considering where to put this monster. Thanks again for the great comments!

And now, here's another small update from Monday's Hobby Day.

First off, I was told that the bus seats were the wrong color and should have been a wooden color. Easy fix:

Then I moved on.

I decided to brave the A-Stoff again, and this time I was able to get it assembled without any more bloodshed. I did stick my fingers to this about 12 times though with the extra thin CA glue. The good news: IT'S DONE!! Time to put paint on her:

I may try and go back to fill in some of those gaps in the support beams later before I paint this. It all depends on how soon I wish to deal with CA again.....


Moving right along.


I decided to start what I thought would be some 'easy' models, but they were from ACE so they weren't as easy as I was hoping for. Still, I love building ACE kits because they have such great subjects and really look good when done. This one is a German heavy artillery piece whose designation escapes me right now....

I have a bunch more detail parts to add to that, but decided to let it dry a bit before I put them on. Meanwhile, I started another ACE gun; this one a Pak 43 88mm AT gun. I got as far as the barrel before bigger things started calling me:

And they don't get no bigger than Dora here. I attached all the photo-etch screens to the connecting trucks (?) like this:

I also took some time to sand the wheel trucks and try to remove the seams on the sides. It worked somewhat, but a bit of Mr. Surfacer 500 was needed. You can see it applied to the sides of the wheel trucks in these next pics. I had added some additional parts to the wheel trucks as well. Here they are, all four connector trucks done and sitting dry-fit on the wheel trucks:

What the hey, I couldn't resist pulling out the big gun supports and dry fitting them to these trucks to check it out again. The braces I put underneath the connector trucks really made a big difference!

Well that's about it for now. After all it is a small update. Remember, comments are welcome and thanks all for looking in.

 

[SA Dave]

Into GUNS now I see.

Dora is starting to come together nice also

 

[tanktrax]

Jeepers... even in 1/72 that Dora looks huge...

 

[moon puppy]

Holy Cow!!!