Thursday, November 23, 2006

STUG on hold and other things

Well the STUG is on hold - see later - but a silly thing happened before I did that. Paul (Casson - same name as the guy that shot down Douglas Bader) came in the shop and I was telling him about how my wife Valerie was telling me to add an aluminium barrel. He pointed out that there was one in the shop and I had forgotten - well no surprise there. It was a Hot Barrel version that comes with a resin mantlet. I took it home only to find that it was for an earlier version and didn't fit mine - so we both got it a bit wrong :-( Still this isn't important because I have suddenly found an urgent project - even the BR-52 will struggle to get on its wheels in time for Ipswich club next Tuesday.

First, the BR-52. I am finding this a bit of a trial because of the huge number of sprues. Also, because of how I was going to paint it originally, I skipped some steps. Its proving difficult to find out what I skipped. Still there aren't many BR-52 experts out there so I might get away with missing somethings. It is also difficult manipulating something as big as this and I am constantly worried about breaking something. I will keep going though!

Back to the urgent project. Colchester have a Land, Sea and Air competition every December meeting. I was planning a 1/35th Vietnam trio using the Tamiya Pibber but it never got off the ground, as it were. At the Colchester club night on Monday I realised that I really wanted to do something so I am working on a British D-Day diorama. A Trumpeter LCT landing a Sherman and a Firefly - both Armourfast - on the beach plus a Hobby Boss P-51D in D-Day stripes on a pole coming in to strafe behind the beach. 1/72nd of course. I have all the kits and am half way through the LCT. Nothing clever here - just clean modelling and a bit of 'artistry' - ha ha. I intend to use Polymorph mouldable thermoplastic as a beach base - which will teach me how to use that - Polymorph courtesy of Aaron Spilling - thanks Aaron.

I rung one of our customers who is a Sherman expert to ask about colours as I wasn't sure if the Sherman would be in Olive Drab and the Firefly in British colours. He started discussing the problem as if it was one of his own - where he can spend upwards of 200 hours on a single Sherman, until I pointed out I had 4 weeks for the whole thing! His advice is that both would have been repainted in a slightly different drab - khaki drab with a blue tinge is how he described it. I may go for just khaki drab and take umbrage if anyone criticises (ask me about a great story regarding 'umbrage'). More follows...

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