Gazzas

I do small chores, then think: "I need to get back to the bench!"

I spent a lot of time on the base, finally to hear from a friend that trying to keep the snow in it's natural white was my biggest problem. I reckon it'll take a few more years to get a snow base right. But here I am today: The repeated attemots to get it right meant that my steppe grass collected a lot of snow. I guess on some days that that would be a normal situation. Cheers! Gaz

Torben, The wing fillets came out beautifully. Thanks for the lesson! Those radiators look cool! Gaz

Hi Everyone, My first snow diorama... heck, first diorama... And I'm using some hobby snow I recently bought. I pressed some tank tracks in it to make an impression, but they're very hard to see. Maybe some of you have done airfields with snow on em? I've seen wildlife photos where shadows in animal tracks look like a pale blue. is there a consensus of what works to make detail in snow photographable? Or is it a question of trying to use shadows and photography to tell the tale? Thanks for your thoughts! Gaz

Torben, I'm glad to see some more progress! I know we can all be too hard on ourselves as we try and retry to get the look we want. I think your work looks great! I'm terrible at rescribing. Can't scribe a straight line more than a couple CM long without stuffing it up. And they never look neat, even if I can get them straight. I applaud your efforts, and want to see this bird in completed glory! Gaz

Thank you, Chek! Did I tell everyone I was doing a winter scene? I'm in a Stalingrad group build elsewhere, so I needed to find ways to work the white stuff in. Here are the tracks weathered with snow. What do you think? Once all of the roadwheels are in place I'll be able to stratecically place extra blobs of snow riding inside the tracks. My method was to paint areas of the tracks with thinned white glue than the dump bi-carb soda over it which I then swept off. Thanks for looking, Gaz

Oh, I love that! Wait... was that used to fake the moon landings??? Great job, man! Gaz

I was cruising about my local hardware megastore and came across polystyrene welding rods and started seeing potential uses. Are these the same plastic as our kits, or is the 'poly' the difference? Gaz

Thanks for the Paul Budzik video! I hadn't seen that one before. I agree, that the answer to the OP is very personal, and have chucked a kit because getting it to fit my accuracy needs was beyond the worth of the effort. If it ain't fun... you're doing it wrong. hmmm.... where have I heard that one before? Gaz

I thought they might have been a little big... But i didn't see any need to make grandiose proclamations about their utility and service life. Gaz

Guys, Thanks for your answers. We got the stuff our older dogs that had hip displaysia and it gave them a lot of relief as in they seemed happier and had increased activity. It's great that it works for dogs... Gaz

Bill, Fantastic looking build! Gaz

Any of you guys take this stuff and getting benefits for your hands? Gaz

Sweet! Love to see the sheen on that spandau. What did you paint it with? Gaz

HI again, Everyone! I spent an obscene amount of time on the resin tracks. Never again! Every track pin hole had to be drilled. Over 300 of them. Some of the starter holes weren't circular causing the bit to wander. Half of the links, those without guide horns were so flimsy as to be easily breakable. Some half a dozen of those were broken in the box. In the end i had only 3 extra links. They only cost 10 bucks, where Friuls cost over 50... so a huge trade-off in money for time. Here are the results: here, nothing is glued in place. So, I'll have to add Tamiya Extra Thin to each locating pin where the idler arm connects with the hull, then finagle them around until I get the solution that I like. Here you can see the final positions of all of the wheels though they aren't glued on. Only the idlers are fixed. The track has been primed. The tracks have been shedding pins every time they are removed, or moved around. Makes the Friul steel wire look pretty good. They won't sag as nicely as Friuls, either. Fortunately they way the model will ride the terrain I've created, the tracks will be taut. Thanks fer looking! Gaz