LSP_K2

How frequently the tubes were carried I don't know, but certainly sometimes.

The principal reason I chose this size nameplate (they make four different sizes), is it's the largest that would fill this area of the support rather nicely. This, once painted, should look pretty spiffy.

Gun shield now has a solid black wash. I slowed down the shutter speed on this one. Still more to do, and the moveable shield is obviously going to cause some minor issues, but I'll figure that out when the time comes.

I neglected to add hinge and handle remnants, so that's done now.

I thought an American flag on the base would be nice, so I ordered some small flag stickers. I also grabbed a couple of extra color cups for my Paasche VL, as mine is getting kind of beat up.

Already downloaded, but still a great idea.

Thanks. Perhaps the same quality will extend to their armor stuff. They make a 1:35 75mm Pak40 and ammo I'm interested in.

Happy B-Day!!!

I thoroughly glued the shroud support into position and primered the assembly but now fear that the stator won’t fit in from the rear. I’d check, but apparently the stator is currently playing hide-and-seek.

If there’s something out there besides bad luck, I certainly haven’t experienced it lately. Last night while scrubbing off the old paint, the plastic propeller, which is not particularly brittle, had a small piece of a prop blade break off and promptly down the drain it went! I faked up a replacement immediately and after a teeny bit of clean-up, I should be back in business (I hope).

Does Miniart do decent kits? I've never owned one.

Totally cool.

It’s not altogether uncommon to see old doors and such used in the vicinity of the gun, so I’ve faked one up from some scribed sheet and given it a base coat of a wood color (Tamiya XF-57). This may or may not get used, I haven’t decided for sure yet. This gun seems to have the spades particularly well dug -in, but that was not nearly the case at all times, for whatever reason.

I decided to go ahead and shoot the prop, such as it is, so after spritzing it with some Duplicolor black primer, I then shot it with some Gunze bronze lacquer (copper and red mix). Once I've added a slight patina to it, it should look OK buried behind the stator, or at least that's the plan. (Photo shows some bits of crud in the paint, so I'll wet sand those areas and touch-up.)

Yep, that blue looks much better. As far as I am aware, MRP makes at lease two variations of RLM 76.

Here's an oddity I just discovered last night. I noticed that despite what appears to be a stupid proof mounting arrangement, the barrel slide assembly is canted to the left of the carriage assembly. I'm not quite sure how I'll fix this, but it's quite unacceptable as it is.

I'd like to do a Goblin, but it seems doubtful that I'll ever buy one.

I decided instead of natural wood, I’d paint the ammo boxes German grey and sand brown. If I order a Gecko set, I’ll do much the same thing. At least then I can dirty them up with washes and various shades of paint. I've managed to misplace most of the ammo boxes (naturally) but when they surface I'll paint some of them grey and some brown also. These may or may not get used with this display in September, but I can always use them on my second gun.

Yea, I could probably sculpt one. Thanks, Ray.

At long last, one assembly is now complete.

After very careful masking of the breech block and surrounding area, Alclad dark aluminum was spritzed on. One again, as a result of my having used no primer under the Tamiya, small bits of the paint were pulled off while de-masking. Easy enough to touch-up, but still a pain.

I think once I get this model in a proper setting, the photos will (hopefully) show more of the very subtle color variations of the overall gun assembly. Once I touch-up the tail light, I'll hit it with some clear semi-gloss.

More details. Here's an excellent shot of the prominent weld seam at the split and folded area of the main gun shield pieces. I didn't bother adding this on my second set of shields as it's almost impossible to make out in the dark grey finish.

OK, thanks. I'll need to look into the availability of those.

Since I've been having nothing but issues with Gunze and Tamiya clear coats, both acrylics and lacquers, I decided to try some "old reliable", Testors Glosscote, and it worked a charm. This will now make the job of adding washes and pigments much easier for me.