The Model Box

 And the diorama base came packaged with ... (up drumroll sfx) ... the Revell 1:76 Pz. Kpw Ausf F! To be more precise, it's the Revell release of the original Matchbox Pz. Kpw Ausf F. As as kid, I had built and lost  a few of these babies way back in the 70's and 80's.     The model shows its age in terms of engineering, beginning with the very thick sprues that held the pieces. To avoid damage to the small parts, I had to cut away from the pieces and more into the thick plugs of plastic. I tried sanding some of the roadwheels while they were still unattached but my pudgy fingers couldn't get a good grip on these. So I just glued them on as is and will sand them properly after. The chassis assembly was a bit crude and dated with little in the way of alignment pegs or guides. I used a very nice and quick acting cement so the body went up nicely although I did have to go over some other pictures to check the alignment angles.  The hull and tu...

Here's a sneak peek at what's on my workbench this morning. Win a No-Prize! Three guesses what this model is:)

Tried another mech inbetween some tank and afv models. This time around, its a more military looking mech from Mobile suit Gundam 00. Again, I know little of this genre but the fictitious info about this mech is interesting. Assembly was pretty straightforward and the kit engineering made model cement absolutely unnecessary. I damaged some part though by cutting too close from the sprue but made do with some putty and quick sanding.  This guy will have to wait for me to fix my airbrush before getting a coat of paint. More soon!

The wife and I got home quite late last night and after a good dinner highlighted by her delicious fern salad, we killed some time before heading off to bed. She had some emails to write and so I searched around the bodega for something I could build really quick. I found some 1/144 kits that I had picked up a few years back and decided that they wer perfect for a modelling quickfix. First up were some Soviet T-72 M2's from a maker named Mini Hobby Models. I think it's a Chinese maker. The T-72 was the most common tank used by the Warsaw Pact from the 1970s to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Iraqi T-72s that fought in the First Gulf War in 1991 were outclassed by western tanks but whether their loss was due to the tank's deficiencies, poor Iraqi training/doctrine or both, is up to debate. The model's a pretty easty build but the plastic is of low-quality. Even though the details were crisp, the sprue locator marred some of the details and rescuing the surf...

Another quick build. Frankly, I'm surprised at Trumpeter. The kit has really nice pieces inside the drab, uninspiring packaging. The box art is "meh..." but the sprues have some lovely detailed parts. I really like how the road wheels look with the crisp detailing and the nice tow cable rope. The plastic is fragile though and the wheels are not meant to roll freely but are instead glued on. Be careful with these because the pegs are quite fragile. I accidentally broke one when I was dry fitting one of the wheels. Hull details look a bit soft but with the driver's hatch and the machine gun attached, it starts to look ok. The antenna holder seems a bit oversized, but when attached, again it seems okay. The headlight is very basic and I may subsitute something form the parts box soon. The large hooks look nice and robust. The turret came in two vertical halves and the top part as a separate piece. The hatch is molded on and the periscope looks out of ...

I woke up to a beautiful morning and after a good breakfast and a brisk walk around the house, I decided to work on my scale models. Now, I recently fubbed some paintjobs and I had left the models on my main workbench unfinished. With my airbrush still needing a new needle, painting was out of the question. The 1/35 Jagdtiger and SU-122 would have to wait. I had some 1/35 figures still on the workbench but i didn't feel like brush painting either. What I needed ws a simple, fast, uncomplicated out-of-the-box build. And a good cup of coffee. I eventually headed to my bodega and decided to crack open an old kit that had languished in my bodega for years. Browsing thru my collection of unassembled kits, I decided on the old Matchbox Sherman Firefly in 1/76 scale. I had bought this kit way back in the 70's I believe, part of my early collection of 1/72 and 1/76 tanks. Even though the Matchbox tanks were smaller than the ESCI ones, I liked them because of the mini dioramas ...