This has been one of those one-step-forward/two-steps-back kinda weeks. That is why I've only done this much.
I'll start with the 1/35th scale M-48 Patton I'm doing for the SoCal AMPS Group Build. This actually went pretty well; probably the only thing that went well this week. To start with, I added all the extra detail parts to the upper hull that I'd left off before. Things like headlight, lifting hooks and gas caps for instance:
Of course, this didn't all go so pristine; when I went to add the vision blocks to the driver's hatch, I found that one was either missing or never molded. There's supposed to be three as seen on the instruction sheet to the left. You can see I only have two. I never handled this sprue before so I have no idea where the third one went:
So now, I will only put on the center one and see what I can do about the other two. Until then, I'm moving forward on this.
I did have all the clear parts for the turret, so I added them all along with the rest of the detail parts:
I then started on the big searchlight:
I'm gonna paint the interior before adding more and closing it up with the clear panel it comes with.
That's as far as I got with that so far. Later, I started another little model for a Group Build on Missing Lynx Braille Scale Forums. This is my M-32 started. I did the lower hull first:
After that, I didn't want to deal with the running gear so I skipped ahead and started the mine rolling assembly. What a battle this turned out to be! After an hour and a half of fighting this thing, I finally got the following result:
Later I built the turret and some of the parts for the lower hull. This is a mock up of all I'd done on this so far:
I'd had enough of that so I moved on, hoping to make some progress on some of my aircraft. The A-400 was bothering me so I started the sprue framework on the nose suggested by one other friend:
Of course, that caused a front wheel to come off:
So I tried to glue it back on. It wouldn't glue on straight! So, I drilled out the stem, destroying it in the process of course, Then I added a piece of wire to the broken wheel:
The axles ain't straight, but the wheel is even with the unbroken one, so this is DONE!
While doing that, I found a couple other areas where the spray 77 made the plastic soft and caused it to sink/ Mr. Surfacer 500 liberally applied filled those areas to be sanded after it dries sufficiently:
Okay, that was enough of that since it was really torquing me off. I decided to try and do something on my An-124. First, I taped off the underside, nose and tail where it is supposed to remain grey:
I then took it outside to shoot the white topside:
Looks good doesn't it? Yeah, I thought so too until I looked closer before glossing it.
What you don't see in those pics are several smudges, patches of lint, extreme rough spots, and imperfections in the white paint, certainly not smooth or clean enough to shoot a gloss clear on it. That pic was shot three days ago. Since then, I've been sanding, washing, respraying, wiping, sanding re-spraying at least another nine times or more. Still ain't right.
In between all that, I also taped off the tips of the wings and horizontal tail surfaces and painted them red:
After that, it was time to paint the metallic parts of the engines. I masked off the front of both wings with the Tamiya flexible tape and on one of them, I brush painted an aluminum color on the edges and interior of the front of the engine:
Kinda hard to see in that pic, but I did it. I then painted the tail cones a dark metallic color and drybrushed with a steel:
Not too thrilled with that drybrush, so I'll be redoing those rear cones. I also saw a lot of issues with the grey paint on the wings again. Gonna have to re-mask and re-shoot these grey and gloss coat again. Meanwhile, I pulled down the other wing and started to paint it too:
Naturally, as always, one engine had to break off again! I can never move ahead on this:
Yes, that was JBWeld! It has since been glued back on. That is gonna have to be re-shot in grey again too. Enough of all these hassles!
By this time I was thoroughly fed up! I looked through my stash for some thing simple, easy and not needing paint so I could lose myself in just building. I found a kit I'd started some time ago: my Space 1999 Mk.IX Hawk. I had done some simple sub assemblies so I thought it was time to start putting it all together. I started by adding the engine cones to the main engine:
Later I assembled the rest of the model, losing myself in the build just like I wanted:
Here it is mocked up with the main engine:
I gotta paint that main engine housing orange before I can glue it to the rest of the model.
That seemed like a great place to end this disappointing week of model building. I hope you enjoyed this latest tour.
Thanks all for riding along, comments are welcome.
