SPA Modeler

Well I heard that T-64s were always breaking down early in their service life, if you have one of those... perfect for a lowboy trailer...

I do have a T-64 BV already built; I'm not sure how early a version it is though. Still, if it's a T-64, then it probably still had enough issues to be on one. Now I just need to find a lowboy trailer that I can add to the back of the MAZ to pull this thing.

The BV was late Cold War, mid 80’s and beyond when the Soviets started adding the ERA bricks to their best MBTs.
Another thought for a tank on the back is a T-55 or T-62 leaving Afghanistan in the Soviet withdrawal.

Excellent ideas Carlos. I do have a couple T-55's done. Still, I need to source a trailer! So far, neither Takom or Modelcollect does a trailer by itself. Until then, this beastie ain't pulling any loads!

Strange.... you would think if they make a truck tractor, that they’d make something for it to pull...

Stikpusher wrote:Strange.... you would think if they make a truck tractor, that they’d make something for it to pull...

I know! Right?

I just found out that Takom does have a model of one of these same tractors coming out in a kit WITH a trailer AND a load! So, what's up with that?

What’s up with that? With all those goodies? Why they want your money, of course...

Believe you me... as soon as I start my DD Sherman conversion project one day, Tamiya, or Academy, or Italeri, or Taska/Asuka will come out with one in 1/35 styrene as soon as I am about to complete it.... that’s my luck on these sorts of projects....

Stikpusher wrote:What’s up with that? With all those goodies? Why they want your money, of course...

Believe you me... as soon as I start my DD Sherman conversion project one day, Tamiya, or Academy, or Italeri, or Taska/Asuka will come out with one in 1/35 styrene as soon as I am about to complete it.... that’s my luck on these sorts of projects....

I feel your pain. Every time I start a kit, GWH, Kitty Hawk, Kinetic, Tamiya or Z-M come out with a better kit of the same thing. My F-4 being on of them.

It's been a slow week for me so here's a small update on what I got done at Hobby Day.

I'll start with my armor.

The Italian Trattore had a missing cab which I finally found. I quickly got this glued into place on the chassis before I lost it again:



Later I'll be adding the windows and gloss coat for decals.

Moving on, I got the last resin parts added to the M-51 turret:



I then added all the resin stowage parts to the left side of the tank:



Had to wait for that to dry before I could go do the other side....

Since I was doing an Israeli vehicle, the next project I worked on was the Nagmachon. I got all the suspension parts on as well as some other detail parts. I had also started to fill those crazy gaps:



Gonna refine those fills later. Meanwhile, I pulled out my Centurion tank and added all the photo-etch on the hull:



I also finished all the detail parts and the turret stowage basket on the Italian Centauro:





Now this one is ready for all the photo etch parts.

After this, I started two more small vehicles; hoping to get a few more 'easy' projects done. This first one is the T-Models M-1114 armored HUMVEE. The suspension was finally done after several puzzling test fits on each of the 20+ parts just to figure out what the instructions were trying to tell me:



That was so difficult I stopped there; reminiscing on the simplicity of the Dragon suspension assembly!

The next project I started was another of the ACE Digital design kits: the V-100 armored car. They had me start with the tiny turret. I placed an Exacto blade next to it so you could see how tiny this is:



Next was the sparse interior which wasn't going to be seen anyway:



After that, I turned it over to add the suspension:



With all that done, there was nothing left to do but close up the hull:







Finally the last thing I worked on was the Space Shuttle Shelf Queen. I started out with what I felt was the hardest part: scratchbuilding a forward bracket for the front of the Shuttle. I tried to make this in such a way that the Shuttle would be able to 'snap' into place so I could remove it from the fuel tank for transport. This is also why I made it a bit longer than the lower one:



Also, the vertical tail comes off for transport. Now it fits in one of my flat tubs.

With a little finagling, I was successful with that forward bracket; this beastie snaps into place well. After that, I finished painting and detailing the exhaust bells and then mounted them on the shuttle. They actually have more steel-colored metal showing which the pic does not reflect. The copper colored appearance was my attempt to make these look like they'd been weathered/burned in a previous launch:



Finally, I unmasked the windscreen and upper windows and touched up the edges:



I could finally call this Shelf Queen done! Eventually, I will finish the payloads that came with this model so I can lay them out as a display around the base of this shuttle.

Okay, that's completes this tour of the plant! Thanks all for coming in, comments are always welcome.

Very nice!! A Space Shuttle kit is on my do get list eventually.