1/35 Eastern Express KV-1s

I've switched gears to finish a couple of projects for some online group builds I'm involved in. The subject for this armor build is the Eastern Front. I have a number of suitable subjects in my stash and I ended up choosing Eastern Express' KV-1S in 1/35 scale. Once you get past the flash this is not a bad kit. So far I've had no major fit problems and the detail is pretty decent. Incidently the my Tiger I build is also an Eastern Front subject but since I had already started building it doesn't qualify as an "official" entry but I still hope to finish it for the campaign.

Anyway, on to the model. I didn't want to invest a lot in after-market products but I still wanted to enhance the detail of the kit. I replaced the front fenders and the sheet metal deflector at the rear with cuttings from a frozen lasagna tray.




Weld seems were enhanced with a hot knife and some added with plastic strip. The grill under the rear deck was made from a bit of window screen on a plastic strip frame.

The handles on the tool boxes are wire and more bits from the lasagna tray.

Here's the turret for the KV. The texturing was achieved with some Model Master glue smeared about and scrubbed with an old brush. A little Tamiya putty smoothed out any overdone bits. The rear machine gun needed some filling at the join but nothing major.

Handles are made from copper wire. The casting numbers came from the spares box from an accessories sprue for a 54mm figure. They are not 100% accurate but add interest to the turret.


GB

1/35 Italeri Tiger 1H, part 2

My Tiger project continues with an attempt at reproducing a cast finish with Tamiya putty thinned with nail polish remover. I've also added the stowage box, mantlet and left side smoke grenade launchers.
I noticed a seam that will have to be fixed after applying the texturing. When I test fitted the mantlet it had a significant diagonal skew. Twisting didn't bring it in line so I ended up cutting the attachment point right off, glued it to the mantlet then re-attached at the correct angle. You might also be able to make out the casting number which was added from a Historex detail sprue from the spares bin.
For the stowage bin I wanted to try to recreate the clasps for the lids. This was done with a combination of plastic strip, fine wire and bits of sprue. The bin itself needed some super-glue seam filler and sanding. I also added a few dents and dings. You might notice in the picture above that the pistol port is inverted. I popped it off and glued it the right way around.
For the smoke grenade launchers, I really wanted to add some wiring detail. The Italeri part consists of bracket, launcher holder and individual tubes. First I hollowed out the tubes and then bent the launcher holder tabs to more or less the angles seen in pictures of the real thing. At the rear of each launcher I glued a small bit of round plastic sliced from a piece of stretched sprue. When the glue was set I drilled a small hole in each to run the wires through and tacked them down with super-glue. A short piece of thicker copper wire was used to complete the connection through the turret roof.



GB

1/35 Italeri Tiger 1 H1

My latest project is a 1/35 Italeri Tiger 1. I know a lot of people knock this kit but I'm not really an expert on Tiger's so accuracy is not a big issue for me. I have to give credit to Matt Grzybinski on the Armorama forum. His work on a 1/25th Tamiya Tiger was my inspiration. I don't expect to turn out anything near as good but I figured this kit would be a good base to try out some new techniques.

As I've said, I'm not a Tiger officianado but it seems to me that the Italeri kit has features more common to a Jan/Feb '43 production vehicle rather than an early version. One of of the major changes required was to add the escape where the right side pistol port is.
This was a bit of of a challenge. I cut the hatch out of plastic card and carefully sanded it to what looked to me to be reasonably circular. I then cut the hole in the turret all the while checking the fit. The hole didn't come out too clean - the edges should have been straight but they came out tapered in places and gappy. I've tried to fix this with filler. I have a bit more work to do here.

I added some details to the commander's copula with bolt heads cut off an old Tamiya KV-2 hull, some plastic strip and fine wire for the spring. The weld beads were done with stretched sprue softened with glue and textured with an old X-acto blade. The bead around the cupola is probably overdone.
The join of the turret roof needed some filling and sanding especically towards the mantlet on both sides. I went over the welds with a hot knife that I picked up at a craft store.
This angle shows some more of the details added to the copula and hatch. The inside of the hatch is not the greatest but I'm hoping it won't be too bad once the commander is in place.

GB

1/35 DML Panther F - Finished

Construction and painting are now complete. I have to spray a matte coat and I do want to put this on a base with a Warriors figure standing on the engine deck. This is my 3rd complete this year - a little off my goal of 1 a month but if i can finish Dora off by the end of the month I'll be in better shape.







GB

1/35 DML Panther F

Wow two posts in one day! Online group builds are great ways to plan your builds or motivate yourself to do something. This particular model is for a group build on Model Geek (Amorama) call "Get the Job Done". The idea is to finally finish some of those projects that have been sitting on the bench for a while. I bought this model several years ago on eBay, started it, lost interest, start again, stopped again - you get the picture. Anyhow I am making a concerted effort to finish this by the end of the month.

The Panther F was to be the latest revision of the Panther line. Sporting a new, smaller turret design that was supposed to address the Panther's weakness in all-around protection. It is debateable wether or not the F model ever made it into combat in the last days of the war. There were prototypes built and several hulls were completed. Some turrets were also built but didn't have all the key components installed.

At any rate I am finishing this as if it were delivered to Panzer Division Muncheberg just before the battle of Seelow Heights and defended Berlin in the final days of the war.

The next 3 photos show pretty well where I left off about a year and a half ago.

The brighter yellow parts and the PE grills were just added this time around.
I lost the PE brackets for the exhaust so had to build new ones from plastic strip.
Here's where I am now. I need to do some additional weathering, painted details (tools) and install the tracks.




GB

1/48 Accurate Miniatures B-25 C/D "Dirty Dora"

It's been a while since I updated this blog. I have been making progress on Dora and I should be finished soon. Major construction work is complete and I'm into the painting and weathering phase. I totally forgot to take progress pics. At this point I've applied various shades of OD Green, some paint chipping and some of the decals. I was a little intimidated by the decals but they went on well. The only problem I had was when the coat of Future clouded on one of the wings when the decal set was applied. This was probably due to me not waiting long enough for the Future coat to dry. However the guys over at Aeroscale were able to give me some advise which solved my problem - basically I just had to reapply some Future and the blemish disappeared.

Here's the problem on the wing.
A little Future and ta-da it is gone!
Now to just get off my butt and finish her off.

GB

1/48 Accurate Miniatures B-25 C/D "Dirty Dora"

After that last kit is nice to be working with a well engineered kit. I've had this Accurate Miniatures kit in my stash for some time . The website Aeroscale is running a "Twin Spinner" group build so now I have the perfect excuse to do build it. I started with the cockpit as usual. The only weird thing I found was that the control panel is supplied as a transparency yet there wasn't a decal supplied. Otherwise everything went fine. I even used the supplied seatbelt decals.
The interior is full of beautiful detail but unfortunately most of it will not be seen. The problem is that you end up spending a lot of time working on stuff that doesn't really matter. Sort of like super-detailing a cockpit - at least you know it is there.


I'm very happy with the way this is going so far. At this point I'm ready to seal the two halves up.

GB