The Official 2014 "All the Rest" Community Build-Extended to April 31st

[mustang1989]

Heya Roadkill! Good to see you in here. I'll get you switched out in the intro.

[Agent G]

With the Pz III L mostly complete, I moved back to the Befehlswagen III. I used my stencil set to create The palm tree insignia.

I sprayed those in Tamiya Flat White thinned with Tamiya Laquer Thinner. That gave a good bite into the enamel basecoat. Now I needed to replicate the unique colors used early on in North Africa. I mixed Tamiya Dark Yellow, Flat Earth and Yellow Green as a start. This got me oh so close so I added a dab of Tamiya Orange. Bingo! RAL 8000,Gelbbraun (yellow brown).

Tamiya Khaki and Olive Drab mixed gave me RAL 7008 Khakibraun (khaki brown) which is the other color.

Now the magic happens.

G

[David G.]

Time to give it some mass and weight.

Looking good!

David G.

[David G.]

The Robot is done!

I even made a power pack.

Thanks for lookin'

David G.

Edited March 23, 2015 by David G.

[cobraman]

Nice job on the robot.

[Agent G]

That's the robot I remember!

G

[mustang1989]

Now THAT is friggin' cool!! As the others have said, I aint seen that in years!! I'll get this in the intro pronto!! Dave, first off thank you for being in this CB. Secondly I'd like to extend a further invite to stick around and build something else if you feel like because you're certainly welcome here.

[mustang1989]

roadkill:I posted the update/ change in the intro post. Looking forward to the build

David G:Your B-9 pic is posted in the "Completed Builds " Section. Again feel free to grab another kit.

Wayne:Man that stencil is really coming in handy for you! Watching the progress...........

[mustang1989]

Well its Stuka time. I started off with the cockpit flooring. I have an Aires "double throw down " update kit for this aircraft as well. The Aires flooring has some fit issues that I definitely did NOT like. The length and width of it are way off so I'm going to do a little mod to correct the issue. In the picture below, the Aires part is on the left and the Hasegawa on the right:

As you can see there are significant sizing issues that result in NO fit into the fuselage concerning the length. What is not readily visible is the WIDTH concern. It doesn't fit that way either. Oh well, time for a little surgery!!! My goal is to remove the raised detail from the Hasegawa flooring by sanding it all off :

and then removing the detail from the Aires floor and transferring it over to the Hasegawa floor. Here we are at work on that...........

Here we are with the usable detail:

and here it is on the Hasegawa flooring:

The small imperfection at the L/H front of the flooring just behind the front "leg" of the raised detail is of no importance. I started to fix it but that area is going to be covered up by other detail coming up.

[David G.]

Thanks everybody!

David G.

[Agent G]

Lots of improvisation when using resin AM parts eh?

Looking good!

Here's a teaser to let you know where the Befehlswagen is heading.

Master Box figures of Rommel and staff. It's a five figure set based on a period photo.

G

[mustang1989]

Good progress on your Befehlswagen Wayne. What brand of acrylics do you use again?

[mustang1989]

Progress report here guys. I started building the L/H and R/H walls of the cockpit. I shot a coat of enamel "rattle can " silver on and allowed to dry. I then followed up with a coat of acrylic RLM 02 light grey and let that dry. After that I carefully scraped away some of the gray with a toothpick to reveal the aluminum (silver) underneath to give the initial worn look. Then I picked out some of the details with a coat of flat black mixed with a little grey. After that came a coat of Mig Productions dark wash thinned down just a bit more to not over do on the wash. Here's before the details:

After this phase I installed the PE details you see here like the oxygen bottles, gauges, control levers and ammo drums. Then I picked out the highlights and corners with some dry brushing of aluminum and hit some of the other finer points with a silver lead pencil followed by a dulling with brushed on ground up black pastel.

Edited April 9, 2014 by mustang1989

[Agent G]

The pit is shaping up nicely.

Joe the tank itself is a Tamiya mix but I have, Model Master, Vallejo and Life Color acrylics on hand as well. MM seems to have a better color selection so there is less mixing needed to achieve an appropriate color. Vallejo is my go to for figures and small details. Life Color are second to Tamiya when I paint the whole thing, but they are expensive and sometimes hard to find.

MM and LifeColor can be a bugger to spray even using their own thinners. Witness the recent episode with the Pz III L. I painted a MERDC pattern on an armored car with MM once. I had to add thinner, flow enhancer, eye of newt and heart of frog to the mix to get it to spray at all. I burned incense and read from the Talmud too.

Tamiya always sprays fine for me when I use their thinners.

G

[Dragline]

I use Laquer thinner for Tamiya. It stinks like heck [actually sweet smelling], but it lays like Autumn leaves.

I likw=e what I'm seeing Joe and Wayne..... Love those figures..

I'l have an update after I figure out why my compressor feels the need to take a vacation all of a sudden. I did get some paint on so I'll at least post those.

Bob

[Agent G]

Tamiya Laquer thinner is the bomb, it makes the acrylic paint smooth as silk. I also use it with MM and Floquil enamel as well. Oh baby it makes enamel look like a baby's behind.

G

[mustang1989]

Man I hear ya loud and clear on getting MM acrylics to behave when airbrushing!! Always gums up the needle tip...........and I mean bad. I have had to cut it with ISO and it yeilds only minor improvements.There seems to be a price for the color selection.

[mustang1989]

Seat belt painting under way with a coat of Humbrol Linen enamel a couple of days ago:

and then here we are with the pilots and gunners seat with the seat belts installed along with a couple more details:

and a top side view: I always pic the metal detail out with MM aluminum enamel paint and weather the belts to dirty them up a bit to give em that used look with ground up black pastel brushed onto the belts. What's interesting here is I had to cut away some of the floor detail (that will not be seen) to accomodate the oxygen bottles on the R/H side. AM stuff.............I'll tell ya!!

There's more coming. The Aires cockpit set has LOTS of stuff in there!!

Edited April 12, 2014 by mustang1989

[David G.]

Looking good Joe! Details, details, details!

David G.

[Agent G]

More more more!

I've been out of town so I will have some progress reports this evening.

G

[mustang1989]

Thanks for the vote of confidence on the progress so far Dave and Wayne!

Well the updates for today are minor but I'm glad I found what I found now instead of later. It seemed that after I installed the S5b and F5a radio transmitter/ receiver boxes behind the pilots seat there that the overturn structure which mounts to the sides of the cockpit and then the radios mount to that, I had a problem. The radios sat too far down in the cockpit. Further research showed that there was a rectangular base that was supposed to be there that did not come with my update kit. I robbed the part that was molded to the OOB radios, cleaned it up, painted and weathered it and then installed the parts.

Here's the before pics:

and the after pics:

Coming up next will be the rudder pedals (which look like a real PIA) and the instrument panel. Also coming down the pipe line is the planning for cutting an access panel out of the L/H wing for displaying the wing 7.92mm machine gun and a panel for the cowl to display the oil reservoir.

Edited April 14, 2014 by mustang1989

[Agent G]

I think that is just superb. A cockpit to behold!

Ok no piccies last night, I'm watching the grandchildren for a few days. Chaos and panic in the Gray household!

Here's where we're at as of this morning.

Prodigious application of pigments yields a severely dusty finish.

This is a vehicle from early on in the campaign in North Africa. I depicted what a tankk would look like due to the conditions in Libya. It's a lot different from the Pz III L in Tunisia.

G

[Agent G]

Here's the remainder as they wouldn't fit in one post.

These are some of the "accessories". Cans with white crosses are water cans, the others are fuel. The four gray rhomboids are to depict the early war marking plates for the panzers. The tank number was painted on the plate and attached to the vehicles sides and rear. The rhomboid was the tactical symbol for armor in the German Army back then.

Remember the crew?

G

[formula1129]

Great Work Guys!!! There is a lot of talent here. I just want everyone to know that I am still a runner in this race.

Thank the heavens I have close to a year to finish this. I have alot going on at home, and various other reasons (excuses) for the slow production on my part. But I will finish this on time, and give it my best.

I was able to get the decals on it. Not perfect, but not bad for my first set of decals ever. One coat of clear over the decals was applied, and I will spray a few more coats on after a light wet sand to remove some dust that settled on it.

The pic below shows the three sections lining up quite well. They meet at the trunk seem lines. No skill here, just plain good ole fashioned luck.

[Agent G]

Oh Ben that looks great!

I love the color and the decals just set it off perfectly.

Good job.

G