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Keep going Ratch. You'll soon have your own regiment. Nice work. John.

Excellent work work with the weathering and the chipped paint work. John.

Nice work on the Chally 2. It looks very good. All it needs now is some dust. John.

Gotta echo what everyone else has said, the chipping is great. Nice work. John.

Poke a bit of stretched sprue in the holes, cut it off and then (if you have any), dab some correction fluid onto it. Once it's dry, just lightly rub it down. Apart from that, it's looking very good. John.

Much appreciated Roger. Many thanks. John.

Welcome aboard from another AFV modeller. John.

OK thanks anyway. I've solved the problem by scratch building them. Not perfect, but the general appearance is covered. John.

I think that there are many instances where you can come up with a better sequence of assembling parts. I had a similar problem when I was building the IDF M109. It's looking good though Ed. nice work. John.

Nice one Simon. Glad to have you back. John.

The chipping looks very realistic Keith. Nice work. John.

It's growing a little with each post. Nice work Cesar. John.

One job that I decided to try and get out of the way was the tubes for the smoke grenades. In the Sabingamartin book, the tank which I am probably going to try and depict, has the caps for the tubes hanging from their chains, (as have several others in the book). Trouble is, the tubes on the Tamiya kit are solid. Sod's law says that when you are looking for the correct diameter tube to replace them, you won't find one! So it was out with the ever larger drill bits until I had a hole of suitable size. I then finished it off with a burr. The caps for the tubes which are included on the Eduard set for the M51, are made to be fitted in place on the end of the tubes. But this is no good for having then hang free, because they should hang in a horizontal position as the chains are attached in the centre. So I removed the etched chains and attached fine chain to the centre and then glued the other end of the chain to the tubes. These will be attached later. The main gun, along with the mantlet, was glued in place. When it had set, the four pieces for the mantlet cover were glued around it. Thanks to Tamiya's engineering, there wasn't a lot of cleaning up to do. There is no blade sight included in the kit, and I didn't have any left on the umpteen etched sets that I have for the Sherman, so it would have to be made. I cut the shape out from 10thou card, and then glued a piece of 5thou card to the side. Once I was happy with the shape, it was fixed into position. These early M51s carried another feature that I haven't seen on any other tank, and that is the aerial bases. As far as I am aware, there are no AM products of these available, so once again, they had to be scratch built. To do this I cut short lengths of Slaters plastic tube. Then a much thinner piece of tube was sliced off for the top piece. These were slid onto a small round file to aid the assembly process, which consisted of gluing four pieces of 10x20thou strip to join the two pieces of tube together. The photos show this better than I can describe. Then the two assemblies were glued into position on the rear of the turret, and two aerial bases from the kit were inserted. They are not the best examples of these aerials, but the best that I can do in the circumstances. That's it for now. Now I really must go and cut the grass. Thanks for looking. John.

Brilliant job. Really well painted and weathered. Nice one. John.

And so you should be. That's a really good looking Crocodile. Great job with the painting and weathering. Also, there's nothing wrong with that figure. Nice work all round. John.

Thanks Wayne. I sometimes think that I am going too far, as I get caught up on some piece of minutia for so long. Still, as long as I'm enjoying it. Thanks Ed. Yes and now I'm terrified of knocking some of them off. Thanks Paul. Yes, those brackets have made me realise that I need new glasses......now Thanks Terry. Yes, sadly, the Tamiya one is the only one in town, which is fine for all the other versions, but not this one. Many thanks everybody. Your comments are very much appreciated. John.

Great work Simon. I really like the grubby look of those rear mudguards. John.

Glad to hear that it's all righted itself. Now you can get back to posting some of those jokes again. John.

That paint job has come out very well Wayne. It may not be the easiest of kits/conversions, but you've certainly knocked it into shape. Nice work.

You've managed to get some really good detail into this model, considering how small the scale is. Also, excellent work on the canvas tilt. Nice one. John.

Well worth the wait Stef. You've done a great job on the worn paintwork. Nice work. John.

Just a small update. The commander's hatch proved to be a lot easier than the loader's. The moulded grab handle was removed with a sharp blade and replaced with nickel silver wire, bent to shape. On the inside of the cover there is a circle of plastic, dead centre. I looked at several photos of these hatch covers, and none showed this circle, so it was removed by scraping with a curved blade. I made the locking catch from a strip of pewter foil and some copper wire strand, bent into a square. Once it was all assembled, it was glued into the inside of the cover., and then the whole assembly glued onto the turret. A few details added, but there's a whole lot more. So now it's either go out and cut the grass.........or go to my modelling room. No contest! John.

Two friends were playing golf. On the tee, Jack hit his shot way left of the fairway into some buttercups. Bob proceeded to hit his shot and his ball went way off to the right in the bushes. Jack eventually found his ball and proceeded to swipe at it, scything through the buttercups. All of a sudden, he heard a big *POOF* and a fairy appeared. She told Jack that she was Mother Nature and that she was really upset at him for damaging the buttercups. She said, ''Jack, for all the damage that you did to my buttercups, you will not have any butter to put on your toast in the morning for the next month. No, as a matter of fact, I am so upset at you that you won't have any butter for the whole of next year! That should teach you a lesson so you won't hurt my creations." *POOF* She disappeared. Jack, stunned by what just happened, called out, "Bob! Bob! Come over here here quick!" Bob replied, "Wait a sec. I'm hitting my shot and I'll be right over." Jack yelled back at Bob, "Where are you?" Bob answered, "I'm over here in the pussy willows." Jack shouted back, "Don't swing Bob! For the love of God, don't swing!"

An Amish husband, wife and son travel to the city on vacation. They visit a shopping mall and while the mother is shopping, the father and son are standing in awe in front of an elevator (having no idea what it is). As they watch, an elderly lady walks into the strange silver box and the doors close. The father and son watch as the numbers go up, and then back down. When the doors open, a beautiful young woman walks out. The father leans over and whispers to the son, "Son, go get your mother!"