Tim R-T-C

Good work so far 😁

Fantastic work.

I really like this build. Would look great as a regular untimed build, the four hour timespan is just amazing. Has given me lots of inspiration to do a similar project.

After a very pleasant day of wining and dining, I managed to squeeze an hour's work in before the arrival of relatives. I always like figures on my vignettes, it adds scale and life to a scene. This will be no different, so firstly some Bundeswehr soldiers who will be marching past on their way to their part of the exercise. 3d printed from Panzer-Shop.nl Then some crew for the tank. In this scene the crew will be awaiting their morning orders so are not fully kitted up yet. I don't have any specific 1980s tank crew figures, so I found some Red Ball Express drivers at rest from eBay seller 3djson who are wearing knitted caps and drinking coffee, who seemed well suited. I also extracted some Preiser model railway figures - these are 1/160 - but I will be using a couple of children only, so the scale difference shouldn't be problematic. I added primer to all of these, the etch part of the tank and the metal rods on the base. Hopefully a proper session tonight will get a lot more progress.

Fascinating project

Looking forward to seeing this. I love the Manchuko air force scheme. Just an FYI, the roundels should align with the rivet line, not the upper wing. Not sure if that affects the Ki-43, but was an issue on some other Manchuko types.

Even comes boxed with little sticks for self-flagellation as the kit is so easy it doesn't satisfy Calvinist Christmas principles...

Really useful technique for the wings, going to have to tackle another one of these again after seeing this build.

The following is being posted on behalf of my better half, Emma, fellow modeller and a regular exhibitor on the IPMS UK show circuit, but not a fan of writing prose and working out forums. Seasons greetings to everyone, this is the first time I have ever tried a Blitz(en)build - but after a Snowball I decided it would be fun to give it a try. Got a busy Christmas few days with my mother coming to stay, so definitely invoking the Great Escape ruling on timings. The kit is by Rubicon Models in their usual 1/56 scale (28mm wargame scale). I love these models as they have a varied output, its really handy scale for diorama building and they have a very friendly presence and community here in the UK who made me feel very welcome. Although their earlier kits were quite basic, primarily for wargamers, the newer output is as detailed as any dedicated display kit. Assembly is relatively straight forward but there are a lot of parts and lots of variants in the box, so careful reading is required. This boxing is part of their Vietnam War series, but the decal sheet includes numerous European operators, so I'm going to make an East German version as we had an interesting trip to the former DDR last year. It will hopefully be in a suitable vignette in the future but I will need to source some suitable figures. I clocked up an hour of assembly on Christmas Eve before other jobs called. Hopefully I will make a better job of the paintwork than when trying to ice these cookies 😀

So got back rather later than planned, didn't get to resume building until 6pm, so its going to probably be the Great Escape option for this build and lets see what happens! I painted and panel lined the base to show the gaps and cracks nicely. Then affixed it to the canvas board backing - masked off a roughly 8cm square and filled the rest with terrain paste. I cracked open the M60 next. The U-star kits are rather strange - highly detailed plastic with a little etch sheet too, but without any decals or paint guide. They are from Taiwan and not regularly available in the UK - I picked this up at Telford this year for all of £3. On some previous models I have drilled out a hatch or two, but the odd shaped hatches on the M60 would make this a lot more work. Took a break to make some snowballs and what has become a Christmas Eve tradition - a meal comprised entirely of starters from the supermarket Christmas aisle! It is definitely a fiddly build, with the parts on the turret side, particularly small and hard to affix. But by 10pm however she was complete, alas with morning duties calling, I had to retire for the night. Not before adding some metal posts to the drying mud however, for a fence and painting a small strip of cork for a concrete wall. So with 4 hours, 20 minutes used so far, hopefully I will get to sneak some more time in over the next few days 😁

With that expression, has he just seen you lift this kit off the wall too...?

Neat little project, looking forward to this one

Wow, definitely a vintage project!

Started at 1130 GMT Got a family meal this afternoon, so made a start on the concrete slabs so hopefully they will be dry for this afternoon when doing the main assembly. Used a fine cork sheet, cut to the final size shape, then at an angle and scored to represent concrete slabs. Painted with Tamiya pavement texture. Clocked up 20 minutes, in case I need to call in the Great Escape option!

Operation Reforger was the US Army's plan to deliver forces from bases in the US into Western Europe to counter the mass Soviet Invasion they anticipated. Exercise Reforger was an annual wargame based on this principle - rapidly conveying US soliders to depots of armour located mostly in West Germany for maneuvers. I will be looking to replicate one of the M60A1 tanks used in this operation, in a small vignette inspired by this recent Uncle Night Shift video Except my base is a mere 10cm square since the tank is 144th scale. I did pre-empt this build slightly by preordering a name plate from www.nameitplates.co.uk If you are wondering what the giant P-40 is up to - while putting current projects away to make desk space for this build I found my first ever Blitzenbuild project - an Aldi special P-40 I will be starting shortly and my current aim is to complete the project in a pure 24 hours - although this will largely depend on drying time for the scenic paints...

Thanks for those photos, looks better in every shot. Will definitely look for that magazine issue.

Spoiler alert - its a delightful build 😁

Absolutely magnificent build all round and the second bank of photos with backdrop are worthy of framing. With a touch of grain and monochrome, they would easily pass as authentic pictures.

For the rigging, I have started rigging my 144th planes with 0.07mm wire. It is super-fine but comes off the reel straight so I can cut to length and carefully push into place after both wings and struts are already in place. Also has the benefit of being more visible, since my models are built with table display at shows in mind. For thread, I did try rigging my first 534 with struts in place but before fitting the upper wing, but I found that so much faffing was required to get the wing to hold properly, most of the threads were damaged. So might be easiest to try once both wings are in place and secure. A little too late to buy now, but Eduard did an etch set for this kit which included the rigging represented by brass!

Sounds like a very fun project, count me in. I used to play with MicroMachines in a sandbox and later an elaborate papier mache battle scene set up on the drive way with similar results. I will try and dig out some photos!

Superb work there.

Gorgeous production

Fabulous creation, definitely captures a last-days feel.

Technically you could run three sequential Blitzbuilds during the three day festive period... 🤔

Wow, that's a helluva oeuvre!