Ned

I hated it at school. Chapped legs and all that. But my son wanted to join a running club at school, and after a few weeks of standing there holding everyone's coats I decided to join in and just loved it. He's 16 now, so tomorrow will be the first time that he competes against me in an adult race. He'll finish a good 15 minutes before me and I don't care.

Blimey that looks good.

An extension is indeed good news. I'm almost done, but this is a busy weekend. The cross-country running season is here, so I'll be running round a (very) muddy course tomorrow morning, and then be incapable of moving for the rest of the day. I have already booked monday off work just to hit the deadline, but now I can relax a bit more

Fiddly bit done! I've been fretting about getting these chains fitted for a while, but all four of them are done now. Not so bad after all. With these and other bits that I've done today, the hull and running gear can finally come together. Closing in on completion now. Hull and tracks will go together tomorrow, slap some paint on the turret, and Bob's your Uncle.

New skillz tonight - making straps for the shovel and toolbox out of wine bottle metal foil. I have a terrible feeling that 1/16 might be 'my scale'. I've only gone any bought another one! The box is huge https://www.scalemates.com/kits/hobbyboss-82603-pzkpfw-38-t-ausfe-f--1456322

I'm progressing at a snail's pace, but just now I fitted the tracks to the suspension units and dry-fit them onto the hull. It looks fab! I've done a pin wash on the rivets, now I need to dirty it up a bit but I don't think I'll be able to really do it justice, from all accounts these things leaked oil from everywhere and so were a proper mess. Hopefully I'll get it done just in time.

I'm late to this, but a Beaufighter was clearly the correct choice I'm very excited by your build. It is riveting.

I hope you're all getting on better than I am with this. I'm not getting much time, but I am plugging away when I get the odd half-hour. I'm not working on anything else (other than buying more kits!). I've spent the last three weekends running and gardening, no plans for either of those activities this weekend, so maybe I can get the decals on and some detailing done.

Well now. I've came close to giving up on this because I just couldn't fathom out how to do a four colour scheme. It's not something that I've ever tried before. The size of it was also putting me off. But after putting so much effort into the interior I just have to finish it now. During the week I had a go at painting the suspension units, with yellow over green over brown over black (that fiendish black outline around blocks of colour). But the results are just not quite good enough, as Panzer putty slowly obeys gravity and creeps downwards during the hours that it's on for when you're doing multiple colours. I had a think about how to do the hull (one of those thoughts was to just paint it green and be done with it!) and decided to leave the black off and just do yellow over green over brown. I'll do the black outlines in a day or two. So here it is with the green on over a masked brown base: And here's the yellow going on: And here is how it looks now. The scheme is loosely based on one in the Saumur tank museum that someone posted a good walkaround video of. I am so relieved to be at this point! It's fair to say that I hate painting, I'd much rather be building. I've had to buy a load of new kits to give me an extra push!

I've changed my mind and done the little-known night fighter variant!

I'm of a generation that persuaded their parents to buy them a ZX Spectrum for "doing school work on" and has never stopped. Still, it keeps me out of trouble, and it's something to do while paint/glue dries

Gosh this is tense. Thankfully Baldur's Gate isn't out yet on PS5, but I have just started a third or fourth attempt to get past the intro levels of Red Dead Redemption 2 when I should be working on my FT,

Three weeks have passed and I've finally got some time! Where does it go? School hols are supposed to be restful. I've bought some paint for the four colour camouflage. I was going to use an AK 'WW1 French Colors" set, but chickened out because I just couldn't get them to work on a Hotchkiss that I made a year or two ago (Heller GB). Buying paint is always a good excuse to add to the stash, and I'm really glad to say that none of them are large scale The hatches that I will have open are temporarily glued shut with Maskol, and the (black) primer is on. I'm planning on painting it in completely the wrong order, so all over in the smallest area colour (black) and then masking off until I get to what would be the base colour (yellow) so that I have less masking to do overall (yes, this might be a terrible mistake!) First I need to translate the colours in a museum walkaround video into front/back/side/above views (even though it's all made up anyway because nobody really knows!) Loads still to do, but on we go...

Hey! Well I got back from holiday and started filling a few gaps in the armour, and... ...two weeks later I've done nothing. I think the amount of work that I've got left to do has frightened me off. I'm away this weekend in Edinburgh but I'll get back to it when I return. The seat back (if it can be called that) is a canvas strip stretched across the inside of the hull. Takom have pointlessly modelled this as PE, so it's just a flat featureless rectangle. I'm useless at generating texture where there is none, so it's going to be hard work. That's why I've been putting it off until the last moment.

I'm off now on a 10 day holiday, catching a few trains that will get me from Leeds to Madrid via London, Paris, Barcelona, and Valencia. I've never tried this before, so it will either be the best holiday ever or a disaster! I was aiming to finish the build before I went away, and I almost managed it. It's built, but I've got a bit of gap closing to do. Billy Connolly says "never trust a person that doesn't try on a tea-cosy if they're left alone in a room with one", so I'll paraphrase that as "never trust a person that can't resist seeing what a model is going to look like". It's a beast! I think I need a holiday to decide how to do a 4 colour camouflage scheme over this. I need a bigger airbrush!

Yes, overall the FT was a reliable tank. The rigid suspension didn't break, it just broke the crew instead. Cresting a rise, the whole tank would pitch forward and crash down into the ground. Being inside one probably wasn't much fun. Typically, I've just found a photo of men working on an engine, and they have removed the entire armour plate on one side to get to it. These things aren't riveted together, it's all round-headed bolts. Too late to do it now, but I'd love to show one opened up. Really easy to do as well...

Hey! Here's the turret with my scribed join between the top and the sides after a blast of primer. It looks OK, so I'll crack on with replacing some lost rivet heads and fitting the gun / cupola / rear hatch. Things are moving on. Two big sprues emptied today. I'm starting to think about colour, which must be a good sign. Can't find any 360 views though. Why do books only ever show one side profile? It's so lazy.

I've been looking forward to this part of the build as I've never really understood how this all goes together and does its job. The way that tank running gear developed over time is what I like the most about them - the more complicated the better. Here on an FT the whole lot pivots about the rear axle / drive sprocket, bouncing up and down on a coil spring that is fixed to the hull at the front (not in the pic, because it's fixed to the hull). The dirty great front wheel is mounted in a fork that can be adjusted backwards/forwards to tension the track, and then the return rollers are on a rail that hinges at the rear, with a spring (not fitted yet) at the front to keep pushing out and adding tension to the track. It's just a massive weight to add to a diddy two man tank. Love it.

What a nice looking little kit. Far too good for wargamers.

I don't know how you do this, Paul. Are you yourself 1/35 size?

Wow! These magazines have always intrigued me. Aimed at folk that can't do basic maths and work out that they're going to spend £500+ on a model of a Fiat 500 or something similar I hope you haven't been peeking ahead! Judging by the size of the winglet, it's going to be impressive.

Time to bit farewell! See that gearbox? Not any more: See that fuel tank? Not any more! Oh well. I had fun painting them. Talking of fun, here's the wheel situation: Those big front wheels are made from wood! The return rollers and the road wheels are very crude - just a steel wheel with a bronze bush through the centre. No bearings or oil seals. Not much cleanup required for a change, just a few ejector pin marks on the drivewheels and we're off!

Well, maybe the turret isn't so bad. I've lost a few bolt heads, but there's a row of them on a section of sprue meant just for this. More importantly, I'm typing with one hand right now because I'm holding the hull together with the other hand. Yes! the hull is ready for closing up.

Well, I didn't get the hull sides fitted, but it was because I found a few more things to finish off and decided that it wasn't worth putting the side on just to get it done. I did assemble the turret and it's pretty poor. The fit of the roof is awful. There's a visible join here on the real tank - it's not a one-piece casting - but not as rough as this. There's also no internal detail - no framework, no bolt heads to match the exterior, no vision slots. All that there is is a basic breech on the gun and an empty quick-use ammo rack. I could have a go at creating something, it's not like the real thing had a lot going on in there, but I'll be closing the hatches.

I'll be a bit late joining as I'm building a 1/16 Renault FT in the Go Large Or Go Home GB. I've got the Tamiya 38(t) and a Dragon with full interior in the stash, but will probably go with the quick Tamiya build. I'm not a big fan of link and length tracks, so might do a bit of shopping...