ScanmanDan

That sounds like a great selection of British types. I share your joy of these kits. They are just a lot of fun. Progress; Freehand camouflage always challenges me and, well this is the best I can do. Now some detail painting, some decals then the good stuff!!!

Finished up the Churchill AVRE on the weekend and jumped right in on another kit from the stash By the end of Monday I had her to here, basic assembly finished. Pretty much straight OOB with a replacement barrel. Added a little texture to the front plates and drilled the tracks. The tricky part for me was building the tracks all as one unit so they can be taken off and painted separately. For an older kit with the metal hull she went together smoothly and was a joy to build. Finished up some details and the sprayed some nice red primer tonight. That's where I'm at so far. Now all I have to do is figure out which of the zillion different camouflage patterns to try Thanks for looking in. Dan

Yes Sanfrandragon, you need to print the conversion yourself. Any of the basic resin 3D printers are capable of printing these parts. If you'd like have a look at my WIP post that shows what's involved.

I'm calling this one done before I wreck it by adding more and more 'improvements' I think I managed to do what I started out to accomplish which is to build a good 1/48 scale Churchill AVRE using Temma-san's lovely 3D printable parts designs. I hope you like the results. Someday I'll build a little base for it but I'm already planning a half dozen other projects. Nice to finish something for a change Thanks for looking in. Dan

Working from home means no commute which means more bench time. Progress; First pass of highlights and shadows done with oil paints. Now a quick rest to dry off then a stain varnish before pin washes and splatters. No chips or rust on this one as I want a lean, clean, machine. Thanks for looking in. Dan

Alpha Juliet - Do pop in. You are most welcome and if you have any question please ask. A great bunch of fellows there.

Andy - They are a lot of fun, though have a look at the Anycubic too. I would say between the two it is more a function of support for things like replacement LCD screens and resin that might be most important. I get all my stuff from Amazon as they import the Elegoo Mars into Australia. Your milage my vary. Might I also suggest looking into Fusion 360 if you don't have any 3d drawing software to hand. Because being able to design your own parts/models really, really opens up the possibilities. Think, design and print... It's a powerful combination. It doesn't replace traditional scratchbulding it compliments it very well. But then like all converts I'm a bit of a zealot Here's a little cart I scaled down from the 1/35 scale Miniart version. All done in Fusion 360 and printed with the Elegoo Mars. Like I said I'm pretty hooked on this stuff as a great adjunct to traditional modelling.

Jason _ Thanks, glad you like it. Yes, the Spigot Mortar was printed. As was the front armoured plates, the tracks and various other detail parts. Most were designed by the brilliant designer Temma-san with a few little parts I designed. All were printed on my little Elegoo Mars basic printer. Thanks Alpha Juliet. If you like this sort of thing I suggest the facebook group 3D48th . Dedicated to sharing and promoting 3d printing in 1/48th scale armour. A lovely group of folks discussing and sharing designs, ideas and good cheer about both the design and 3D printing of 1/48th scale armour bits. All sorts of designs already on the site with the only provision that you cannot use them for commercial gain. If you have a 3d printer or are thinking about one I suggest a look see. Andy - Thanks a million, I'm simply chuffed you like my little hybrid. Tamiya does a great job on these 1/48th scale kits. A joy to build.

Thank you John. Thant's the nicest thing anyone has ever said about one of my builds. Progress, Getting all the details started and mucking about with the oil paints. I love doing this part of the build, just need to not over do it.

Progress; All together and all one colour 😎 So that's a good thing. Now the fun bits start. Thanks for looking in.

I was looking for a quick weekend project so I shamelessly riffed of the AK interactive "how to" videos to use their asphalt paste. Neat stuff and I have heaps more to try different things with. Thanks for looking in. I hope you like the results. Dan

I like and have built quite a few of the Meng Toon Tanks. I like the quick, no fuss, joy of build, paint and be done in a few weekends. I also just started playing about with a 3D printer. Hmmm, I wonder if I can join the dots. So... Not to drive myself crazy I picked a project with mainly flat panels namely a Mk IV male tank. Being it is a cartoon tank I do have to be selective in my details and try and stay within the 'design philosophy' that Meng has going. This mostly involves squishing the subject in length and exaggerating some details while glossing over others entirely. First stop was roughing out the shape in Fusion 360 to get something I found pleasing. This took a few hours. The challenge for me was how to break the model down into seperate parts I could conceivable print successfully on my Elegoo Mars printer. After that I spent hours on and off working more and more detail into each part one by one. I'm up to about version 50 at this stage. There are a lot of details inside each part so the whole thing can slot together. At this point I thought it best to do some test prints to see just how the design will look in the real world. This was a good news/bad news moment. Good in that everything fits and printed pretty much as designed, bad in that I can see a heap of changes to make to improve the design. Now it's a matter of taking a few notes and getting to the design and massaging the details. It's been a fun interesting project so far and one that could allow for a lot of freedom in modelling in the future. Thanks for looking in and any comments and suggestions are welcome.

After a horrible week I thought I'd do something simple and fun so I thought to start base coating the AVRE. I happened to be in the hobby shop and noted they had started to carry the AK range for paints, so in the spirit of why not I picked some up to try. At first go I think they are okay, I am usually a boring mixed Tamiya acrylics thinned with lacquer thinners kinda guys so I do kind of like all the pretty bright colours AK offers. I have no idea as to how 'correct' this SCC15 is but it hardly matters as I'm going to mess with it pretty soon. I do like that the 3D printed parts seem to have bedded down with only a little work to remove some remaining printing lines. Nice to start getting to the painting stage but lots still to do. Thanks for looking in.

Progress; Part of the downside to getting a new bit of gear is you want to use it all the time. I've been mucking about with the printer some more. Tow cable ends. lifting points and some dubious intake covers. All a lot of fun but slowing me down from getting this one finished. Well the sides are about done. a few more details here and there and then on tho the fun bit, painting.

Progress... I'm really happy with the early tracks. So far everything fits as advertised. I hope you like her. Dan

Very nice ideed. Kudos on your Jagdpanther. I am sure as you look about there are more than enough kits, and bits and bobs to keep you interested in 1/48th scale. If you do the Facebook thing there is a nice group of modellers at 1/48 Armour Modelling ( Facebook) as well as a newer group just devoted to 3D printing for 1/48 scale armour at 3D 48th . Both are filled with helpful folks. I'm looking forward to seeing that Hetzer of yours. 😀 Are you planning on doing some bases for you builds?

Hi all, here the start of my latest mania. Just before Christmas I got my hands on a Elegoo Mars SLA 3D printer. Like all newbies I went nuts and printed and designed all sorts of doodads and geehaws. But the work of designer Temma-san on the 1/48scale 3D printing Facebook page really got under my skin. He has done a ton of work on covering the backdating of the 1/48 scale Tamiya Churchill to earlier marks and even the AVRE. Now who doesn't want an AVRE in there collection? So... I jumped in and printed all the parts. The first part was the turret and that printed out quite well. Then I tackled the front hull plate. Some distortion of the lower edge but workable. I few hours with files chisels and a Dremel got this fitted into the base hull. I did have to shame the bottom of the hull and fill my poor printing of the part but It's starting to look the part. Next was the hull sides. Now The MkVII as depicted in the Tamiya kit and the earlier marks had a bunch of difference in the hull front panels. I wasn't game enough to do that much hacking so I have 'cheated' and removed the round side hatch and added the parts as close as I can to where they are meant to go. Not strictly accurate but it will suffice. I have a few more tweaks to do but I'm having fun and I think I'll end up with something neat at the end. I highly recommend these parts for anyone to try this out. Temma-san has done fantastic work on these and full credit goes to him. Thanks for having a look.

Thank you gentlemen. These kits sure are fun and you can really bash and customise them to your hearts content. I have quite a few of these little guys in my cupboard for those times when you get a bit bogged down in a complex build. A couple of weekends with a carefree kit can make a world of difference. The base was a fun experiment too.

My latest. Just a quick build and paint. I hope you like it. Thanks for looking in.

Well a month wasted... I just could not get any figures for not look awful. I messed about for weeks and in the end said to myself, just get on with it. So, on to making a little base. Here's where I'm at right now. Usual construction. Namely a wooden box from a craft shop topped with a rim of 2.5mm square Evergreen strip painted black with rubber feet. Then some cheap hardware store epoxy putty groundwork covered by a mix of broken plaster rocks, grout & sand + scatter materials with added bit o' bobbins to taste. Here's a few pics with the Honey as is. I've still more to do but this last pic is close to what I had in my minds eye when I started and to me that's a successful build. Thanks for looking in.

Last pics for the weekend. One side down now need to get the other looking the same. Still a fair bit to do but kicking along pretty well at least I haven't wandered off to do something else. Thanks for looking in. Dan

Hi John - Yes I did gloss first and silvering wasn't a problem. It's more hiding the thickness of the decal and stopping the step caused by applying them show though the weathering. I did shoot a thin coat of gloss to seal the decals but it didn't make too much difference. I hope to be able to hide the texture in the weathering. Got a bit of time to mess about this afternoon, progress but not much. I'm working on the hull bottom too but it looks a mess right now. Im not going to do any real attempt to do an OD lower hull on this one but I think it would make an outstanding and stunning looking model. I want to keep it simple and keep moving lest I get distracted. I hope you enjoy. Dan

Jon - This is the silver texture paste I used for the weld beads. The nozzle is about 0.03mm so nice and small beads are pretty easy. The paste cleans up with water and holds its shape pretty well. Works okay and is very fast and easy. Comes in a lot of colours too . Tonights progress; A couple of washes in oils and some pin washes in Humbrol. A few chips here and there. The Star decals are okay but I'm not very good at getting the film to disappear, sigh. I hate decals Just not good at em. More work on the tracks and wheels plus painting more details tomorrow. Having fun and that's the main thing. Thanks for looking in. Dan

Progress?: Looks pretty ratty right now but I trust I can get it looking better in a bit.

Most of the afternoon zipped away doing that last bits to get ready for primer. I've done my mix of Tamiya for the light Stone, so here goes. Before the paint booth. We'll see how I go. I've got my fingers crossed. Dan