TheEdge

Yup, I love building armour, but by all the various gods I hate road wheels with a passion. I do hope I don't start building something else so I have a big queue of stuff to paint, which feels more time efficient that powering up the airbrush to do one coat of green, the clean down and wait. I definitely didn't use that logic when I didn't start building a Pucara when I was bored a few evenings ago...

Judge away... 😁

Apologies for the radio silence, I've not had a massive amount of modelling time recently. Although this has received a quick first coat of green and some pre-shading but not much worthy of showing.

It'll go nicely with the Chieftain, AS-90, Churchill, Archer, Cromwell and Sherman all in various shades of drab green.

It has a presence and angry-ness to it that I don't think any other modern MBT has, possibly the nice sharp angles. I had to actually remove the little tabs that are meant to stop the turret popping off to actually rotate the turret. Although the turret fit is so tight it still won't come out without help. I'm not sure really. I quite like the plain simple British Army green with a Chinese Eye. But then I have a desert Scimitar so maybe desert yellow. But it does have a scheme for Berlin Brigade camo. A brave choice but maybe I can find a mask.

Its been a while thanks to real life things being in the way but some Challenger progress... First time its the first real bit of trouble I had from this kit. The main molding that made up the majority of the gun mantlet was curled pretty heavily out of shape. So I glued it with a considerable amount of glue down one side... Once that had been left to cure for an extended period to make sure the next step wouldn't pull it open again came another liberal application of glue and all the Tamiya tape I could fit... Luckily it worked, its still slightly out of shape and a bit tight in the turret but it fits. Talking about the turret... So that's most of the building done and time to get the airbrush out. Also time to move this to the painting area and the Italeri Rafale M that's waiting patiently to the side into the building area.

Well its been a few days and progress has been slow thanks to work but got a few hours of detailing done and moved onto the top of the hull... Once again these large bits of pin injector debris continue to plague this model. Admittedly only a minor annoyance but a few of them are on surfaces that need gluing so they do need removing and filing flat. But given the price and the quality of the rest of the model this is really annoying, not looked in detail at the sprues of the other RFM models but I guess its a recurring problem. Anway... Many details glued to the back along with the nice etched covers for the engine bay. A lot of hinges and handles to go on. And the front details. And the turret begins. Very aware of the gap around the side of the turret, its not fully finished and glued yet, but I didn't take many pictures of the hull build stages so I felt like adding an extra one. I'm enjoying this build but after three AFVs in quick succession I feel like getting an aircraft started. Kinetic Pucara, Revell 767 or Tamiya P-38. Hard choice. Dave

Well, its taken a season and a half of Futurama, with a break for lunch and sweating in these ludicrous temperatures... I started yesterday with a liberal coat of Tamiya Dark Iron and a quick coat of gloss varnish, all applied quick and nasty with an airbrush to give a decent base colour and protect the paint for the liberal handling to come. I started yesterday evening by doing short lengths using one of the jigs and joining them together. It took me far too long to realise doing this was inefficient and meant counting and recounting track links to get to the magic 79. For the second set I decided to be smart and made a note that I was left with 5 of each part on the sprues used for the first set... So, we got to today... I glued all four jigs together, counted and trimmed 79 pads, backs and rods, parted them into pots and sat down in front of Futurama. A jig full of pads and rods, ready for a dab of Tamiya Extra Thin, two and half jigs made up the whole track. Its over! Two sets of tracks. Well actually minus one link, I'm going to ignore the instructions and glue the last links together once they are on the tank as I can't see how to actually get the track over the wheels if its already complete. Yeah, once I was in the groove its quite simple really, but time consuming. And the result is far better than rubber band tracks. Plus my quick and lazy pass with an airbrush has resulted in quite a lot of variation in colour. I'm going to call that "intentional pre-shading" 🤪

Thats a wonderful looking model with an excellent finish.

Oh that's magnificent and just gives me another kit that I feel inclined to buy! Although it wouldn't be even close to the quality of yours

That is an absolute thing of beauty!

@Back in the Saddle that is a beautiful image! I've been working my way through your threads for the last hour or so. That ATR looks particularly enjoyable... 😂

That is a beautiful model and I am insanely jealous. Although I'm a bit young I just about remember the Utopia tails and to this day think they are some of the best tail art to grace an airliner. I've got the Revell 767-300ER Chelsea Rose kit to make at some point but I wish I had your skills with decal making as I'd love a few 747-400s with the various tails.

Oh that's very tasty. I might have to split my model railway based moral objection to buying from Hornby to allow myself to buy from Airfix, somehow.

A little bit of work could be snuck in this morning so got the road wheels done and finished attaching the detail parts to the rear of the hull. I find road wheels annoying at the best of time at these were made all the more annoying by more of the large bits of excess plastic from the injection process. For what is a very detailed kit and that is going together very well it feels very sloppy to have these big thick bits of excess... The rear of the hull. I'm really impressed with the level of detail here. I'll need to get the filler out though... Next stage however is Step 6. The tracks. The track sprues have been primed and I'll hit them with an all over coat of Dark Iron tomorrow (that seems to be the go to colour I see used for tracks, other suggestions appreciated, Tamiya or Vallejo options only please) then I've got the rest of Saturday and Sunday to sit contemplating my life choices assembling tracks. And consider the 3 other RFM kits in the stash...