GMK

I’ve been working on the running gear & some rough painting. A lot of spare parts are CARC green, with the outer wheels repainted camouflage green when the opportunity presented itself. Dry fit looks good. Started the front glacis camouflage & some of the detail parts. Thanks for looking in.

Nice work, Simon. That looks a lot like a .30 cal machine gun tripod to be. Assuming (!) so change from its US origin, I’d go with WW2 US olive drab. Cheers.

Since the last update I’ve been mating the front & rear hull, plus experimenting with the painting. The clear resin for the turret episcopes seems to have worked okay. Though the proper turret will be an improvement. Turns out the 31 stencil is about 10% too large, so I’ll recut & repaint that. Thanks for looking in.

Luckily the AAC now operate the E - makes at least two people happy

Ran a test print on the rear of the hull. Let’s just say I need to tweak the model. Thought that there could be some issues, but not to that extent. In parallel, the major markings were sketched up. Onto the laser cutter. Looking good. I may redo them with reference cuts to facilitate alignment on the physical model. I need to sort out the tiger’s head, deployment Christmas tree, buoyancy marks, & roadworthy reflective marks, each of which have differing degrees of difficulty. Thanks for looking in.

“appear that a special adapter was made to fit the missile's dedicated LAU-118 pylon”

Now that the new resin printer is dialled in, thought I’d have another bash at the front hull in another material. 450 grams of resin! The gun depression rail looks a bit wonky, but that’s fixable. Hasn't yet been washed & cured yet, but couldn’t resist placing the turret on it. Thanks for looking in.

I had that edition of MM for many, many years! Thanks for dropping by to comment. 1:24 is a better “large” scale for military models than 1:16, IMO. That said, I’m stuck with 1:16 for my Australian Army collection. I’m the guy on the left who’s not looking too happy with the world. That command gig is my inspiration for this build. I hear you. We all have our limits. Learning CAD was my pandemic project. I refer to what I’m doing as “scratch printing” - this model started as a blank file. 100% of the drawing & design is my work, as is transitioning the design to manufacture. There’s a lot of time invested in the design. It’s akin to designing & producing a single edition model kit, then building & painting it. Upside - I build whatever I want, in my preferred scale. Downside - any errors in detail or fit are 100% my fault! Thanks for looking in.

Something other than grey.

After playing with orientation & layer height, I reckon I’ve got an acceptable turret. While it was printing, drying, & curing, I drew up the interior & exterior masks for the visiblocks. These were then cut via laser cutter. Test fit on the turret. Mucked about with some paint in an endeavour to get a motivational endorphin high/illusion of progress. I used SMS RAF Sky for the interior sea foam green. Then SMS camouflage brown, camouflage green, camouflage black, & insignia white. Masks for the Charlie Company chevron were laser cut, too. Thanks for looking in.

That’s an excellent result, Finn! Definitely a route to consider.

Thanks, @Troy Smith I’m thinking the horizontal stabilisers, rudder, pitot, cannons & blanks, plus as much of the cockpit as I can.

Quick one, has anyone tried using parts from Eduard’s 1/72 Spitfire series on the Airfix 1/72 MkVc? Cheers.

JASDF getting into the Top Gun Maverick mood

Something a little different.