Kallisti

Just one photo from the recent progress, showing the weathered seats and wooden boxes that will be in the cab The cab itself is in the shed having had an initial coat of light tan for the wood, then given an overcoat of hairspray and another coat of olive drab. That has had another coat of hairspray on top tonight and will tomorrow get a final top coat of matt red, which will then be distressed to show all the paint layers at different points of wear and tear.

It and the Sopwith Camel have had to be pushed aside for now as I've got to complete the Scammell Pioneer before Telford for the club display. Once its done will return to these...

Bit more work today - the rear transmission has been assembled and believe it or not there are about 50 pieces in this lot: Now I seem to remember the same stage of construction for the IBG kit had about a dozen parts - not nearly 50 - count em on the instructions here: I think this is getting to utterly ridiculous stages of parts breakdown - there are so many teeny tiny pieces that I am in constant fear that the carpet monster will have a tasty treat at any moment! Some of these parts are so delicate that getting them off the sprue is a very tense moment! There surely isn't any need for the underside of the differential hub to be split into two parts? Or that each side of the rear bogey is comprised of 8 parts when the IBG kit managed to make them in two parts without any loss of detail? Edit: Here you go, the same stage from the IBG instructions, 24 pieces and it included the outer wheel hubs which are still to be fitted!

A few more day's progress and the winch has been assembled - this has a ridiculous number of parts - 22 in total The front axle assembly has been constructed after all the flash shown previously has been cleaned up - as you can see I've set the steering to be turning slightly to give the finished model more interest. In theory it is supposed to be possible to make this with movable steering, but I consider this a model not a toy The gearbox and first part of the transmission has been assembled and fitted to the chassis - the engine is just dry-fitted here to check the spacing and fit I suspect this feeling of "how many parts?!!!" is going to continue throughout this build lol

Today is the day!

Oh really? I honestly don't remember buying it then, but earlier this year was a rather hectic time with moving house! I was surprised when I opened the box that everything was still in its wrapping so that might be why - it must have arrived during the house move and I just shoved it in the corner and forgot about it. The box was suprisingly heave so these are meaty lumps of resin! Will be watching with interest!

Lovely stuff!

An Explorer kit would be rather nice - I'd love to do a Circus one of those First stages of the build are all about the engine - this engine is more detailed and has more parts than the IBG one, but it has some differences I seem to recall. It build up pretty well although there does seem to be quite a lot of the "Bronco syndrome" where parts appears to be broken down into smaller pieces for no other apparent reason than to increase the parts count! Here is the engine This is the radiator and as if to contradict my last statement this comes as one part rather than two in the IBG kit! This iss the sort of thing I meant by splitting pieces - circled on the instructions The other problem this kit displays is it does appear suffer from quite a bit of flash and ejector pin issues, for example on the two pieces to make the rear chassis spring: and this is the front axle spring pieces with big lumps of flash which need to be cut off and the whole thing sanded down to fit properly. Here is the engine after painting with a mix of Tamiya XF-71 Interior green with some XF-83 Medium Sea Grey plus some MiG Wash to dirty it up a bit. I added some lead wire which will be shaped to form some leads and some other detail is yet to be painted.

Nice work Karl, did you see my post with the new MPC Hawk kit here: They've done a good job with the detail, much better that the old MPC/Airfix kit and its nice to see those details at the larger scale on your build! I built mine as the white version as originally supplied to the studio. I may get another at some point and do it as the orange version we saw on screen.

Just a reminder that this is happening on Saturday. Directions and details here: http://www.ipms-farnborough.co.uk/index.php?id=modelfest Address is: Kings International College Watchetts Drive Camberley Surrey GU15 2PQ Exhibitors and clubs can be see here: http://www.ipms-farnborough.co.uk/index.php?id=modelfest_exhibitors See you there!

Dropship is a tricky build, so many things wrong with the kit but since its the only option out there... its all fixable however. Is the Sulaco kit a repop of the old Halcyon one? If so its a great little kit that rewards effort in painting it well.

Thats a decent kit, the shape is correct, just need to sharpen the point of the missile a bit and as you say scartch build a better cockpit. You can also add some extra detail to the engines if you wish. The biggest problem are the decals which are some weird "spanglish" but you can download an image from the italian SHADO site Isoahado from this page: http://www.isoshado.org/4/4_attivita_files/intercettore_2000/intercettore_2000.htm which you can resize to 1:48 scale, print out and make your own much more screen accurate decals. Or you can buy a pre-printed set from JBOT decals: http://www.jbot.ca/space/ufo2.shtml This was my build a few years back:

Earlier this year I built the IBG Scammell Recovery kit as part of a diorama which you can see here: I always wanted to build a civvy version of the Scammell Pioneer so to this end I have picked up the Tkunder Models kit to compare the two kits and I think it is safe to say that this is the superior kit! The inevitable sprue shots and here are some of the aftermarket that was left over from the previous build that can be incorporated into this build The civilian livery I've decided to go for is for the heavy haulage firm Wynn's. I've not been able to find many photo references of specific vehicles apart from other models such as these However I do have some reliable information from Allan Simpson of ASSAM models who has generously given me some decals for the company livery. These photos give an idea of what I want to end up with It will mean that there won't be much in the way of weathering on these vehicles as they were kept in pretty much pristine condition, just a bit of dirt!

Here we go here we go here we go... Blimey that is a tiny detailed part!

I drilled them out - not to a great depth but enough to give the impression of hollowness.