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Hi Everyone! Sorting out some photos and found these, built a while ago but not posted on Britmodeller, thought they might be interesting. Base kit is Revell 04507, Wheels from Brassin, Quickboost engines, SAC whitemetal U/C, cowlings,top nacelles sections and props borrowed from an Italeri B25 kit, decals from Draw Decals and corrected tail section from Belcher Bits. Nose and nacelles re-sculpted using body filler and rudder enlarged. Hope this is of interest. Keep Sticking! Cheers, Pete

A few months ago, I posted a thread in RFI entitled My 1/48th Scale Sherman Collection. Now, I would like to do something similar with the cruiser tanks that I have in my collection. They are all based on Tamiya kits and have all been detailed or converted to some extent. There's also a certain amount of scratch building involved with some. The first up is the Crusader Mk.l. Because this was the earlier version of the Crusader Mk.l which fought in Operation Battleaxe, some changes were made. Bear in mind, this was built around 5-6 years ago, so I'm digging deep into my memory banks. I used the Battalion Bits conversion, which includes a complete new turret front, single central headlamp and turret mounted radio aerial base. At the time, it didn't include the sand shields which I had to make from 10thou card, but it does now. I also had to change the air filter boxes mounted on the rear track guards to the very early ones. The Caunter scheme was painted using Tamiya paints. Crusader Mk.lll. This was built practically OOTB. It represents a tank of the Czech Independent Armoured Brigade while training in the UK. The only additions were new sand shields from 10thou card, and an RB Models replacement 50mm barrel. It's finished in SCC2 brown and the decals are from SKP's rub down set. Centaur. I've posted photos of this one before, but I've included one photo again, just because it's part of the collection. Cromwell Mk.lVf. There was quite a lot of alterations to this one, the first being the usual rescribing of Tamiya's engine deck. The front RH side of the upper hull was rebuilt to represent a mirror image of the gunners escape hatch, and the front RH stowage bin was discarded. New stowage bins were built for the turret from card, and the 75mm gun was replaced with an RB Models item. The major change that I made to this one was the road wheels. It's actually quite easy to displace them. I cut the second and third axle stubs off with a razor saw and filed it flat. Holes were then drilled higher up the hull and plastic tubing inserted to act as new axles. A couple of other Mk.lVf features that I added were the leaf spring type tow bar, made from laminates of card, and the circular brackets on the glacis plate for winding the tow rope around. Cromwell Mk.Vl. This was a fairly straight forward conversion. I changed the drivers escape hatch for one that was split diagonally. The 95mm howitzer was made from two different diameters of sprue. It was painted SCC15 and then the black disruptive camouflage was brush painted. The decals are SKP and represent a CIAB CS tank. A30 Challenger. Again, I've posted this one on here before, but I included for the same reason as the Centaur. I'll probably add to these eventually, as I've got another Crusader Mk.l/ll, Crusader AA Mk.lll and a Cromwell. Just finding the time to fit them into the busy modelling schedule. Thanks for looking. John.

A couple of conversion (to varying degrees) from Airfix sets...

I bought an old copy of Model Art No.22 last week (pictures below), mainly as it has plans for converting Japanese merchant ships to seaplane carriers of WW2. It wasn't cheap but I would like to get more of these; however, I noticed other copies only had details of Japanese aircraft or warships. Does anyone on this forum know: 1. which other copy numbers had merchant ship conversion plans? 2. is there a source in the UK/EU where I could get other copies at a reasonable price? cheers Mike