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Thought I would share this one as it is a real departure from my normal modern British military vehicles thing. A bit of background - I have a friend who is a real WW1 buff and we got chatting about the Battle of Cambria and "Deborah" came up (Alcohol may have been involved). I decided that I was going to make her a presentation cased Mk IV female and this is the result! I had to create my own decals as "Deborah" decals don't exist out there - not totally brilliant but once you touch them up with some paint etc they came out OK. I did make a few mistakes, the Lewis guns are aftermarket as the original Emhar ones are dire. (It's a 1991 kit but was good enough and detailed enough for an external view with mud!) I didn't put the barrel extensions on because they made the machine gun barrels look to long - in hindsight, I needed to embed the barrels a lot further back in the sponsons. You live and learn! The unditching beam is scratch built as the Emhar kit doesn't come with one. A stiff-bristled hand brush sacrificed itself to make the fascine bundle. The tracks are aftermarket Friulmodel, as are the grousers. Went together quite nicely, look good and definitely add some weight to the model. I did have big ideas for a diorama including barbed wire, figures and various other things but this is my 11th model and first weathered model so decided not to push my luck. Overall I am pretty pleased with how it went, I will be presenting it to my friend this evening and hopefully it will join the rest of her WW1 memorabilia in her office.

Bedford 'OLB' Tanker Emhar 1/24 One of my occasional forays into vehicle modelling, you guys produce such lovely work that I get tempted by your results! I've long been tempted to try one of these Bedford kits, and wasn't disappointed. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wasn't too sure about the lighter French blue suggested on the kit instructions, I thought it looked a bit toylike, and considering that I have no idea what the original color was, I went for a darker shade (Tamiya TS15 from a rattle can, 5 coats micromeshed in between). My model, my choice and I like it, although the red 'Motor Spirit' titles are a little dark! I had problems with the front mudguards as they left quite a gap when I came to put the bonnet sides on, and had to cut them off and reset them. Lesson learned for next time! I have hardly put any weathering on it, as I am a bit nervous of messing up the finish, maybe later. I've now bought the little breakdown truck to have another go. Damn that devil dust that only shows up when you take photographs! Thanks for looking, John

I call this 'Made in Yorkshire'

I suppose my first Post-war USN kit was the Airfix Skyhawk, followed by their Invader, F4 Phantom and Skyray in the late 1950's through to the mid 1960's, then there was a bit of a gap before I got a Corsair II, Crusader, Panther and Cougar but by then I had developed a taste for them and wanted more! At the time there were few if any injection moulded kits of the early jets, at least as far as I was aware without the internet, so I turned to vac-forms, building a Cutlass, Banshee and F4J Fury, but then Airfix produced their Banshee in 1980, and in the early 1990's I bought a Fujimi Cutlass and both a Fury and Demon from Emhar. I built the Fury a couple of years ago and hopefully in this GB I will build the Cutlass, but I will start with this. At some point I started on the exterior paintwork but it has faded and in some places the plastic has gone a funny colour so I hope it has not gone brittle! It is quite a crude kit and so over the years I bought some aftermarket in the hopes of improving it a little. The kit decs are on the right and the others are Xtradecal. Somewhere lurking in my work room should be a box with a 20+ year old set of Aeroclub white metal wheels and legs so I will see if I can find them, though I have not seen them for at least 5 years. I am by nature a hoarder so I doubt I have thrown them out! The Demon was one of those planes that suffered due to problems with the chosen engine - the Westinghouse J40. This was potentially a fairly high powered second generation engine but failed to deliver and was unreliable, sometimes dangerously so, and almost blighted the development not only of the F3H Demon but also to some extent the F4D Skyray, the A3D Skywarrior and the XF10F Jaguar, whilst the F7U Cutlass had similar problems with the Westinghouse J46 but more on that later perhaps once I have checked my sources. Pete

I'm joining in with this one if you'll have me It should be a fairly easy build and hopefully I can get it done by the deadline I'll probably go with the all over BRS red scheme as I have the paint for it, but not the blood and custard for the BR one as on the box It was new and unstarted and I've just glued the engine and chassis together last night ready for painting More pics later hopefully Ian

Mk A Whippet was a British WWI medium tank that was taken into use in March 1918. The tank weighed 14 tonnes and had a crew of three men. Its armour was 14 mmm thick, it had 4 machine guns and the top speed of the tank reached 13 km/h. The Whippet was probably the most successful British tank of the Great War causing a lot of casualties among the German troops. For instance on June 8, 1918 in the attack of Amiens the Whippets broke through the German lines causing the Germans to lose their artillery and letting the allied forces surge through. I made my model from an Emhar kit that in my opinion was quite ok as to the fit of the parts and cleanliness of the molding. In the construction of the model I used various pictures and other sources on the net that I found of the Whippet .

Hi all, Started this build sometime ago, it's the Mk A 'Whippet' Tank of WW1 in 1/72 from Emhar. It was my first with an Emhar kit so didn't know what to expect but it what ever problems I had, I seem to have got round them with no problems. Like most of my AFV builds, I like to do something different with the subject and this was no different, so I decided to open the rear door. I put ammunition storage racks and a driver's position and short of you putting a small camera in there, you can't see bug*er all...why do I do it. It built up alright up alright, painted in 'dark earth', kit decals and weathered with a pin wash to bring out the rivets, a bit of pastel dust and some 'slop' in the mud shoots(?). Many whippets were fitted with 'canvas' track guards, so I made a pair from paper and added at the end. Knocked up a simple base and added some Emhar figures for scale. Thanks for looking Stuart

I have built three A7V kits earlier: https://baecklund.eu/scalemodels/72/a7v.html and have now bought five more kits. When finished they will all be different, not only in colours, so I need to keep the models apart and follow my notes for each one. I want to mount the chassis after the hull has been put together so I cut them in half. First one on the way. #561, A 2'nd lot tank. Female front that was converted to a male. The grills on the hull top has been reduced to 9 from the original 45. It became a bit boring in the end. Door hinges has been reduced to two instead of three. The same goes for the side flaps. I have started to convert the opening for the gun as well. The second one is #562. The same modifications has to be made as on 561. The difference is that this is a true male so it doesn't have the large openings for MG's in the front. Some of them need extra armour added. I said that they were five. As I need the later gun shield's for the socle mount gun and Emhar was of the earlier Buck mount I need to build them. Reminds me a bit of small turrets for 1/350 ships.

Being stuck in the house, it looks like I might now have time for another build and as Steve is building the FJ-2 Fury and Enzo the FJ-3, here is my somewhat different FJ-4B. The USN took delivery of its first “proper” jet (ie not one of a number of hybrid prop and jet planes), the McDonnell FD later FH-1 Phantom in July 1947 followed a couple of years later by the Vought F6U Pirate and the North American FJ-1 Fury. None of these early straight winged jets were particularly successful and were only produced in small numbers – 60 Phantoms 1's, 30 Pirates, and 30 Fury's. However, by merging a modified FJ-1 fuselage with swept wings North American produced the highly successful F-86 Sabre (and yes that is a bit of a simplification). Needless to say the USN liked the Sabre and wanted a shipboard version so NA produced a folding wing carrier version as the FJ-2, followed by the improved and more powerful FJ-3. The final version was the FJ-4 which was modified to increase the range. A 50% increase in fuel capacity resulted in a shorter and deeper fuselage, a new longer and and thinner wing with mid span ailerons and inboard high lift flaps, a wider track undercarriage and thinner tail surfaces. It also had 6 underwing pylons instead of the previous 4. First arriving in 1955, 152 FJ-4 were followed by 222 FJ-4B ground attack versions. The FJ-4 was mainly used by the Marines, but the FJ-4B I will be modelling was used by 9 Navy and 3 Marine attack Squadrons. The inbuilt armament of 4 x 20mm cannon was supplemented by Sidewinders, bombs, drop tanks, buddy refuelling tanks or up to 5 ASM-N-7 Bullpup ground attack missiles (the sixth pylon had the control pod). It was also fitted with the LABS system for toss-bombing a nuke! Source - Putnams US Navy Aircraft since 1911 by Swanborough and Bowers. Emhar released their kit in 1989 and 3 or 4 years later I bought it and their slightly later (1992?) F3H Demon. It is rather basic and although the shape is pretty good a few detail modifications may need to be made based on the review by Tommy Thomason aka @Tailspin Turtle in the Naval Fighters volume 25. Guess TT will be able to help me if he remembers that far back (1993 I think)! More as the build progresses. I will be using both the Naval Fighters volume and perhaps the sister "In Detail and Scale " volumes for reference., together perhaps with "American Fighters" by Angelucci. I think I also have a Profile Publications on this as well. Cheers Pete

My entry will be Emhar's 1/72 F-94C Starfire. From Wikipeadia. "The Lockheed F-94 Starfire was a first-generation jet aircraft of the United States Air Force. It was developed from the twin-seat Lockheed T-33 Shooting Star in the late 1940s as an all-weather, day/night interceptor. The aircraft reached operational service in May 1950 with Air Defense Command, replacing the piston-engined North American F-82 Twin Mustang in the all-weather interceptor role. The F-94 was the first operational USAF fighter equipped with an afterburner and was the first jet-powered all-weather fighter to enter combat during the Korean War in January 1953. It had a relatively brief operational life, being replaced in the mid-1950s by the Northrop F-89 Scorpion and North American F-86D Sabre." The kit Not a lot of plastic. Plan is to through a bit of aftermarket at it including a replacement cockpit tub.

The A7V Sturmpanzer was the German high command's attempt at countering the British tanks; for those of us not familiar with the type the wiki entry is very informative. I don't think I'm being nationalistic to suggest that it was inferior to both the British and French tanks, only 20 were built and only one - no.506 'Mephisto' - survives, in the Queensland Museum in Brisbane, having been taken as a war prize by the Australian army. I was a bit surprised to find that a 1/72 kit of the A7V has existed for some time, first issued by Emhar in 2001 and recently re-released - I believe it is the later issue that I have. Meng also produce one in 1/35 which was sort of tempting but I wanted a little inconsequential build so this is probably the better option for me. Here is the box art, illustrated with the 'early' version of 'Mephisto': I have to say the illustration doesn't tally with the colour guide given in the instructions which suggest a scheme of USAF Tan blobs on a USAF Gunship Grey base... The back view showing a later scheme for the same vehicle which looks almost like the mid-to-late WW2 German armour scheme: The construction and painting guides: The sprues - just two of them and about 30 parts: ... and finally the transfers: I don't like the look of these, they are very thick with acres of carrier film, I have ordered some replacement transfers from Black Lion Decals in the Netherlands. I'll decide what paint scheme I'll do when I get them and see the options... Cheers, Stew

Getting used to weathering Decals totally fictitious because the kit decals would not fit around. the bolt heads As this is 1/35 scale please look from 10 foot away Thanks for getting to the end Rodders

A nice simple little build with a fairly terrible kit! Full album here:

Hi all, An appeal to any builders of this kit to ask for any advice before I start the build. I have the Pavla cockpit set as well as the resin tail pipe. My area of concern is really the wheels. Is there an alternative? Has anyone found anything similar from another kit that could work? My first job is rescribing so I have time to pull together as much guidance as you can offer. thanks in advance. Martin Building Sabres one by one!

Hello all For this group build I will be building three Lagg 3's. All will be in 1/72 but the kits are very different. One each of the Roden kit, the Emhar/Frog/RedStar and the Eastern Express kit. I will also be using Kuivalainen photo etch sets, Kora wheels and Steelwork undercarriage doors as a minimum of after market to start with. I may use at least one after market seat, also a Falcon canopy and perhaps two Rob Taurus canopies. All three aircraft can be seen here, they are 'White 68', 'Red 59' and 'Red 52' of 3rd Gv. IAP Baltic Fleet east of Lage Ladoga in winter 1942. All will have varying degrees of white distemper temporary winter camouflage applied: http://mig3.sovietwarplanes.com/lagg3/3gviap/3gviap.html I have the Roden kit, freshly purchased from BNA model world. This kit is a little notorious for the fact that in reality, although it looks nice on the sprues, nothing really fits together well: Some say with perseverance it is the best Lagg 3 in 1/72. Others say the Dakoplast/Eastern Express is the best. We will see, I am still waiting for that one to arrive. The third is the very old Red Star/Emhar kit. I only have a bagged version with the parts off the sprues and decals. It came with an instruction sheet for a KPM vac form. Although the instruction sheet may seem useless, it actually has some good plans and reference material in it. This kit is extremely lacking in detail and I hope to steal bits from the Roden and use the other two kits and all resources to make this kit the best it can be. I have made one before and it can be thrown together in a couple of hours, but rather more time and care will be taken on it this time. The KPM sheet: I hope to incorporate these three aircraft into a simple, snowy diorama. If anyone can recommend suitable pilot figures please let me know, as this time I'm going to try to include them and have some open canopies This should keep me busy for a while! Thanks for looking Best regards Tony Edited for spelling

Hi all, This is the first armoured vehicle i've built in years! After a trip to the Somme in 2014 I got the bug for WW1 subjects so picked this kit up in a LMS. Its a pretty crude kit, no idea of any accuracy issues but it was fun to build and weather, just need to sort a base out for it now! Cheers Simon

Started this morning The only problem with the body - relatively large hole that can be easily cured with dissolved putty, excess of which is removed with nail polish remover result - the hole has vanished I replaced plastic gun with aluminium tube from Albion Alloys that I sanded to make it more cone like Also replaced machine gun barrels with thin tubes First coat of primer to reveal defects

Hello all. Now that my Mustang STGB entry is finished and I cannot find a suitable model for the D-Day GB I thought I would throw my hat in to the ring with Emhar's MkA Medium Tank. I've never done armour before (apart from the odd Rhino Transport from when I played 40k) so this will be a new experience for me, also on the off chance that you've seen either of the other two builds I've done recently you'll see that I'm just returning to the hobby. So don't be expecting anything spectacular. Still armed with this walk around and this book I'm going to gove it a damn good try. I'll be modelling the vehicle after the one featured in the walk around which was commanded by C.H.Sewell who was awarded the VC for rescuing the crew of an overturned tank and being killed in that action. This vehicle is currently on display at Bovington Tank Museum. I'm not going to super-detail the thing or anything, for one thing I'm nit up to the task, but I will be adding and subtracting things to make it look more like the one at Bovington. Which i think is only going to involve some very slight modifications such as adding fuse wire grab handles and the like. Anyway, on to the pictures: Messy workbench. With my Mustang STGB hanging out on the corner of the desk begging to be knocked off. Box shot. (blurry) Sprue shots Construction started but...I forgot to take any pictures. So here's some of the little bits I'm adding. This flappy thing was about 12" wide at scale so I chopped it off and added some thin plasticard that was formed around the original piece. It should look like this: Though looking at that thing below...I realise I've left it as the kit intended which is wrong as they have a weird stand off behind them. I'm not sure if I can just pull it off or I might have to fill the gap. If I do remove the piece though the 'flappy thing' will hang over far too much. The fit of the top deck was also wuite poor and will require a lot of sanding and filling. Which means I'll have to add the rivets back. I've heard PVA glue and a cocktail stick can be used for this? I also had to add a shim of plasticard under the cabin. Anyway, that's where I'm up to now. I just need to decide what to do with the 'flappy bit' area. Cheers for looking.

Hi all, I am building this thing but I find some details, er, hum, say, "suspicious" and sadly I am unable to find photo evidence, so I guess a site called "Britmodeller" will surely be the best place to ask for help. 1.- Is the rear muffler (I think that´s the thing's name) really over a roof hatch so that this would be impossible to open? 2.- The upper open "box" containing it... was it made of wood, thick steel plate, thin steel plate bent over itself? Are the kit pieces for this correct? Was it centered over the hull roof? 3.- Does anybody know with certainty if the upper rails are right as per kit instructions, or should them be reversed? What were their real measures? (maybe I would not ask this, because I have already ordered some 3.2mm evergreen angles) 4.- And those vertical pedestals on which they rest, were them also made out of angle beams? In what position, I mean the outer "elbow" facing frontwards & outside, for instance? 5.- Were the rails simply bent, welded, or riveted? Did they have any reinforcing plate? 6.- And now for something completely different, what about the box at the very, VERY rear, low? In my built kit it doesn´t reach the vertical insides of the track guards, there is some gap there on both sides... is this correct or should I snap it off and rebuild it??? Thanks in advance