SPA Modeler

Great progress on everything Duke! The transports are looking amazing.

Dang Mark. You've got to be one of the busiest modelers I know. Very good work on that HETT.

Man that's some really cool work Duke!

Wow, thanks for the fantastic replies guys!

Lyle, I appreciate that. I try man!

Carlos, thanks. Yeah, that is one huge plane. If all goes well and we have it; I'll be bringing that to the IPMS Nationals in Vegas. That is close enough for you to drive on up to see it. And you are right; I did post the Mk.III twice. Oh well, the next time you see both Churchills, they'll be in the finished armor forum.

Thanks Floki! I'm hoping they look good. Right now though, I just want them finished.

Thanks Joe! I've been trying to stay busy in the Hobby Room. It's been tough with some issues I'm dealing with. I am happy with this progress though.

Thanks Medic! Now to get some of them finished!

Great stuff as always Mark - I do really like those Tank Transporters, they look really really nicely detailed kit and you're certainly doing them justice!

Great work on the Antanov - it's going to be a beast when it's finished!

Thanks Stuart! Between you and me, I'm just wishing those tank transporters would be done! Between the HEMMTT always falling apart when you look at it; and the M-1070 missing an axle and yet having yet another detail part to add before it's finished and the Japanese one missing the headlight clear parts; these things are driving me nuts!!

I keep wanting to set aside the Antonov to bring my other multi-engined aircraft forward but this beastie seems to be compelling me.

Stay tuned, more to come.

Well, now that I reached my latest milestone, I decided it was time to get caught up on a few shelf queens while also starting some easy assembly models and a couple others on my list to start. More on that later. Before that, I tried to move forward on more of my aircraft, but I only kept going back to the An-124 to the exclusion of all other aircraft. So, here is the progress I made on that monster.


To start with, I painted the main landing gear bays and the forward landing gear, following the directions as closely as possible:





Later I added the folding landing doors on the main gear bays. Afterward I realized that I hadn't painted them so in this pic you can see the start of my masking them for paint. The larger doors lay flat on the other side of the main gear bays; I'll add them once I install these on the fuselage:





Here they are fully masked...





And painted...





And here are the two main landing gear bays all completed, even with the wheels already installed:





Previously I had added the nose weights to the inside of the nose cone. They had been drying for two days and so now it was time to finally cement that nose cone onto the fuselage:





You can't see it here, but on the other side and the front of the cockpit clear part there are huge gaps. I proceeded to pull out my Tamiya white putty and fill them in:





By the way, that fuselage is leaning against my desk since I have nowhere else to keep it.


Later on I'll be sanding that down and then I can rescribe missing panel lines. Then this part will be ready for paint! Finally!


Speaking of paint; I was able to paint the wings and tail surfaces. They are grey on the version I'm doing, so I shot them with three coats of grey and then a shot of gloss. The gloss actually came out semi-gloss which I like better:





Later I'll mask off and paint the metallic sections of those engines. And that completes the update on that massive plane. Now for some of those shelf queens I mentioned before.


First up is my M-51 Isherman conversion. I finally moved ahead and got the main bogies on as well as the drive sprockets. I also glued together the DS tracks for this:








Now all I have to do is add the headlights, taillights, and brush guards to this and I can paint it.


Next up is a 1/24 scale 1929 Coke Delivery Van I started some months back. Maybe a year now.... Anyway, I was having trouble getting this painted because the red would not go down right. I decided I was going to assemble the main body of the van so I could paint it altogether:





Here it is dry-fit on the lower body/floor:





Now I'll shoot the red all over this and later I'll remove the upper body and paint all the interior details. Maybe then I'll be able to get this finished!


And now for a couple easy-build models from Trumpeter that I started to keep the mojo flowing. This is the lower hull of the Russian BTR-70 Early version. That took ten minutes to build:





Fifteen minutes later and I finished the upper hull and turret with all the bits. Here they are cemented onto the lower hull:





Now it's ready for paint. Since that was so easy, I also started the Trumpeter BTR-70 Late version. The lower hull assembly was the same so I didn't shoot pics of that. After twenty or twenty-five more minutes, here is the late version all assembled and ready for paint now:





And now to show that these are indeed two separate BTR's here's the shot of them side by side, the early version is in the front:





Finally, the most recent model I started was the D-9 Dozer that came with my M-1070 tank transporter. I didn't get too far with it so far, but it's already looking pretty good. First was the main body assembly:





Then I built the tracks and running gear. Man, Takom did it right! Take a look at how great these look:





If you look closely, I did have to sand away the mold seam down the middle of those assemblies. Easy peasy!


Here are the track assemblies dry-fit to the main body:





And that's as far as I got this week. Hopefully this trend continues; I want to get more of these done!


Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

That is a big enchilada! Wow.do you ever use strips of styrene to fill?

I think you should count each wheel ass’y as a build. What a collection you have coming!

Very nice Duke! I can't wait to see the An-124 finished!

Whoa! You are a machine. Lot's of building goin on there for sure. I'm most interested in the An-124 - what a monster in 1/72.