SPA Modeler

Seems like yesterday that our boy was that young. At 13 I think he could dang near pick ME up now. lol Congrats to her on the graduation and good on you for encouraging college.

Dora is looking spectacular John. Some very cool details on that gear!!!!!

Man your work is very inspirational. Taking notes for future use.

Thanks for checking in! The graduation ceremony was very nice and high school is over for my #1 daughter. #2 has two more years before she flies the coop!

speedgraflex wrote:Congratulations to your family, John! Best wishes to your daughter! Nice shot of you both together.

Thank you for the latest post. I am planning the seam attack / assembly sequence for the 1/72 scale Tank, so I am following very closely what you are doing. Actually, a few steps back when you were fixing the seal of the engine cowling, I was very curious about the final finish. Did you mask edges and fine sand the seam?

That seam is still giving me problems. Like a little scab, I can't leave it alone and every time I touch it, I seem to undo any of the positive work I've done in this area. One of the trickiest situations for me is when a glue seam corresponds with a panel line, especially if it is between two different materials such as resin and plastic. Filling in with putty and then rescribing is a no go since the putty will just crumble given the tiny amount of it. I tried anyway, unsuccessfully of course, so I filled with CA glue instead and then rescribed the line a hair off of the original seam so that I wasn't cutting into the filled joint. This kind of worked but I couldn't get the scribed line straight. The CA glue gets much harder than plastic once it fully dries and its harder to control the scriber.

In the meantime, the supercharger intake seam is getting cleaned up and I've put a seam line across the center of it. A few more iterations of putty/sanding are needed to get it blended in.



The 5.5" bending tool came in the mail but I discovered something wrong with the flap set. I've got two Part 2 pieces instead of one Part 1 and one Part 2. I've fired off an email to Eduard to see if I can get a quick replacement.

Congrats on getting #1 through high school. A beautiful young lady and a great pop!

OH, the 190 ain't too bad, either.

Congrats to your daughter. Oops on the duplicate Part 2 Eduard PE.

Good lookin' daughter snapshot there dad!!!

The 190 progress is moving right along in a fantastic direction. Detail is superb!!!

Thanks guys! Busy weekend with the graduation and also a wedding I had to attend on Saturday. No real work done on the Dora but I DID pick yet another aftermarket item that I'll report on later.

speedgraflex wrote:John, what are you using for a cutting board? I need one. In the last shots it looks like a photography or art matte cutter... apologies if this question comes from left field, kinda, but I need a big board but not a really big board...

I think Thomas recommended cutting boards sold through Tamiya, but my pea-sizes brain does not remember where he mentioned this...

What would you recommend?

Bruce, the pictured mat is just a small board that I picked up from an art/craft supply store. I used to have a green one that was purchased at my LHS (Hobbico, I think, was the brand). The green one worked fine but due to its constant presence on my small work surface, it received its share of CA glue blobs and paint and thinner spills, ruining its surface for cutting. So I keep the new one on a separate shelf and take it out only when I have some cutting to do. I don't have any preference on make so my only advice would be to keep it clean.