SPA Modeler

See comments below...

Well crap... Just had a "Doh !" moment. Glued upper hull to lower hull then realized I forgot to install the MG inside the upper hull.

The MG



Goes thru this porthole in upper hull



Not a biggie. Performed a little surgery by opening a hole in bottom of lower hull; just enough for me to install the MG later. I have already glued two braces from a sheet of thick styrene with Gorrilla Glue as a brace to reinsert original bottom plate I had cut out.





I will install two more braces once the MG is installed and close it up. Putty work will fill in the gaps. Im not worried about the other four small holes since it was once originally switches and whatnot for a motorized version Panther.

Bruce, thank you for the kind words on my PE work. They were done at some point in the build. PE work was done through a course of a couple weeks to finish. Definitely slow work on my part because I didn’t want to rush it. It was actually was my better PE work. It was a challenge to do the rounded part. A marble did the trick in turning a flat surface to a rounded surface.

Two more bench sessions before leaving for Cape Cod this Sunday.

Progress updates… nothing to show. Painted my first coat of AK Interactive Dunkengelb - which I had forgotten I had in my original paint stash. Tonight, I’m gonna practice squiggly camo on spares turrent of another Panther kit.

Did paint tracks for spares. Came out good. I also tested my new weathering product Dust Effects on my crappy Stug tracks. I like how it came out. Pics forthcoming…

Base coat of Dunkengelb on tank...



Tracks painted first with Testors Rubber (Humbrol Track brown went crappy), dry brushed with Tamiya lacquer Gunmetal and finally steel dry brushed on last.




Did a test on crappy Stug tracks to see how it works and looks using AK Dust Effects. The product...



Just brush on and let dry.

Here's what it looked like once dried.



Dust Effects creates natural light dust and is enamel based.

Great progress Tom. Base coat looks smooth and dead flat.

This is my rough freehand camo on tank turrent. I used a random green to test my skills.





Not exactly accurate. Thoughts or tips on how I can improve my camo squiggly skills? Not sure if the camo.squiggly lines are too wide or it doesn't matter. I used my single action Paasche airbrush.

Don't know the exact camo but snakes can mask off what you need. I've done this with aircraft several times with my Paasche H. Silly putty, blue tack or I have a tin of AK plastic putty but haven't tried it yet.