SPA Modeler

Love the rockets! But man... that An-124 is gonna be a beast to display. Looking for more!

Thanks Blacksheep! Yeah, I'm trying to find a space on the ceiling to hang that An-124 when it's done. That is gonna be a beast indeed! I'm still trying to find a space where I can stretch out to build this thing; my tiny workbench won't be able to handle it.

Despite it being a very difficult two weeks, I did manage to get some progress done., Miraculously, I even found a few missing parts! More on that later....


Right now, let's tour the Aircraft Hanger and see what's been happening there.


First off, I finally managed to finish all the main landing gear struts for the An-124. Man was that an ordeal:





And here is the first of the missing parts I found. It's been lost so long, I forgot it was missing! This is the last engine nacelle for the Japanese Shinmeiwa that had been missing for so long. Once I found it, I installed it right away; no need to give it a chance to escape again:





It's the one on the right. I did have a tough time getting that to line up properly and fit right. Man, the parts on this Shinmeiwa are all just refusing to fit!


Moving on, I wanted to get caught up on the C-54 since it's been neglected for so long. The first thing I did was to get the interior installed on one side of the outer fuselage. Take a last look at that interior detail; you ain't ever gonna see that again:





Next I closed it up. It took a lot of tape and some clamps to get it to line up. Even after that I did have a few tiny steps to sand smooth:





Later I removed everything and was pretty happy with the way this closed up:





After that I deepened a few of the panel lines and added some Mr. Surfacer 500 to the most egregious areas and let it dry. While that was drying, I decided to mask the canopy before installing it on the fuselage:





I used my trusty Tamiya tape for that. Then after everything else was dry on the fuselage; I installed the canopy. It was tough as that thing did not want to stay in place for some reason:





Time to let that dry and moved on to the wings. Wow, what an amazing amount of work is going into these! First, I installed all the engine firewalls in all four nacelles and side walls for the main landing gear bays. There's five or six parts in both of these:





Here's a shot from the other side:





Now, because I plan on posing this with the landing gear down, I had to cut these sections out so I can depict these particular flaps as lowered:





Later I added the top wing to the whole assembly. I had to start by gluing it around the nacelles and the end closest to the fuselage since the top wing was so warped. More clamps in use:





Later, when that is all dry I will close up the ends of the wings. They'll be easier to clean up on that end. As it is, I'll be doing a lot of sanding and cleaning up on the inner ends of these wings anyway. Here's a shot of both top wings in place:





Darn thing almost looks like an X-wing!

Moving on....


Here is my latest progress on my armor and vehicles, starting with the finding of the missing piece that I needed for the Japanese tank transporter. While cleaning up and looking for something else, I found the tiny steering wheel for the truck and promptly installed it:





Moving on, I also found a shelf queen that I'd almost forgotten about. This is the Ukrainian BTR-3K that I started some time ago (last year?)





It was time to move forward. After perusing the instruction sheet for some length of time, I finally figured out how to start the suspension and running gear. This got me halfway:





Later I was able to finish up the rest of it:





After lining those up, I set that aside to dry and started on the interesting turret. This whole thing is remote controlled:





That was more difficult than I imagined it would be getting that together, then again; the instructions didn't help much. I decided to stop there on that and went back to the hull. I finished that off by adding all but the most delicate, breakable parts to it. Here you can see it with the base turret added:





Again, while searching for something else, I found the turret to the Churchill Mk IV AVRE that had gone missing. Time to pull that out to get it caught up to the Mk III. I started with the lower hull and the running gear:





Later I dry-fit the upper hull and turret to see how they look and fit:





Add the tracks and some more detail parts and this will be ready for paint. Both of these are now caught up to each other:





I've also been working on two German touring cars. One was almost done so I needed to get the other one moving along, as you can see here:





First I shot a basic black over it. This is the Wal-Mart 96-cent spraycan of flat black:





Next I masked the outside to paint the interior:





This then got a gloss coat:





After that dried, I installed the windows:





...Followed by the roof:





Now all that is needed is some detail parts and detail painting before I can add the decals. So, now I needed to get the other car caught up! I pulled it out and added the windows as well:





I decided to make this a partial convertible. Here it is with the rear portion of the roof attached:





Again, a few more detail parts (and the wheels!) and this will be done. Here you can see both cars almost finished. Shouldn't be too long:






That's all I have for now. Thanks all for looking in, comments are always welcome.

Words fail me!

Man you are all over the friggin' MAP in your modeling Mark. Great progress on all these subjects buddy.

Looking good Mark! Are the two Churchill AVREs going to have different equipment fittings?

Thanks for the fantastic replies guys!

Lyle, I hope the pics showing my progress on the C-54 help you. You'll notice I skipped the part where I install the nose gear; I already knew that was going to be an issue with breakage so that will be one of the last things I do.

Thanks Joe! I find that skipping around, keeps things fresh when I return to something else.

Thanks Carlos! I'm building the Churchills out of the box and there doesn't seem to be any extra equipment included in the kit to fix on them. The MkIV will have two extra wheel assemblies added to the deck as they are included but that's not what you are referring to.

Thanks again guys! Stay tuned, more to come.

The gear for the AN-124 look like a droid factory. Great stuff - BTW what scale is that and which kit?
Looks like the C-54 is a bear - I have that one in the stash and am getting worried

Mark,
Thanks. It s a booger to close. Mine is closed, has wings and tail feathers...looking forward to going down this road with you!

,keavedog - don’t mess with the interior. Maybe cut a couple of inches off each end and mount those...they will be near doors. I also put some cautions from another builder in the go page.

Thanks Kevin! Yeah, that An-124 landing gear setup is a real bear! The kit I'm building that for is the Modelsvit 1/72 scale An-124. And the C-54 does have it's issues, but it is still build-able.

Lyle, thanks for the other tips in your thread too. We can do this!