SPA Modeler

Very nice, man with hairy stick.

Thanks Lyle!

Looks excellent Stuart! Nice start on all these Team Yankee models!

Thanks Mark!

I'm taking part in a memorial GB at the mo, for a fellow modeller who recently died of Brain Cancer. He was a really keen small scale amour modeller so I thought this would be a good subject.



This is how far I've got today. Blooming hell the fit of the tracks was awful, and I'm going to leave off the top run. The bottom of the tracks is bad as well but I'm going to fix it to a base, so it doesn't matter.





Cheers!

Very nice work Stuart. Well done.

So who was this Braille Modeler? I'd love to see some of his work. My condolences to his family too.

Duke Maddog wrote:Very nice work Stuart. Well done.

So who was this Braille Modeler? I'd love to see some of his work. My condolences to his family too.

Thanks Mark.

The chap in question was Alan 'Splash' Ashdown. A seriously nice chap I've know for years. He was an ex FAA Helicopter crewman who flew on Wessex's, Wasps and Seakings and who fought in the Falklands conflict. He also served on a few navy ships before joining the FAA as a rating. Alan built everything, but his man areas of interest where Helo's in 1/72 and 1/48, small scale armour and small scale ship kits - especially 1/600 classic British kits (he was big into the classic British kits scene and a member of the IPMS SIG). He did a lot of conversions etc on both the ships and the armour.

He had a few issues with his vision last year, and then suddenly couldn't talk. His family thought he'd had a stroke but it turned out he had a massive tumor in his head. He had open brain surgery to remove it and although it looked like he was doing well he went into remission suddenly and died very quickly a few weeks ago. He had a massive send off a few days ago including a flypast by one of the few remaining Seakings we have in service over here.

So, hopefully the mods won't mind me sharing a link to another forum given the circumstances - but this was a list of all his GB entries over the years, which give a good flavour of what he was into.

https://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=23079

And this was his workbench thread...

https://uamf.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=323&start=1455

He did some good stuff over the years and was great to have a laugh with. I was hoping to meet him at a show one day but alas not now it would seem. Thanks for asking.

No worries! You are right to honor this gentleman!

Thanks Lyle.

Sorry to hear about the passing of your modeling mate there Stuart. Sounds like he lived on hell of a life, and he had a passion for modeling.
Your Abrams is off to a fine start, and leaving off the top run of tracks is a great idea since the top run is concealed. With the time setting of the novel Team Yankee, M1s we’re painted in overall Forest Green 34079 at that time, I think that is Humbrol 116.