You know your getting stir crazy when -

[ripley]

With all the kits I have in the stash as well as all the Blu Ray/DVDs  in my collection , you would think I would have lots to keep my busy in week 2 of my "holiday" , but no , I'm bored . Sooo , I decided to go over my built kits and tweak them a little . Always fun trying to fix / up grade a kit that's glued together , painted , weathered and covered in stowage and tank riders , lots of things to break . Anyway I thought I would start by  fixing the crappy spare track piece Warlord gives you with their T-34 kits , make it look more like Rubicon's .

Quite easy to trim the track teeth , and cut the 5 link piece into 2 two link pieces ( red) , Then using a narrow file trim away the unwanted plastic on the track ends , the result doesn't look too bad . Now to do that to the built kits .
So what are you guys getting up to ?

[neffer38]

You would think with so much todo I wouldn't have to buy more stuff....you'd think...

Ordered anouther 250/1 alte and the panzer 4 J zug on offer from Rubicon atm. Also had a £9 voucher to use  .

I'm painting my dads Irish war band, I said instead of paying me buy me sone models from warlord and you can get a £5 voucher from the reward system for your trouble....so I got 4 winter mg gunners to go into my 250/1s , 3 winter mg teams, scwimwagen with officers sst in looking wintery, 105mm gun with RSO tow and arty spotters, panther with IR , sdkfz 251/20 uhu , 5 infantry with IR guns....

Not to much ....help me please!

But I'm doing lots of commision work.
Got 4 indian chariots to do, 20 more black tree early germans and some 20mm cromwells to do.

[ripley]

That should keep you busy for a while .

[neffer38]

Yes it will, hope to get through the commission work this week, But I've had a freelance job land on me so that will take up time tomorrow atleast.

Aside from upgrading old models and cutting track pieces (I do agree the track pieces on the warlord stuff isn,t great) habe you got any thing else on the paint table?

 

[ripley]

Kit bashing BA plastic Russians to use a gun crews  ( for PSC 45mm guns )  and tank riders . Lots of leg and boot swaps . I have a T-26 partly built but lack of interest has left it off the bench for now . Seem to have spent quite a bit of time on line researching pictures of Panzer II , Marder III and 38(t) tanks for future builds , I have the kits base coated but no idea of color scheme , unit  markings , battle damage ,  stowage or  crews yet .

[neffer38]

I would like to get onto some early war germans myself at some point, Panzer II's & III's but waiting for Rubicon to re-release their III kit. I luckily found one of their old III kits a while ago but that went towards a small Afrika corp group.

[ripley]

Did You fix the engine deck on the III ?
Got motivated and pulled out my T-26 , decided to build the 38 turret with out the rear mg  , so I'm filling it in

And since I'm going to have the hatches open on the 33 turret , I'm adding a partial interior

[neffer38]

Did You fix the engine deck on the III?

No? Is that why they have stopped the kit and ar updating it?

From what I've seen the interiors are a offwhite colour? Dad bought me a mini art 1/35 t-60 kit for my birthday and I need to spend some time looking into Soviet tank interiors now.

Managed to finish off basing a 234/1 luchs last night

[ripley]

Yes , there were a few problems with the early Panzer III kit , the extra armored cover on the engine deck ( should be 3 not 4 ) and the roadwheels were strange looking ( detail / hub wise ) and a too thin rubber tire . It was IRC , their 1st kit , and in the past few years have really upped their game . At the time it was the only plastic 1/56 kit of a III available so despite the negatives , modelers and gamers  bought it . To there credit Rubicon asked for feed back on their produced and proposed kits and , we've got so many wonderful kits in the past 4 years . IMO they are comparable in detail with some of the best companies that make larger 1/35 kits  and then  when you add the variations included in their kits .
Interior color varied by nation and year , late war Brits had the turret in silver ! But most parts of vehicle t not visible  when hatches open was some shade of white .Then again some hatch interiors were painted white! Lots of Mini Art T-60 /70 builds on line , check them out for ideas . Also look for Walk Around videos or Interior pictures on google .
Nice looking 234 with Lynx turret , is that the Warlord resin kit
A couple of T-60 photos . Interior of hatches exterior color , minus dust

Interior of turret looks pretty much exterior color , nothing looks light / white

[neffer38]

Right ok, Well not to much of a problem. Getting more Pz III is an idea way off in the distance right now. Only needed the one for a small Dak Group. O I also see they are doing a PZ II kit soon! 





Been interesting going through all the Rubicon kits, You can see the development and improvements made over the years , I'd be interested to know where the Tiger I fell into the production scale. And I did a 251/1 C kit and the plastic was a much lighter shade of grey.

I did actually find a video of a guy making and painting a miniart T-60 but a different kit, so that will be interesting to watch later. Looking at the box, i noticed the exterior of the hatch was white. It does seem like an awfully cramped turret haha. Ill need to find some crew as well i recon.







Yes its the Warlord 234 Lynx resin kit.

[ripley]

The Tiger was their 6th kit in the numbering series , but I can't remember if it came out on schedule . Rubicon gives kits numbers when designing them but that doesn't mean it will come out in order, sometimes it takes a long  time to get  right . Lots of nice 1.35 Russian tank crews out there from Master Box & Mini Art . Word of caution , early Master Box figures tended to drift into 1/32 scale ( tall & chunky)  , so they really looked out of place when mixed with other companies figures . Early  Mini Art figures , on the other hand tended to be under scale and slim ( compare Perry to Warlord plastic s ) .   A crew set I really like , plus its not very pricey , is this one from Tamiya

You get 6 figures , 1 seated , 1 half driver figure , 4 standing figures including 1 female .  I think I've got 3 sets of these crewing various T-34s in my 1/35 plastic pile
I've seen photos were the hatch interiors are white on T-60 tanks  . Pre war , when you didn't have to worry about being spotted from the air , white hatches were the norm , it gave better visibility when buttoned up . I would think as the war progressed they would start to paint the hatch interior the outside color , just as the USA got rid of the early bright yellow star and stripe turret markings , it gave the enemy something to aim at , who knew ?

[ultravanillasmurf]

I got my Tiger at Warfare in Reading in November 2014, so it was very early on.
http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2014/11/warfare-2014.html

I think there was a bit less in-house design back then.

I also bought the Sherman M4A3, T34/75 and Panzer III.

My Panzer III fix is here: http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2016/02/rubicon-panzer-iii-m-continuing-saga.html

[ripley]

2014 ? Where has the time gone ?

[neffer38]

The Tiger was their 6th kit in the numbering series , but I can't remember if it came out on schedule . Rubicon gives kits numbers when designing them but that doesn't mean it will come out in order, sometimes it takes a long  time to get  right . Lots of nice 1.35 Russian tank crews out there from Master Box & Mini Art . Word of caution , early Master Box figures tended to drift into 1/32 scale ( tall & chunky)  , so they really looked out of place when mixed with other companies figures . Early  Mini Art figures , on the other hand tended to be under scale and slim ( compare Perry to Warlord plastic s ) .   A crew set I really like , plus its not very pricey , is this one from Tamiya

You get 6 figures , 1 seated , 1 half driver figure , 4 standing figures including 1 female .  I think I've got 3 sets of these crewing various T-34s in my 1/35 plastic pile
I've seen photos were the hatch interiors are white on T-60 tanks  . Pre war , when you didn't have to worry about being spotted from the air , white hatches were the norm , it gave better visibility when buttoned up . I would think as the war progressed they would start to paint the hatch interior the outside color , just as the USA got rid of the early bright yellow star and stripe turret markings , it gave the enemy something to aim at , who knew ?

Thanks!. I'll keep an eye out. Obviously things are proofing difficult to get a hold of atm. But I may well thin about actually doing a scenic piece of sorts.

Haha yes I know about the Bright yellow stars. Part of why I love the ww2 history when it comes to the tank warfare side is ....is was also so new and in that 6 year period the tanks just kept coming on in leaps and bounds. So many odd design choices that...now a day you'd think "well what twit though that was a good idea" haha

[neffer38]

I got my Tiger at Warfare in Reading in November 2014, so it was very early on.
http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2014/11/warfare-2014.html

I think there was a bit less in-house design back then.

I also bought the Sherman M4A3, T34/75 and Panzer III.

My Panzer III fix is here: http://ultravanillasmurf.blogspot.com/2016/02/rubicon-panzer-iii-m-continuing-saga.html

Yeah I had a suspicion the tiger 1 kit was an early one when putting it together. Still good quality.....but there was less choice. The tools on the exterior are just all part of the exterior parts etc then when you compare to the 222 kit that just over whelms you with choice, as does the stug kit....really enjoyed doing the stugs