Happy Halloween!

Well Halloween is upon us again so this morning I performed some surgery on an unsuspecting pumpkin, scooped it's guts out and carved it's skin! here's the result of a fun half hour with my scalpel and an ice cream scope.

 

Be My Valentine (tank)

Work on the Valentine has gone extremely well so far. The first few stages deal with lots panels being added to the lower hull. Time spent checking the fit of these parts ensures a decent fit as in some places the instructions are rather vague. However the detail is just superb.

The suspension units although quite complicated looking assembly's actually build up very quickly and are built fully moveable. Of note are the suspension springs which are plastic but are actually flexible! The units look fantastic and should look even better under some paint. The wheels also are rather nice and again should scrub up well.  Tracks wise I am going to use AFV Club's own set of workable tracks as I think they will offer better detail and allow me to get the correct tension without too much trouble.

 

AFV Club Valentine Mk 1

So another victim on the bench, AFV Club's superb Valentine Mk 1. Can't see this causing me too many problems ha ha!

CV90 Back In The Box!

Oh dear! it all went horribly wrong last night whilst attempting to fit the tracks. They are individual links and although the detail is good they just would not fit around the drive sprockets. No amount of jigging, sanding or just plain brute force would get the buggers on! Checking the sprockets I found that the shape seems slightly off and they seemed overly thick on the edges. So after some sanding I thought "great that's them fitting now". Trouble was they wouldn't! ARRRGHH!

So after some thought I decided to get a set of fruil metal tracks which actually come with sprockets so it should all fit. Will have to wait a while though to get a set so back in the box the model went. It was either that or the bin!

CV90 Making A Start

A little bit of work now on the CV90 nothing much but so far it's going together very well. The wheels took ages as they had separate rims which had to be cut from the sprues VERY carefully so as not to break em! The rear has had a resin basket added from a D toys set intended for the Academy kit I picked up very cheaply. Most of the parts will fit this kit so I will probably use a few more bits from it on this build.

Seems Blogger is playing up or is that just me? Not sure how to fix it but I can no longer see my followers list, flag counter or feedjit. It's been this way for a couple of days so not sure what's going on. Quite frustrating really.

Hobbyboss Swedish CV80-40 IFV

Right after a monster clean up of the man cave it's time for a new build and I have selected the Hobby boss CV90-40 IFV. Should be a nice build as the kit looks very comprehensive. Plus it's got a great camo scheme too! A few additions and improvements will be added along the way and I'll probably use a Djitis productions figure too.

M151A2 MUTT Finished

Well I have finally finished off the little Mutt's base and figure and it's all ready for the display case. The base just had some static grass and tussocks of grass added then it was sprayed using tamiya colours then given a dusting using pigments from the main build. The figure was also just tweaked slightly and given a matt varnish and a final dusting of pigments.

I think the figure really compliments the vehicle on the base and am very pleased with the final piece. It also goes to show that a really nice model can be produced without sometimes using loads of after market stuff. Just a few simple additions are all that is sometimes needed.
 

Trip to the USA and a bit of a shock!

Well I have had a rather eventful few weeks hence no updates for some time, the end of September saw me off to visit relatives in the US, namely Minneapolis, Minnesota. We spent eight fabulous days around that area and even managed a couple of nights in a log cabin at Itasca state park! Oh and I also went fishing AND found a model shop! Can't be bad!

However I was experiencing some chest pains whilst there and put it down to indigestion or asthma but thought nothing of it, planning to see my doctor on my return. On arriving back in the UK I went to work as usual last Monday night and had a heart attack during the early hours of Tuesday morning! Subsequently I spent last week in Salisbury hospital and eventually had two stents placed in one of my hearts artery's. It turns out that both my blood pressure and cholesterol where very high. Also smoking for years didn't help! and this had scaled up one artery causing the attack.

I'm now at home recovering with a mountain of pills to take and taking one day at a time. I count myself extremely lucky to be still here. It certainly puts a lot of thinks in perspective, for me this has been a life changer. Lots to think about but at least I can model which is good for relaxation!