Some recent 1/600 additions

Over the last several months, a number of new 1/600 scale models that are of interest to early 80's Cold War enthusiasts (they interest me anyway) have appeared on Shapeways, so I thought it would be timely to mention them.

Firstly, Dragoman's Depot on Shapeways has a West German DKW Munga:

Next, in addition to the East German Army's Trabant Kübel that I've already mentioned (my post of July 7, 2014), National Cheese Emporium on Shapeways has added four different versions of the M548: with and without canvas tarp and with and without 50cal. and mounting ring: 

And as variations on that theme, there are also West German Skorpion minelayers:

And US M139 Volcano minelayers:

There's also a West German Roland 2 SAM antiaircraft vehicle based on the Marder:

As well as the Green Archer counter-battery radar, used by West Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Belgium, among others:

And after a chat with the designer, he has completed an East German IFA Sachsenring P3:

In addition, Kokoda Trail Models, also a Shapeways store, is offering a full Pershing II battery:

Although the Pershing II didn't enter service until 1983, the visual differences to the Pershing IA (the version in service in 1981) at this scale are negligible. The main issue for me is the IA usually had a tracked prime mover and the II had a wheeled one. 

So there we have it. Some very valuable additions to the models presently available in 3mm. More from me next time! 

A long weekend of "this and that"

The long Labor Day weekend is here (when I lived in Scotland, it was September Bank Holiday), so I'm trying to catch up on some of the myriad of things sitting half-finished on my hobby table.

I'm just beginning a 1/600 company of Italian M11/39 medium tanks for the 1940 Italian invasion of Egypt. I've also just finished a company of L3/35 tankettes. As usual with my 1/600 stuff, it's all at 1:1.

No command stand for either yet. I always put a couple of infantry on my command stands to represent officers, but I'm fresh out of Italian infantry, so I'll have to wait while more come in the mail from Picoarmor. For my desert bases, I usually stick on a tiny rock or two, maybe a bush, and a patch or two of burnt grass, but I'm beginning to feel it's just a bit too "busy", what with the tanks on there also. 

Finished a Timecast 6mm car garage, though the house and car that will go with it have a while before they'll be finished.

Also, a Z-scale town fountain by Faller. It didn't seem terribly realistic once it was finished per the instructions, so I made a few adjustments, like filling it with Woodland Scenics Realistic Water and creating splashing water with their Water Effects. It came out reasonably well, I think.

I'm also working on converting a GHQ 1/285 river monitor into a 105mm howitzer fire support monitor. 

I've plated over the mortar pit with sheet styrene and created a 105mm turret by cutting off the bustle and most of the gun barrel of an M47 turret, then smoothing off the cut areas. I'm in the process of building a re-bar armor cage for the turret using GHQ's Stryker slat armor (doing which is absolutely fiddly as hell!!). This is what I'm shooting for:

As you can see in the photos of the real thing, the turret actually sat much farther back, closer to the superstructure, but that would require quite an involved conversion. The 40mm turret ring is already cast on the model and it's much easier to fudge reality just a bit and use what's already provided. I'll show you the finished product soon. 

And for my West Germans for LANDJUT 1981, I'm working on some 1/300 Heroics & Ros Green Archer counter-battery radar vehicles and several Mungas from Dragoman on Shapeways.com. As you can see, I've only gotten as far as the base coat of gelboliv. 

3-D printing has a long, long way to go in both product quality and affordability. Having bought several 3-D printed items, I have to say that the quality level is marginal at best and the prices are extortionate for what you get. 

Pretty much an endless supply of other things to show you and talk about, so more next posting!!  Hope you had a good holiday.