Canada's Hornet Pt.8

The Hornet has been painted! I used a coat of dark grey on the top and light grey on the bottom to recreate the camouflage used by the modern Canadian Forces. Overall, the paint job went well, but took many coats. I still have some touch up painting to do on the rear fins (it wasn't masked well enough) and then the detail painting begins. After that, armament needs to be assembled, a coat of clear, decals and some minor weathering. The end is near!

Canada's Hornet Pt. 7

Sorry for the wait, it's been a long time since I last updated. Since then though, I've finished building my Hornet, and I'm applying the base coat of paint today. The plane is now weighed down with a lead weight in the nose, landing gear are completed, the pylons for the missiles are on the bottom of the wing, and the glass for the cockpit is attached. In the next few weeks, I'll show the next steps: painting, decals, and armament.

Canada's Hornet Pt.6

Well, I finally have done enough to make a post on my Hornet. the landing gear were assembled beautifully, completely without a hitch; until, that is, I set it down. The picture says it all! My model needs a weight in the nose to keep it from standing up. Back to the drawing board, and time to look for some heavy material to keep it down...

Lack of Posts

Sorry for the lack of posts, there has been a massive lack of free time on my part. Hopefully, I will have some time for modelling in the following weeks. It will make it easier now that winter is coming, giving me less time outside and more for my models.

Thanks for your patience,

zaltar

Canada's Hornet Pt. 5

I finally came to a decision about the landing gear on the CF-18, and I'm leaving them down. Therefore, I decided to do a little bit of detail work on the interior of the wheel wells. I took average copper electrical wire, shaved off the protective sleeve and bent it to shape (Note: Make sure the wire isn't live or attached to anything before doing this ;D ) I then cut holes in the plastic model and glued down the wires. This added some really easy details for dirt cheap.

Tiger Tracks

I finally started the tracks, after much humming and hawing. The worst part is cutting them all out and placing them in a jig(see photo). This is not overly challenging, just very tedious. After this you just spread glue on them and wait until they are tacky. My best advice for this part is be very, very, patient. I used plastic cement and left them for 2 days and they still are bendable. More on tracks next week.

More Models! : D

Thank goodness for holidays for allowing me to see massive out of town hobby stores! As you may know from around this time last year, holidays = models! So now lets give it up for the new models!

Airfix: Bren Gun Carrier and 6 PDR AT gun (For a diorama) - 1/76 scale

Airfix: Afrika Korps (For the same diorama) - 1/76 scale

Academy: Nieuport 17 - 1/32 scale

Dragon: 88mm Flak 36 - 1/35 scale

Dragon: Firefly Vc - 1/35 scale

Tamiya: SdKfz 222 - 1/35 scale

As you can see, you'll be able to read about my modelling mishaps and magnificent results ( insert suppressed laugh!) for a long time.

Canada's Hornet: Pt. 4

In this section, I will again stress the importance of keeping filler with you at all times. I attached the turbines at the bottom of the plane, but when I dry fitted them I noticed massive gaps. I searched for a spot that could be a problem, but there wasn't one. I ended up using ridiculous amounts of filler to remove these, and it took a long time before I was happy with it. Inside the vents, there were turbines, which I painted silver. I then drybrushed a mix of white and silver onto the raised surfaces on the turbine.

Canada's Hornet Pt.3

...Or "Canada's Hornet Pt. 3: How I Learned That This Will Be A Freaking Huge Model":P.

In this step, I really realized that this model would be ginormous! In step two of the instructions, the model barely fit into the container that I use for storage. In this step, I assembled the first part of the fuelslage, and was impressed with the details. There were even little parts for the grills in the vents! From this point on, I was quite pleased.

And I figured that, since I'm not going to do a frequent tip for a long time, I'll give you this tip for these economic times. Buy cheaper models if the big ones put you into debt, and if you can't afford them, stop building models. Remember, food is more important than that new Dragon, or Tamiya kit.

Painting German Armour Pt.5

Sorry for the delay, as you all know, life comes before modelling. Now ,however, I have been able to get some work done on my Tiger. I have glued the extra tracks onto the side of the turret. It may not seem like much, but getting the tracks to sit correctly was a very fiddly process. The tank is now very near to completion and I'm getting very excited to see the end product.

Canada's Hornet: Part 2

In this model, I'm going to closely follow the instructions: usually when I go off the beaten track, I end up in some form of trouble that takes a while to fix. I started the CF-18 with the cockpit, one of my favorite parts of making an aircraft. I used a toothpick, with its end trimmed to a nice point, to paint the fine details of the instruments and buttons. I then applied a decal for the screens of the HUD and instruments, a task that I was NOT looking forward to after my last, nightmarish time with decals. Happily, this time, they went on just fine (sigh of relief :P) and it looked good.

Canada's Hornet: Part 1

Last Summer, I bought Revell's 1/48th scale F/A-18 kit and was not overly happy with the decal schemes provided, so I bought Leading Edge Decals for it, representing a Canadian Air Force fighter. Ten Months later, I'm finally getting started. 

The first thing that I noticed when I opened the box was the massive amount of parts, over 125 parts, and many took up the entire length of the box. Then I realized, this was going to be a massive project; But not to worry, I have my loyal assisstant, Hairy, as seen in the photo to help me! :P

Changing Gears...

I know that some of my readers are probably looking forward to seeing my finished Tiger. Unfortunately, I am losing interest in that model, so I am taking a break and starting on my next one, Revell's F-18. Over the next whileI will work on two models,  the (C as I am modelling a Canadian Plane) CF-18 and the Tiger when it strikes my fancy; I will keep you updated on both as they are under progress.

Tiger I Information

I figured that some people would be interested to learn about the Tiger I tank, so I am using the best of the information from "Tiger I Information Center" http://www.alanhamby.com/history.shtml

Production was ordered to start in August 1942. It took 300,000 man hours to build one Tiger, almost twice as much time as a Panther required.

The average cost of a Tiger was 250,000 Reichsmarks. In comparison, a PzKpfw III cost RM 96,200, and a PzKpfw IV RM 103,500; all these figures do not include weapons and radios. The Tiger cost $100,000 in 1941 U.S. dollars. Adjusted for inflation, a Tiger I today would cost approximately $1,282,051. By comparison, the United States current M1A1 Abrams tank costs $4,300,000.

The new tank was officially designated Panzerkampfwagen VI H (88mm) (SdKfz 182) Ausführung H1. The design program had been known as the Tigerprogram and in March of '42 the Germans began referring to the panzer as the Tiger.The influence of the Tiger on Allied morale, known as Tigerphobia, was so powerful that British General Montgomery banned all reports mentioning it's prowess in battle. The Tiger's greatest fame was gained in a single action in Normandy where the SS Obersturmführer Michael Wittman destroyed an entire column of 25 tanks, 14 half-tracks and 14 bren-gun carriers in a few short minutes with one Tiger.

The vehicle used in this remarkable feat is the one I am currently modelling.

Taking a Break from Armour...

I'm figuring that all of my readers (the few that there are) are tired of seeing my Tiger I in progress so I figured that I would show "my few" a model in honor of "THE few". I finished my Tamiya Spitfire Mk. I a couple of weeks ago, but decided against a full story of the finishing due to a nightmarish experience with the decals (Don't even ask...). Now that its done and my blood pressure has been lowered from that whole escapade, here are a couple of pictures. As you may notice, the chap sitting on the wing is the one I made in a build a few months ago!

Painting German Armour Pt.4

Excuse my mistake on the previous post, but I painted the accessories after I finished the camouflage. I used Country Maple by Decoart for the wooden handles of the tools. All gray was painted by using a 1:1 ratio of silver and black paints, in order to create a lustrous appearance to all metal surfaces. When I looked at the metal that clamped the tools to the vehicle, I carefully matched the paint to the colour of the camouflage beneath.

Painting German Armour pt.3

I've now put on the camouflage colors. I used Decoart Burnt Sienna and Hunter Green for the stripes. I tried to make them as small as possible for historical accuracy.This was probably the easiest part to paint, and also the funnest. My Tiger actually looks like a Tiger now! The next part will be on weathering the tank. 

Painting German Armour Pt. 2

The coat of Dunkelgeb is now on. This is a very specific shade of yellow that was used by the Germans for summer camo in WW2. I used Tamiya XF-60 to paint the Tiger. I cannot stress this enough, wear a respirator when using anything other than craft acrylics. You cannot get this color in craft paints, take my word for it =(
I painted it completely but left enough black showing as to make it look worn and shadowed. The next step is doing green and brown lines.

Painting German Armour Pt.1

It's finally here! My Tamiya late war Tiger is together. Now as we all know the painting of a model is when the character of it comes out. The first thing I did was give a base coat of black. This will give the model's lines a deeper look. Also, it will add depth to the zimmerit. I used Decoart black. The next step will be to add the distinctive dunkelgeb, dark yellow(which was very hard to find).

Two Nearly Complete Models...

In the past few months, I have had two models on the go: The Tamiya Tiger (I've been working on this one for many months) and the Tamiya Spitfire MK. I. Both are nearly complete so you can expect to see pictures in the coming month(s).

Kit-Bashing Figures Pt.3

For this next part of the Kit-Bashing section, I'll take a look at figure modding, making parts from scratch. For this part, I'll be using the figure from the Tamiya 1/48th scale Supermarine Spitfire MK. I kit. I began by cutting out the parts and drilling a hole in his torso and right arm (already detached in the kit mold). I did this because I inserted a piece of wire to hold the arm in place. After getting the angle right, I used wood putty to create the rest of his arm. I then painted him accordingly (look through my archives to find articles about figure painting) as an RAF pilot from the Battle of Britain.

Show Your Support!

In the "Fellow Modellers" Tab, press "Follow this Blog" to show your support for "Zaltar's Guide to Scale Modelling" if you have a Blogger account. If you don't, it's quick and easy to make one, and it also allows you to make your own blog and access many other cool features. I hope to see you in the Fellow Modellers tab!  

One Year and 45 Posts Later...

One year... In the first weeks I doubted that this website would last one month; but here we are, February 1st, 2009, one year after my first post. Thank you to all of my visitors for keeping me optimistic about this project by watching the hit counter slowly but surely rise to its current number of 777 (strange how that sort of thing works out, isn't it?); without you I would have lost interest a long time ago. I hope that you will continue to return to Zaltar's Guide to Scale Modelling for a long time to come. I wish to continue to provide modelling tips for many years to come, and I want to see many more February firsts to come and go on this site.

Best wishes to all for the next year!

zaltar

Kit-Bashing Figures Pt. 2

For putting together new figures, I use my secret weapon, a ball of clay. How that happens to be a secret weapon you may ask; I use it to dry fit arms, legs, hats, you name it. I am then able to place the figure in a model accordingly, now able to see if any changes are required. I did that with my Tiger's gunner. I then saw that the body was too large, so I had to cut down on the poor chaps "gluteus maximus" in order to fit properly. After sawing that down, I then dry-fitted him one last time, and then glued him together.

Kit-Bashing Figures: Pt. 1

Models always look more realistic with figures, so this new section is dedicated to creating figures from multiple kits, better known as "Kit-Bashing". The idea came to me after I had finished the Zimmerit on my Tiger I. The kit looked rather unrealistic with only commander Michael Wittmann (the tank is based on Wittmann's final Tiger, 007) and I had left the hatches open for an good interior view, but the inside looked very barren, so I decided that it needed another figure. After an unsuccessful hunt for tank crewmen on the internet, I realized that I would have to take matters into my own hands: I needed to make my own figure.

I started off by looking through the good old spares box. In there I found some British 8th Army crewmen from the Tamiya Universal Carrier, and decided that one of them would do. I then found a German hat for him from the Tiger  ,put it on him, and he strangely looked really good and it was a perfect fit. Thankfully, the figure will be inside of the turret, because I don't know of any SS tankers in Normandy wearing khaki shorts and long combat socks!

Tip of the Week

There's almost no need to buy expensive model paints; I suggest that you go  to your local dollar store and buy some cheap acrylics. That's exactly what I do, I can get every color that I need in Deco-Art paints, each squeeze bottle costs under a dollar.

Tip of the Week

The first Tip of the Week for 2009 is to never get rid of old sprues, because you just never know when you're going to need an unused piece or make a new one. This has helped me on multiple occasions.