Welcome to our second month of Lockdown.  

May 2020  

The Earley Risers have kept busy
Here's what everyone's been up to, in roughly the order the responses arrived...

... Thank you Martin, Phil, Lance, Andrew, Jeff, Geoff, Mark, Simon, Sean, Roger, Tim, Peter, Hugh, Liz and Les V.

Click on the images to see them larger!

Martin
May update:

Revell WW1 Model T ambulance
completed

VW Lufthansa crew bus next
Smaller box, more parts!

Phil
Since our last "meeting" I've managed to finish a 1/48 Eduard Nieuport 17 (photos of it in progress on my bench and finished).  I have also started a 1/48 Otaki A6M5c Zero - waiting on paint for that one.  

A couple of days ago I dug out Planet Models resin 1/48 Aero A-18 ( a 1920s Czech biplane fighter) which is going to try my patience for quite a while - it might be somewhere near half done by the 17th, unless I have thrown it up the garden before then!  Maybe a Fokker DVII next - no rigging to speak of!!

Lance
I would let you know,
but my laptop’s 
died on me.

All I've got now
is my phone.
…and I'm a
Neanderthal
with that. 

Geoff "Making slow progress."

Andrew
Just finished my 1/72 Eduard Mig-15bis

Making grinding progress
with 1/72 Special Hobby Meteor NF12

Making little progress
with 1/72 Hasegawa Skywarrior

Jeff
This is the list of what I’m working on at the present 

Italeri Soft Cab WW2 German SWS 5 ton half-track, with 37mm, flak gun mounted in the back.
I have just finished base coating the colour on Thursday 7th May along with the tracks, cargo is being sourced from the kit as well as Tamiya and Academy sets.

Dragon Porsche Tiger Bergpanzer recovery vehicle
As used by the 653 Tank Destroyer Battallion (TBD). This has been mostly assembled for a while but again not painted. It now has a base dark yellow coat on it and the Fruil metal tracks assembled and painted, just the final patches of green & brown to add to complete.

Dragon Porsche Tiger, one of 3 actually completed with a production Tiger 1 turret fitted and used by 653 TBD as a command vehicle. 
This is now also painted base colour along with the tracks painted as well just the other colours to put on over the next few days. 

Do you see a theme starting here, as I already have the Ferdinand and Elefant completed from the same unit.

Trumpeter Russian SU152 late. 
This is one of a batch of 3 KV1 based kits picked up a short while ago. I have just about got the thing into final assembly and have painted most of the parts until I ran out of paint. I intend ordering a batch of paints this week to complete the colouring of the beast - mostly a dark green late war finish.

Tamiya WW2 German Marder 3 M.
Based on the 38t chassis with a 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank gun fitted, this one has been on the go for quite some time and I managed to paint it base coat dark yellow yesterday 7/5/20.
This also now needs final assembly and the other colours added to finish it as the 352 Panzerjager Battallion 352 infantry division, Normandy Summer 1944.

Takom Taiwanese CM11(M48H).
This is a real oddball rebuild using obsolete and redundant M60 A3 hulls with M48 turret fitted with a 105mm gun from an early Abrams tank. This kit has been rather nice in general assembly and mostly everything fits well. the only thing that is giving grief is the turret basket which is in 5 plastic parts and 3 etch parts. The kit is roughly base coated with the forest green colour but I have to get one of the others in to finish the 3 tone camouflage pattern. 

Ah well upwards and onwards as they say.

I also have finished painting 2 WW2 German 38t light tanks and an early Tiger 1 all in grey.

So the saga continues.

I will try to get some Chinese modern vehicles completed soon as well.

Hope everyone is staying well and safe.

As you know, I finished the 1/32 Academy F16C last weekend.  It took me 4 weeks to complete.  Its box had gone mouldy so that made the choice of next build for me! I thought I had bought it new from Andy but it was so long ago I can’t remember. It had an Antics price label but unless I bought the aftermarket decals and pitot tube that were in the box (can’t remember doing that either) then it might have been a second hand kit.  See also here

Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed making it and am happy with the result. I might change the targeting pod for a scratch built “sniper pod” that you can see in the photo of it on the workbench - a blue Barclays pen cut and modified.

After that then probably a pair of Airfix 1/48 Hurricane Mk1s, one as a Sea Hurricane so I can correct the goof I made on the first one.  

Have you spotted what I did wrong? At some point I will make the Dora Wings 1/72 Lysander that was gifted to me at SMW last year.

Simon
I can add something this month…

...two little Dioramas on the go!;

Firstly, ‘Oasis’, is a desert scene with the Airfix Bofors and AEC Refueller and a small Bedford from the Bomber Refueller set. I've discovered some different 1/72 8th Army soldiers on Fleabay which will add to the scene.  

Pic shows a bit being added onto one end!

Secondly, ‘The Farmhouse’, has been in the stash a long time but I found the Hasegawa M13 and thought they would look good together. I have discovered the Zvezda range of 1/72 figures which will go towards filling the scene along with an IBG 13cwt Chevvy, a jeep and hopefully a howitzer.

(This has fought me all the way, I've a feeling it may just get a basic paint and get covered in a tarp.) 
But I have also recently discovered the Longton field gun by Hasegawa that was pulled by the M13, (which I have to say has been a dream to build so far) so I may fall at the altar of Fleabay and get it yet.  

Sean

The He162 is now primed and the underside is painted ...and it’s now got two matching wings!

Weathering on the Stuart has just started with a couple of pin washes done.

Most of my time has been spent on the base and building for the Stuart. Having fun trying new techniques. Lots more weathering, then plants and water!

Lots going on what with the garden and tidying the cupboards in the house, and of course playing computer games - and now I can play golf (2 games so far this week).  Also I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for small pieces of plastic which have flown off of the work area and vanished in to the vortex which is somewhere in my office, or maybe it is just a Black Hole.

As everyone has included a photograph of their un-opened boxes I thought it a good idea to show my very SMALL collection.

Painting the model soldiers is time consuming as all the uniforms are covered by bits of equipment, but I am getting close to putting the 'One I did Earlier' together soon.  

I just have to paint the trousers, unfortunately Airfix have them as light blue, my reference book shows them as being dark blue and the web shows them as somewhere between light grey and a light yellow/tan.

I have also have started a Lysander which needs more painting before the next assembly phase.

Tim

What's on my bench ? F All for now - decks cleared ready for action!

Aeropoxy Spartan Cruiser: It has gained two more engines, some black paint and some transfers, plus half of its main undercarriage. Still a fair bit to do, but I haven’t come close to abandoning it yet.

Matchbox Monty’s caravan and Daimler Scout Car: To follow the Churchill. Like the Firefly, it came as a very cheap kit in a plastic bag because the original box had got a bit soggy. I think the transfers for this one were so badly water-damaged that the previous owner threw them away.

Scratch-built Aeronca 100: Needs windscreen, undercarriage, engine and some bracing wires and it’ll be just about done.

Airfix Churchill Mk7: I’ve been doing one British service AFV at a time in 1:76 for a little minor education. I had completed a Matchbox Sherman Firefly apart from the transfers, and stalled because the transfers had been completely ruined by damp. Eventually I decided to park the Firefly and start a Churchill, as they seem to be in fashion. This one will be complete when I find the other set of wheels that fell off while I was sitting at my table, and stick them back on.

Mikro-Mir Argosy: It has been a long time coming, but it’s getting there. In the foreground is some sort of tank on wheels, as the only obvious way to get enough nose weight in the thing was to load it as cargo.

Scratch-built Heston Phoenix:
Anyone would think I don’t like doing windscreens. They would be correct.

Valhalla Hawker Tomtit: I wasn’t aware of this kit’s existence until recently, or even that of Valhalla. The blue things at the top of the screen are Siligum moulds of the kit fuselage halves, each in a shell of Polyfilla to hold them to shape. One has some Milliput inside to start building up a fuselage half, to make a second Tomtit.

 I was feeling slightly guilty about such flagrant copyright infringement until I Googled Valhalla and found they were kits by Mr Veeday/Merlin, and that he had also been responsible for Tombo kits. I have a Tombo High-Speed Fury kit. The entire thing was clearly cloned from a Matchbox Fury with appropriate alterations for the High Speed variant, so the discovery of a Tombo/Valhalla link caused my copyright guilt to evaporate in an instant. Also in the picture are my early Aeronca and Arrow Active projects showing minimal progress from last month. Everything else is pretty much as before.

Hugh

Hoped to have had this finished for the meeting. Been a few setbacks but have resolved them over the last two weeks. Maybe ready next month. Already pondering what to build next but can safely say anything but a Churchill; sold my entire collection to Geoff last year!

Liz - A quiet month!

Les V

Les tells me he's working on several models,
all at various stages of completion! They are:

• 3x TF-104 G Starfighters in German Marine,
  Canadian and Dutch markings
• F-104G and F-104S in Italian colours 
• Meteor T7 in RN colours
• Meteor T71/2 in civilian markings 
• For 'One i built earlier' a 1956 1/144 C130 made in 1960
and another one purchased in 1994 in Danish markings
- subject to paint availability!