1:144 aircraft and more Zvezda

This last week I had a delivery of 12 1:144 aircraft. These are from Revell and although I haven't made any of them yet they look ok and shouldn't take too long to make, each consisting af around 10 - 15 parts. The kits include Typhoons, tempest, Spitfire and Hurricanes for the allies with a Me 109, Fw 190 and a Stuka for the Germans but I don't know if Stukas saw any action over Normandy so I probably won't do anything with this.
I also received 2 Sd.kfz 222 armoured cars and 2 more opel blitz trucks. These are  more Zvezda kits.
I will post photos once I get round to making these

Another purchase is this book which has some good photos in it, however the text is the same for each section. It covers the painting of 3 Panthers, one in winter camouflage, one in 3 colour and one in an ambush scheme. There are also 2 tigers, 1 Hummel and 1 Sdkfz.251 1/2 track.

Heres a few pics of models that are just about ready for painting. I'll finish the shermans as 1st Northants Yeomanry. I need to find some photos of M10s showing insignia so I can make some transfers for them.

Plastic Soldier Sherman firefly

Another firefly

PSC Sherman III

PSC Shermans with PeterPig M10s

Ive started to prepare the Plastic Soldier Company German infantry figures so here are a couple of photos.

The box contains 5 sprues the same. Each sprue has an assortment of infantry weapons ie: smg, rifle and lmg, but there are no anti-tank weapons as these are included in the heavy weapons box. Some of the figures are 1 piece mouldings while others require weapons or heads to be glued on. To get the best finish there is a little finishing to be done to remove mould lines.

I have now started basing my figures on 12mm washers and here are a few showing the completed figures. More pics will follow when I have painted a few.

Time to do a bit more

I haven't been on here for a little while now so now its time to do a bit more modelling.
New additions are a couple of Zvezda AEC matadors, some 1:144 aircraft   ( 2 x hurricane and 1 ME 109) and a box of Plastic Soldier Co. German infantry. Im still waiting for a box of PSC german heavy weapons to arrive. There are some Matador pictures on the model review page.

PSC figures with Peter pig

2 weeks ago I went to a vintage vehicle show where some 1:6th( i think) radio controlled tanks were on show. Heres a few fotos.

Im having a bit of a sortout at home as my daughter is moving into the spare room and my wife is having my daughters bedroom to use as a massage / beauty treatment room. This leaves me with nowhere to make models or do my business paperwork so it looks like I will be moving to the garden shed. While moving some boxes I came across my old collection of 15mm metal models that I bought some time ago with a view to gaming modern african. They are all in need of a good clean and repainting and if anyone can recommend a good paint stripper for white metal it would be appreciated. (the paint is mostly acrylics).
Here are a few pics
                                                                                                                                                                                 

This is most of the vehicle models. There are a few more such as landrovers, Unimogs and a couple of Panhard armoured cars.





These YPRs are from QRF models. I was going to make a Dutch UN force using some Israeli figures. The transfers were homemade using a thermal transfer printer which I'm trying to get working again to make some WW2 transfers.

These Bedfords are very old. I have 7 of them and they are actually British army veterans having been used by the RCT for planning. The bottoms of these are starting to rot away now so will maybe have to rebuild them later



While my main focus is on my WW2 stuff I will do bits to these as a break from time to time.

Here are the first of my British infantry. These are a mixture of Battlfront and Peter Pig. The Stug is a plastic soldier company model.

Got a bit done this weekend

Well I managed to almost finish my 5 StuG IIIs this weekend, (some pics on model reviews page)   I just need to add a little stowage to make them look used and then paint them, but the last few days here have been a bit to wet for painting as I am banished to the garden shed for that. Also started painting my first section of german infantry but my eyes ain't what they used to be. Maybe I should abandon 15mm and try 28mm. Its back to work tomorrow so no more modelling for a few more days.

A few boat pics

Deal Seaways

Spirit of France

Norman Spirit

Sif R

The first 3 pics are ferries on the Dover - Calais route while the last one is a suction dredger which seems to be working regularly in the Calais area. The Spirit of France is P&Os latest boat.

Lazy weekend

Ive not done much this weekend as its been hot and to be honest I couldn't be bothered to do anything so just to show a bit willing heres a couple of pics of a Plastic Soldier Co. sturmgeschutz III. I have so much unpainted stuff sitting in boxes now so I really need to get on and do it.

Does drilling the end of the barrel look any better?

Well this is it for this week, I need to make an effort next weekend to get something done.

Got a little bit of modelling done this weekend (see my wargames modelling page) but I also had a bit of a disaster. I have been painting my hedge sections with acrylic using an airbrush which soon blocked up. I stripped the brush and cleaned it no problem but when reassembling it a part of the valve took off across the room and I haven't been able to find it since. Ive just had to order a new one, but only a basic cheap one but which will probably be better for this type of work. Anyway its back to work early tomorrow starting with a trip to normandy and after that could be anywhere. Hopefully I will be back next weekend to do a bit more..

Normandy Barn

While driving in Normandy last week I took this photo of a barn next to the motorway. Its not the best quality photo but it was a case of point the camera through the window, click and see what came out.

Parked in Calais

A Bad week

Im home now for a couple of days as last week something happened that I have dreaded, I broke down in France, well the truck did . The Starter motor burnt out. Although I have breakdown insurance I couldn't get a garage to do a roadside repair, all they wanted to do was recover the truck to a workshop. The cost of this was minimum £1000 euros + parts + labour so the total was at least 2000 euros with my insurance contributing £350. Luckily Saturday morning another owner driver gave me a tow start and I managed to get it home where I replaced the broken starter for £500

Driving in Belgium

Heres a bit of film taken from the cab while driving through a small Belgium town

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql3drZZ96-s&context=C40b0c48ADvjVQa1PpcFNs8dh1fW7ikWiRn-KZOVCMO2JVc1QBwyI=

Heres a couple of pics to start with of my truck

My first proper truck

My current truck