SPA Modeler

Thank you Kari, you are too kind. I just try to get them finished. Hopefully more will be done soon. Stay tuned.

Well, after another week and a half, I have a good bit more progress done. It's been a good week so far.

Here is the latest progress I got done, starting with my aircraft.

The Shinmeiwa was getting on my nerves so it was pulled out to move it along. I started with the inner flaps, trapping the hinge pieces inside with caps. You can see here where I had to improvise when one cap disappeared:



I then got the inner flaps assembled:



The outer flaps were assembled afterward the same way:



Then they were all dry, I trapped them inside the two wing halves when I assembled the wings. They move quite well in there:



Later while looking at the instructions, I noticed that there were certain fuselage plates that had to be inserted and glued flush when the fuselage was assembled. Yet, there were no tabs or 'shelves' for the plates to sit on, making it too easy for them to fall into the fuselage. So, I glued some sheet styrene pieces to the openings to allow the plates to be placed in place without the threat of them disappearing inside the fuselage:





I was ready to move on by then.

Because of Frank's fantastic Huey helicopter builds, I decided to bring out one of my two UH-1D's I'd gotten at the recent game convention and start it. This one has special markings for a German SAR bird that looked very cool, so I decided on that one. First step of course was the cockpit and interior:



That was as far as I got before I started again on my armor.


My first work on my armor was to assemble the main hull of the Terminator. Here it is with the side sponsons, hatches, and various detail bits on it:



Next I test fit the turret onto this to see how well it turns. It turns well:



After that I assembled the five pieces of the lower hull:



This thing is starting to look pretty good:






Next up, I decided to get back on my Bereg Coastal Defense Gun. I pulled out the parts to assemble the chassis and went to work, finally finishing when I got this much done:



I then assembled the control cabin and floor, along with some bracing pylons:



...followed by the gun barrel to the turret:



Here is the whole thing dry-fit together so far:



And then I realized, I have three other eight-wheeled Russian trucks I can build with the same chassis. That's when I got sucked in....

I pulled out another one, this time the MAZ Heavy Cargo Truck. I built that chassis:



And then I built the cargo bed since it was so simple to do:



Next was the MAZ Command Post for the SA-10 Grumble SAM system. Yep, another MAZ chassis:



I then started the command post cabin. It wasn't as easy as the cargo bed, but still went together well enough:



Still more to do on that but here it is dry-fit to the chassis:



Oh, and here's another one! This is another MAZ chassis, but if you look closely; you'll see it is slightly shorter than the others. This one is for the MAZ Tractor pulling the trailer:



Since I had the tractor started, it was time to start the trailer too, so I assembled it to this stage. I have a few more detail parts to add before it's painted and then after that I'll add the wheels:



I then realized I had two more (at least) eight-wheeled Russian Trucks to do, but these were different trucks based on the KZMT series of trucks. I pulled out the first one, a KZMT Heavy Cargo Truck. Here's the completed chassis for that one:



I then built the easy to assemble cargo bed again and dry fit it to the chassis:



Last, I assembled another KZMT chassis; this one for the Iskandar missile system:



Just for fun, here are all the chassis all lined up for you to see:



This shot shows the extra sub-assemblies on them to show which one is for which truck:



But wait! I started a seventh eight-wheeled truck. This last one is the AA-60 Fire and Rescue truck on the MAZ chassis. This model company kept it real simple though, here is the chassis assembly:



Well, I couldn't stop there. I had to build the rest of the rear body for this truck, but I started with the small cabin behind the driver's cab:



That didn't fit too well, but I moved on. Here is the rear body mostly assembled so far:



No need to worry about that gap in the back. It will be obvious why when I install this tank I also built:



See? No gap, but there are other issues I will have to address. Still, this is looking quite impressive so far:



One of those issues was on the small cab; I got started on that one with some Mr. Surfacer 500:



When that dries it'll be sanded down.

That's when I decided I'd done enough till now. So, I shall end this update here and I hope you enjoyed the latest tour. Thanks all for looking in, comments are welcome.

Wow. This is a lot of work and looks great!

Wow Mark - you've got a lot going on and some really interesting types! All looking fantastic!

Thanks Lyle! It feels great to be getting so much done after having felt that I was getting nowhere fast!

Thanks Stuart! Now to get them all finished!

That's a lot of trucks!

Bruce, thank you ever so much for the compliment. I may be royalty only in respect to quantity though! LOL!

One thing I noticed most about the quality of plastic between the Eastern European companies and the Asian ones is that the Asian companies use a harder mix. Modelcollect, Hasegawa, etc. all have solid, hard styrene that is easy to shape and sand into place without wrecking the general shape of the parts. It is also far more sharply molded, allowing for exquisite surface detail that the softer plastic of the Eastern European kits can't always replicate. Eastern European kits like from ACE have a softer plastic that can easily be cut too deeply or sanded too far. It also tends to shrink more, so there are more shrink marks in Eastern European parts. I cannot say which I find to be more to my liking; I enjoy building both types of kits. However, I do find that the harder plastics are much easier to work with as they go on simpler and more precise due to the sharper molding. I hope this explanation helps.

Thanks Medic! I might even start a couple more as I think I have some extras still in the stash....

That Bereg gun looks like a little gem. You seem to like that Modelcollect stuff, don't you?

Thanks Mostrich! Yeah, the Bereg is a unique and different vehicle. Yes I do love the Modelcollect models. Not only are they extremely detailed yet Tamiya easy to assemble; but they have released so many versions of Russian armor and other vehicles that nobody else has ever even thought of touching... ever! They've even branched out into US and NATO vehicles; some of which I never would have imagined seeing at all; much less in my scale! The Pershing II's come to mind, along with the HEMMTT towing a flatbed trailer. Right now I think I've finished at least 12 Modelcollect vehicles with these six more under construction and yet they have over forty-five more modern Russian tanks and vehicles available. So many that I'm even getting confused as to what I have verses what I need to complete a particular line.

My apologies for such a long winded response. Time to get back to the workbench.