Wednesday 1 November 2017

Getting things done!

I had a productive couple of hours at the bench tonight as the ICM 1/35 ZiL-131 had the final parts glued on and washed down prior to painting, I made masks for the national insignia on the Airfix 1/48 Hurricane so that's ready for painting plus I've finally decided what to do with my Takom 1/35 Leopard and added just two maple leaf decals on the turret sides;




The Leopard needs to be finished soon otherwise it will become another shelf-queen. Since the Takom kit decals proved inaccurate and had that 'milky' look to the carrier film, I've been searching the photographs I have for an alternative Leopard to match what I had on the bench. This being the case and wanting to get the model finished I've decided on one which just has the maple leaf insignia on each side of the turret, Canadian Leopards don't seem to have many markings from what I can see anyway.
The Hurricane masks were done by measuring the kit decals with a vernier/caliper gauge and noting the diameter measurements on the instructions. Using a calculator (because I am useless at maths) I halved the measurements to find the radius and set the vernier to them then adjusted my compass cutter to those measurements.
The compass cutter was then used to cut out the masks for the roundels and these were placed into position on the model, the fin was masked off using strips of masking tape too.
The ICM ZiL-131 was quite an enjoyable build and full marks to them for the really good fit of parts. You could go to town on this model but detailing the fuel tanks, adding some pipework to the radiator and replacing the arms for the drivers mirrors was enough for me, the latter was only done because one of the kit items broke.

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