Ammo

No time, lost tempo, lack of motivation. I feel stuck. But spent some money on aftermarket stuff, this time ammunition. Don't know which of them will be used if I use any of them at all. I'm thinking on it. Open hatches would require some minimal interior work (too visible empty interior is not nice) and an ammo loading crew would mean open hatches. Or whatever. Another stuck-point is the paint scheme. Hard edge camo? Soft edge? Disc camo? I need to meditate...

Tools and things

Friuls ready. Now the tools on the rear deck... I clean the kit parts from the moulded-on details to be replaced by PE. The barrel cleaning rod was schratched from plastruct rods and looks nice (though the original kit part looked well, too).

Fire extinguisher was from the stash (some of the Dragon kits had a redundant one) and also looks better than the also good kit part.

Jagdpanzer - Friul tracks

My first ever Friul track assembled and test-fit. It sits perfectly and looks like after the first try:

 

Looked a bit too tight (though wartime photos show this kind of tight tracks sometimes) so I added one more link. Now it's much better:

And as this is only one side, I started to prepare (minimal cleaning and drilling) the next side as well. Hope finish with it till the weekend.

Ghost from the past

As I uninstalled WoT from my laptop, a lot of free time (?) dropped to me - at least 20 minutes per day :) I just thought it would be great to finish one of my favourites, the Stuart. Some stowage was added, and MG + antenna will be put on soon - and finally I collect my willpower and paint those two tankers - and some dioramic background with palm trees and jungle vegetations similar to Makin atoll's natural environment...

Cleaning the rear deck

Small update at the weekend: I started to cut parts and fill holes on the rear deck to enable the fitting of upgraded tools with PE clamps, holders, etc. Not a visually interesting step but I put a pic here for the record...

Test fit

Well, it turns out to be one of my fastest builds. Thanks, Tamiya! Finally I found some pin marks on some of the parts to clean up but overall the kit is unbelievable. Engineering masterclass. The upper part is test fitted - and to be honest, it would be let this way, without glue because the fit is 100% perfect and fix. Now comes the upgrade session, the tools on the rear of the model with the PE and the Schürzen. I can hardly wait :)

Jack-block

The rear is finished (two additional PE chains will be added but only later at the final stage to prevent breaking accidents). I made the jack-block from balsa wood instead of the kit piece. Eduard also offered a wood block made of brass but that looked strange...