FUCK YOU Photobucket.com

After years of free usage, and with only ~300 pictures uploaded Photobucket wants me to pay USD 400 per year to have my photos visible again on 3rd party pages (including this blog). Well.
FUCK YOU PHOTOBUCKET.
I am really annoyed.

Heat wave...

The summer is hot, as usually. And our hobby room has no air-conditioning. Which is a drawback when a room has two large glass surfaces (floor-to-ceiling windows on the SE and large window on the SW side). It is more appropriate now to plant tomato or some tropical fruit in the room than to do any kind of modelling as it is around 28 Celsius during the day. Too much for me. The only thing what I could do this weekend was to clean up the desk and to plan a cover for the paint stacks. I don't think that direct sunlight makes any good to pigments in paints...

Friuls done

Friuls were done in two weeks - which really means one week due to our short holiday when I had no chance to touch anything on my workbench. So 6 days of drilling and cleaning and 1 day of construction. The drilling was the most tedious part. And this was the first time that I've tried to construct a track without the CA glue - and it works. Speeds up building definitely. The tracks speak for themselves, really nice finish even with that minor issue with "no-right-side" - after weathering that will be hardly visible, I think. So she looks like this nowadays:

Track problem

I bought my Friul set for this kit second hand. And that is now why I can not complain at the producer that the kit consisted of two bags of tracks. Both left side. Arrrgh... should I use it or throw it out? The only difference is the track pin - on the right side I should correct it somehow. Tiny putty blobs, or whatever... but anyway, it is annoying a little.

PE problem

I've tried to use Voyager PE but soon had to give it up. The separator panels between the wheels are very bulky and ugly right from the set. The PE would look way better and far more accurate in scale. The problems are tough:
- it is wider than the kit part and to cut/shape it would be pain (eight times...)
- it has no real surface to glue. I tried with small L shaped brass strips but were still too fragile
So finally I decided to use the kit parts. The first pair has been sanded to let the first return roller work but the other three pairs were left as they were. Hardly will be visible when finished.
Otherwise the kit goes together swiftly. Not a Tamiya kit but far better than I expected.

It's huge

Compared to my previous builds the T-35 is huge. It seems that the lower hull is slowly closing to the finish but now I have the big question: to use or not to use. The photoetched side armor / running gear cover. With thousand bolt heads which need to be individually glued/soldered. I'm not convinced that the PE would add so much to the final visual result to worth several hours of eye-popping bolt-head-job. The kit armor piece is nicely moulded and fairly represents the original (according to the few photos I have) and... well... I'm not a time-billionaire. Unfortunately. So I'll go with the kit side (and wasted some money on the PE...).
So far here we are:

New project: T-35

Well, a little pause after the Jagdpanzer (figures and diorama is a side-project, still in feasibility phase). Another campaign on armorama.com is the "Landships" where I enlisted a few months ago. Time-pressure is my big old friend and that is why I thought 4 months will (must) be enough for this monster. I bought some PE stuff but after an hour of learning the instructions and checking the plastic parts I am not convinced about the running gear / side plate PE parts... I'll see. But that big pack may be left out of this project. Painting will not be an issue - green. Tracks look quite OK in the kit but I have Friuls as well. So, let's begin... again, a lot of wheels but this time a lot of turrets, as well :)