Tuesday 25 September 2018

I made a thing



So I was hitting a piece a steel and made a thing, my first knife, base material was flat bar stock, the water quench give the blade a little warp but the oil quench no problem, twist handle because never did a twist before so perfect timing, next week grinding and sharpening.







 


Sunday 16 September 2018

Turtle 1 man tank

Designed by Les G. Scherer around 1952, this 1 man Turtle midget tank was armed with 2 .30 machine guns, 13 HE rockets and 640 single shot shotguns, yes you read that right 640 shotguns, well you already know I just had to build it.

This is the drawing that was in Popular Science

and this how it interpreted it, as the scale is a of in the drawings I had to make a few changes but overall sticked to dimensions that was giving in the article.
9,5 feet long by 2,5 feet high and 5,5 feet wide
or for the rest of the world that dropped the Imperial system long ago
2,9m long by 0,76cm high and 1,68m wide.

I did not drill the 640 holes for the shotgun shells that was where placed in a ring all around the vehicle, because well its boring and hard to see anyway.

I wonder how the rocket was aimed and reloaded, looks a bit like shoot and pray type of a deal, as the rockets where unguided. With the armored nose and low ground clearance I dont think it will be very mobile, but overall I do like the looks.
There is another design from around 1943-1944 that looks very much the same just with only 1 MG and no other armament that design had 2 engines placed inside the tracks next to the driver and I wonder if Les had contact with that designer.

Here is Helga again to show it off

 ooh wait Helga is German cant have a German showing of a American tank can we? :p





Edit it took only 2 years but its now cast and painted

added a bit of discolor and streaks around the rocket launcher, simple dark wash with some dry brushing




thanks for watching and feel free to comment
greetings Mondria
 



Saturday 15 September 2018

Russian female tankers

Couple of years ago I made a couple of sets of female German tankers so its about time I also made the counterparts. For GeBo

Commander





driver climbing out of the hatch


pushing herself out of the hatch or leaning


reloading is hot work


Greetings and thanks for watching
Mondria

Thursday 13 September 2018

Stalin's steel ball, Sphebrobil

Yuri Pasholok posted again a wonderfully weird design, this time a spherical tank, in fact he did a complete book about spherical tanks called Stalin's steel balls, great name btw, well 1 of the balls was called Сфебробиль which google translates to sphebrobil, I guess a combination of sphere, armor and mobile.
Tiny little ball and it must be the worst to drive that thing as the driver sits almost on top of the engine, that will be a hot ride
Somewhat easy build so far, 3 18mm disks, 1 as main disk the other 2 cut into ribs and filled the space left with putty. As for but why did you not buy a balling or marble, well I did think of that but as gluing detail on steel or glass is a lot harder then putty I did not want to mess with that, wood was out as do to he wood grain, sure if I looked harder I would find a plastic ball but that would take be longer then making the ball like this.

sanded smooth



And finished, the screw was made from a flat disk with small V cuts, cut to the shaft, rounded of the screw blades and give it a small twist other then that nothing special about the details.






the drawing its all based on




 Edit: the ball got a coat of paint, simple green with a few star decals and numbers kept it really simple because the ball is so small and anymore would look to busy, it is a still a bit to shiny as it still needs a coat of flat varnish of course I need to buy that first.
Then I looked at the pictures and see I forgot to paint the headlight duh moment.


















Yuri's full article over here
https://yuripasholok.livejournal.com/2748697.html


Sunday 9 September 2018

scratch building by Adam Savage

Some of you may already know that Mythbusters Adam Savage has a YouTube channel Tested where he built stuff, well in this episode he is scratch building a Star Wars model and a has a few tips and tricks that would be handy for all modelers, what did surprised me is how fast he builds it and how rough the base boxes are in the beginning. 




Greeting Mondria

Saturday 1 September 2018

CV35 Lanciafiamme part 1

CV35 lanciafiamme Or Carro Veloce L3/35Lf, later 60 liter version.
Base kit is the S-model 720004 L3/33 Lf with trailer.
For this I will not be using much from the extra parts just replacement barrels and what I think is the pump.
Still a pretty easy conversion, I did remade the hatches on the engine deck as on the model they are a bit to big, normally not a problem and I only noticed because the mount did not fit.
So far planned are 2 flame version, 20mm version, 1 with a turret and the airborne version but I found a source that claimed that the airborne version is the same as the 60L flame thrower, just think of that sitting in a tiny tank strapped under a bomber with 60L of napalm just behind your head flying over a ocean controlled by the Brits, what could go wrong.


Greetings and thanks for watching
Mondria