RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

Painless, the 540K is the Minicraft kit, a bit less sophisticated but more robust, but still not an item to be left out overnight! At Jack's suggestion I'll be picking up the paint this weekend, dark red, like a maroon or burgundy. I'm not sure how long it will be before I get to it, but I think if I do a straight OOB build and spray the main body parts early in the week I can do this as a weekend build. And yes, I'd say it's appearances will be limited to just the full blown shoots where I have it all out there. Before this thread it took me about 2 hours to set up the park, I'd say it will be at least double that this year. As I have for the last couple years, I'm taking the week of July 4th off and if weather cooperates it will be the main photo op for the year, lasting days and hopefully getting enough photos, videos and FPV stuff to spend many enjoyable hours making movies and slide shows. As an old hippie I plan to get things rockin'. Kinda like MTV for tanks, using stuff from bands like AC/DC and the Stones. I have a lot to learn, but I have some ideas for some cool shots and some great places for them in the sound track. One of the first shots I want to try is the Highlander's camera-in-the-road-as-the-tank-drives-over-it trick.

That Maybach is one sweet piece. You guys are a bad influence! The one I really want is the 1937 Maybach SW38 Sedan. I'd love to have one of those as a daily driver! Check it out here

http://www.ebay.com/itm/262389546163?_t ... EBIDX%3AIT

One of those and my other dream car, the Autobahnkurier, but both are expensive pieces. Of the cars I just posted pics of, only the G4 was more than $30, and that's including shipping (well, the Studebaker was $33). The stake truck was 20 bucks delivered, and I got a real steal on the 540K kit at $44 delivered. I think I also got a good deal on the 15cm Howitzer at $52 with $9.97 s/h. $62 is about the best I've seen it go for, but I admit I've only been paying attention for a few weeks. Somebody got me on a Kubel kit (Rommel version) that I came within 22 minutes of getting for $52, but at the last minute they beat my max bid of $90 and got it for $91 plus $10 shipping. The one I have for the RC project cost me $148 so $62 would have been sweet, and then to make it better, since I have one already, I wanted to pass the deal to a friend that's looking for one. So, it kinda stung when that one slipped away. And have you seen the price of Kubels lately?!? I have the RC version, got it about 2 years ago for $200 delivered, and just saw the same kit for $269.99 plus $55 shipping. Wow.

Now I'm back to the guard shack project, and I picked up some cool dollhouse stuff for it. An outfit called Renwal makes 1/16 dollhouse stuff, and some of it fits well in a tank park. Like outdoor furniture and stuff like brooms and shovels and also period stuff for the interior of the guard shack like the wooden desk and chair and lamps I just picked up, and I'm looking for some of those bistro table sets for the gasthaus. The dollhouse section at hobby lobby provided a pretty cool cuckoo clock, too. It's all in the details, eh?

Very strange about the G4 door, mine almost click shut I wonder if that one was put together wrong? Look around the door frame I bet you find 1 of those little bits of tape stuck in there or maybe a run in the paint.

Good call, Jack. The hinges needed a bit of tweaking.

At Last! An Autobahnkurrier!!

At the end is a shot of the new .30 cal I got from Forgebear, so let me say right now that while Dave was gracious enough to give me a 10% discount, it was really because I'm a member in good standing at RCTW, not because I'm good looking. Dave is just a great guy with a great sense of humor, just one more reason I'll be doing business there again.



Now I just need the ground to dry up! Come on July!!

Max!,
Pretty evil looking car. *chuckles* Say, how is the big model car coming along? I got a small 1938 2 ton Caterpillar crawler today that will make a swell 'captured' German unit to haul an ammo trailer. I hear you. The weather is slowly turning into Spring up here.
regards,
Painless

Got a chance to get the first of this stuff out there. Got some good videos and stills to make movies and slide shows with, and on the whole it was a very successful set-up. Five more weeks and I go on tankation for a week of total tank immersion. Eat your heart out, G. S.

A good all weather material to use to cast concrete into pieces that can be moved around is a rather quick setting concrete mix that I used to use to repair damaged exterior stucco finishes on some of the really old mansions in town. Its name brand escapes me but it is called vinylised quick setting concrete patch and its real purpose was to do quick fixes of cracked or tilted concrete slabs like sidewalks. It is without any filler (stones or even sand) so it can be feathered flat. It can be mixed just thin enough to put in molds but care must be taken once mixed to use it quickly as it sets pretty fast and is very strong once dry.

Greengiant, good evening,
The concrete patch material sounds like what I'm looking for to make broken and burnt out wall structures. I was going to use premade concrete squares for the section of town then fill in the streets with asphalt patch that will blend out into gravel roads on the edges. Small pea gravel cemented into place with some kind of thin liquid adhesive. I'm working on layout but it is looking like a section of town then 'forest'
regards,
Painless

If you find a bag of the stuff I mentioned you may find it useful for more then walls. Dig into the ground about an inch to make your mold then mix it a little stiffer and you could make road sections with curbs and sidewalks. Just try it first to see how long your mix sets up and how long a roadway you can piece you can impress details into before it hardens. It will dry a very light gray color but once totally dry can be colored with paint but is pretty waterproof so dying it with watered down paint would not work well.

Problem with cold patch is that it has a lot of gravel in it and is hard to make smooth on a small scale unless perhaps you could work a layer of sand into its top surface. It would also be a very hard thing to move without it breaking apart into chunks. If you intend to keep it as you originally lay it out that should not be a problem.

When I was in Germany the old towns still had cobblestones, no matter how big the town or city, for most of the main streets that when leaving town changed to asphalt if they connected to other towns or concrete if connected to the autobahn . If leading into forests or farmland packed gravel roads were the usually the norm.

Hard to believe but a city the size of Nuremburg was for the most part all cobblestone streets with concrete curbs and sidewalks except for Hitler stadium which after the war was split by a modern road which was all concrete.

Action toys says this dog is 1/16, and it's made by Tomy (ertl), but it seems a bit large. Or that's one huge dog!




Four weeks til Tankation. Can't wait.