Actually, if I am being honest, I credit him. He got me inspired to build the IBG Japanese truck and it is a blast. It has been a really fun build so far. I just wish I had more time to devote to it. Here is the current status of some of the parts. (I need to do some small touch ups on the paint.) I was really pleasantly surprised at how well the bed assembled.
IBG truck
At the end of the war in the Pacific, the Japanese were cut off from resources and desperately trying to improvise weapons. One that I was unaware before yesterday was the ceramic hand grenade. It is an interesting story. (h/t to Jeff “Inch High” Groves for the pointer.)
And ones we need to boot. Fine Molds is releasing a A6M prototype and an A6M2 Model 11. These will fill a big gap for modelers of Japanese aircraft and those whose interest is in the air war in China.
No, I am not leaving. Sword is releasing a Ki-102 with an I-Go rocket. I want this.
About 9 months ago I acquired a Thinnerline Circle Cutter from Shadow Hobby. Fellow MMCLer Randy Fuller had gotten one and I was impressed by his review. Well, I finally broke it out. Assembly was easy. Calibration takes a bit or work, but overall I can see this being very useful. I cut some masks for wheel hubs on the IBG Japanese Truck project. (I still blame Jeff Groves.) Wasn’t hard to get the 12 circle masks I needed.
Thinnerline circle masks
Friday was the MMCL “Friday Night Fights” club meeting. (A separate post on that soon.) I took the Japanese truck and worked on it. Then on Saturday I actually picked out a paint and got some on the wheel hubs. The paint I picked is Colourcoats Ami-ero, which has a nice mustard yellow tint to it that I think will work well when I weather it.
Colourcoats Ame-iro
Here is one of the wheels with the hub painted. This will allow me to try out my Thinnerline cutter for the first time.
Wheel
I previously mentioned Clearprop are releasing an A5M2 Claude. Here is a cool video of the assembly process.
Well, after a multi-week absence, I’ve finally made it back to the modeling bench. I am masking the MXY-7 canopy, which is a pain in the butt. It only reinforces my conviction that I’ll never build another model for which their isn’t a pre-cut canopy mask available.
Since you can only do so much of that in one sitting, I wanted to keep modeling, but needed a break from the canopy masking. So, inspired by Jeff “Inch High” Groves, I started working on the IBG 917t Japanese truck. Here is where I am. Jeff, this is all your fault.
IBG Japanese truck frame
Clearprop has announced a new A5M2 Claude in 72nd scale. While the Fujimi kit is nice, I am happy to see this kitted again in 72nd scale.
