Hot Out of the Molds 2023

Thanks, Michael!


Had a good weekend modelling with friends and got a start on the T-72B3M. The only mods that I had to make was shortening the torsion bars slightly on the front 2 wheel stations so the outsides would fit tightly. The plastic is softer that that in most kits so cleaning up the sprue gates on the road wheels is fairly easy. I like to paint the road wheels with a circle template which means that I pre-paint the wheels and lower hull and install the tracks before attaching the upper hull. That means 162 links with 5 pieces each are up next.

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Good start, Cam.

Some serious building on the tracks it seems. Does it come with a jig? Good luck on the tracks!

The advantage of being retired, I had most of today off. Yes Meng includes a three part jig for assembling the tracks. It took me all afternoon but I got one track finished and the second half done.



Being 2 pin end connectors the tracks wrap around the drive sprockets beautifully. Kudos to the designers at Meng for these tracks they look great and are not that hard to assemble. Two notes to others making the kit, the end connectors have a top and bottom and the tracks look way better when they all face the same way, luckily they can be removed and reinstalled without breaking anything. The reason I didnā€™t finish

tonight is that of the 7 sprues of end connectors 2 were unusable because of bad molding, those are all supposed to be the same parts. I sent a message to Meng and now will see how good their customer service is.

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Cam, great looking tracks! Beautifully detailed.

Absolutely horrible miscasting from Meng. Many years since I have seen anything that bad. Looks almost melted. hopefully you will quickly get replacements.

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Good start @camshaft , pity that Meng apparently ran out of styrene when molding your copy :frowning:
Hope they will send replacement soon.
@V1kt0R @Stephen_Blackburn interesting entries guys, good luck!

As of my FW190 I made some small progress, wings are now whole and it looks like a mory Doraā€™ish now :slight_smile:

Warning about PE plates in wheel bay ā€¦ either I read instructions wrong or again left/right plates are misstyped. These PE elements in wheel bay also require special attention - the joint point for CA is very narrow, easy to misplace it by little bit and youā€¦ ( I mean me :slight_smile: ) end up with not being possible to glue wing halves correctly. As a result ā€¦ a big gap needing filler on the left wing joint with main fuselage.

Also I donā€™t understand why IBG molded pitot tube with wing as a single pieceā€¦ of course itā€™s already gone missing on my kit and I need to look for some replacement.
Speaking of thin rodsā€¦ I suggest not to glue guns on wings until very end (itā€™s possible to insert them through gun hole in wing) - again mine are already barely holdingā€¦

And the fun part - I found few errors in instructions, few places where itā€™s not clearā€¦ but I also canā€™t read themā€¦ German cockpits and interiors are RLM02 right? Itā€™s like sky is blue and grass is greenā€¦ so why this stupid instruction reads RLM66 ā€¦ dark-grey or something, like since whenā€¦ Well of course, since likeā€¦ 1941? :smiley: . Why follow instructions in places they are actually right? :stuck_out_tongue: So okā€¦ I think Iā€™m building a Sci-Fi version now :smiley:

I will try to recover it a little bit, at least those most visible parts, should be achievable, but this one decal will be lost (it wouldnā€™t be much visible on black-grey colour anyway ).

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I am going to have to inspect the tracks on both my T-72B3 and T-72B3M kits to make sure the end connectors are properly molded. I want to get started on this one right away. :+1:

Reynier I hope that your sprues are OK and my kit was an anomaly. I got through to Meng last night and within 2 hours had answered the questions they had and was told the parts would be shipped Friday and I should have the tracking number Monday. Good customer service from Meng, now hoping the mail service is as quick. I will work on the turret while waiting.

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I have Mirage Hobby M8 Howitzer in 1/72 scale, which was released in November 2022.
Is that eligible for this campaign?


If I can enter with that it will belater in the year so I can have more than a half chance of completing it in the time frame

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It is :slight_smile: it was released in 2022, which makes it count. Good luck :vulcan_salute:

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Thank you.
I believe that Iā€™ll enter towards the end with that, just need to add an ammo trailer and some other decals, because I want to do it in Italy

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Welcome onboard, Gil! :slightly_smiling_face:

I would like to join in with a Vargas kit of the Mk. VIII ā€œInternationalā€ tank in 1/35. This is one I have been waiting for for years and it was finally out last year.

Paul

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That should be an interesting build.

Paul, that sounds great! Welcome onboard!

Indeed a special tank - it will be interesting to follow your build.

Oh dear. Happy birthday to me!?

Michael :stuck_out_tongue: :tiger2:

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very hot?

Very!

Michael

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Wow! Indeed happy birthday to you, Michael! Did you buy it for yourself or did somebody really treat you well on your birthday?

Well, the boss basically gives me a spending limit, and when it was time to order the good people at Sprue Brothers announced a 15% off sale on GWH. The writing was on the wall.

Michael :stuck_out_tongue:

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