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Hi all. I’m an experienced rc builder modeler and I am getting more into scale models these days and ready to do an easyish Tamiya 1/35 tank. Is there a good recommendation as a good “get your feet wet” kit that doesn’t require excessive painting?
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Mar 2, 2023 23:10
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:52 |
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 Instead of a tank, I picked up this pair from the hobby shop. I have a new workshop setup for my r/c’s with an airbrush table, so I put a small modeling desk next to it and will build this on it. Fun build so far!
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Mar 7, 2023 13:38
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In getting back into modeling, I just built a Tamiya Panzer II with my oldest daughter and we had a great time. Is there another classic Tamiya WWII armor kit that you guys would recommend for the next one? The Panzer II was a nice and quick build, and very inexpensive. I'd just ask that maybe it not be a Sherman, the reason being is after getting a few under my belt, I plan to do an M4 up proper along with an M25 Dragon Wagon transporter. Always wanted to do one of those kits, as they are gigantic when finished. Also, in regards to airbrushes, about a year and a half ago I got a Paasche Talon and it was OK when I originally purchased it for doing both a small monster truck diorama and then an r/c body (I'm a big r/c guy). After that initial period, it sat for awhile and upon trying it out again the last month or so, I just can't get it to work correctly. I've tried various cleaners and even a sonic cleaner and still no dice. I don't know what I did to it, but even two experienced airbrushing buddies have no idea what the heck to do. It was so frustrating that I planned to just give up airbrushing and going back to rattle can only. I've since decided to stop being a baby, but I'd like to just find a different brush, if anyone has recommendations for something that's maybe a bit easier on clogging. My aforementioned airbrushing friends (they primarily shoot r/c bodies) are both big Iwata guys. Anyways, thanks for the help! The Panzer was a blast! Pic of my monster truck scene. Built a classic AMT Bigfoot as the centerpiece. 
ColonelJohnMatrix fucked around with this message at 23:26 on May 29, 2023 |
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May 29, 2023 23:22
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Arquinsiel posted:Did you cut up the box to get the art for the base? No, those are personal photos that I scanned and then printed and laminated at appropriate size (well, photos my mom or dad took, as I was 8 years old at that particular event). I was actually at the show that the truck debuted at (I'm a monster truck nut and have worked for the bigfoot team in two separate stints in my career). I thought it would make for a cool display accent. I really enjoy that piece. That's actually my first ever attempt at a real diorama and I'm excited to do more of them. Just gotta get the dang airbrush situation fixed! Thanks for that Iwata rec. It's what I was leaning towards. My local hobby shop has that half track so ill have to pick one up!
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May 30, 2023 01:03
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I picked up some windsor brown oil paint and odorless thinner to try my hand at a first washing of my Tamiya Panzer II. I figure if I mess it up, I'll just grab another!
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May 31, 2023 22:20
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I just picked up a Harbor Freight Avanti brush so give me a day or so and i'll post impressions. I had planned to grab a nice Iwata, but seeing Harbor Freight had one for 25 dollars, I figure hey, at that price it's worth a shot to try it.
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Jun 1, 2023 20:20
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treetheheavy posted:That's loving rad as hell. As someone who was Bigfoot obsessed as a kid, is that kit worth it? Yes, pretty much any non-Snaptite Bigfoot kit is pretty killer! They all command pretty high prices these days it seems!
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Jun 12, 2023 17:29
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Ok after a couple smaller armored vehicles to get me started, I picked up one of these today. I’ve wanted to build a Tamiya Tiger I for a long time!
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Jun 15, 2023 22:35
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Using the tips in this thread and some I found on YouTube, my second attempt at getting into airbrushing is MUCH smoother. That $25 dollar Harbor Freight Iwata copy has been awesome to work with. I've been working on my Tamiya Tiger 1 (allllll those wheels, ugh) and it's turning out great so far. Looking forward to posting pics when it's finished after completing a move. Are there any good 1/35 armor FB groups to join? I ask because I'm part of a 1/24-25 scale big rig modeling group and despite me not actually having built a rig yet, it's amazing seeing the work guys are doing in that group.
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Jun 21, 2023 19:40
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Ok, question about some generalities with model brands- what are the better brands to stick with as far as good instructions, fitting of parts and just general overall quality? While I've only done sporadic static model building, I've been building radio controlled vehicle kits for many years and the various brands have differing yet fairly consistent experiences when building them. Tamiya r/c kits are consistently amazing to build. Fantastic instructions and an awesome build quality. From the static Tamiya military models I've built, the quality is the same there. I LOVE Tamiya. Outside of Tamiya, my only real experience with static models are with AMT and Revell. The quality of said builds are kind of all over the place. I'd say in general they are good, but not Tamiya level quality. When talking military models, there are a variety of companies out there that I'm totally unfamiliar with but that offer some cool stuff. Can anyone give me a quick rundown of the good ones and maybe some of the ones to avoid? Or maybe some generalities? Hobby Boss is a company I'm interested in in particular. Much appreciated!
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Jun 23, 2023 15:26
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Thank you all very much for the contributions so far. It's much appreciated. I'm going to be researching models beforehand on Scalemates to see what the history is. The AMT kits I've messed with have been pretty eye opening in how quality can vary, and after pulling my hair out on a couple kits that are not fun to build, I realize it's been to find out whats what before buying a kit.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:33
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Yes, correct. I am kind of mixing two subjects up here. The military models which have been Tamiya, and then non-military trucks which are Revell/AMT. I love semi trucks and bought a semi truck kit a few weeks ago (an Autocar tractor) and the thing is kind of lovely to build. I'm also building a 2016 Blazing Bison pulling tractor from AMT (which is a repop of something that came out in the 80's) and it kind of sucks rear end to build. That's what got me wondering. I love old American iron though, and AMT seems to be the only place to get it. I'm about to start collecting and building classic monster truck kits and I'm just going to buckle down that some will suck to build. However, the semi truck thing got to me look around and now I can tell that there are some out there that look to be good. This cabover International Transtar is apparently badass to build as AMT took a classic kit and didn't just pop it but updated it. Reviews on YouTube are solid. https://www.scalemates.com/kits/amt-1203-international-transtar-co-4070a-semi-tractor-cab--1339584 So yeah, looks like for the military vehicles I've got a lot more options. For the old trucks, trailers, and race cars/monster trucks....there is only one real game in town I suppose.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:57
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That armored car looks badass. Nice work!
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Jun 26, 2023 16:14
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There are some great recommendations here for YouTube channels. My absolute favorite is Boylei Hobby Time. He makes small dioramas, many times by kit bashing certain elements of a build, and they are great. His videos are all short in length and fun to watch. My kids actually love watching his videos with me every week. Been a Patreon subscriber of his for awhile now too. Great stuff!
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Jun 29, 2023 04:15
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I posted about it a couple pages ago but Boylei Hobby Time is my favorite YouTuber and I've been a Patreon supporter of his for about a year. He shared a pic of how his railroad layout is going on Patreon the other day, and it looks freaking awesome. I suppose now I really am a modeler because I keep buying kits without finishing others. Was in Hobby Lobby and they had the 40 percent off model kits going so I grabbed one of those AMT Bulldozers and a California Hauler Peterbilt. Looking forward to eventually making a small diorama about it. So I was moving a couple weeks ago (still in process, but just got my new workshop mainly set up!) and the Bigfoot monster truck diorama I posted a few pages back fell off a shelf and the truck basically shattered into a bunch of parts. Going to be rebuilding that shortly before I do anything else!
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Jul 14, 2023 14:31
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Looking to try a 1/48 tank- is there a Tamiya kit that's generally considered to be a very good one with minimal parts? Doing it as a palette cleanse between some larger scale more intricate builds. Or maybe an airplane at that scale, even?
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Dec 6, 2023 15:54
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Local hobby shop recently got a large model collection from someone and put a bunch of stuff out the last weekend from it. I picked up this set for $50 as it looked fun to build. (Not sealed but everything is there in bag still. https://imgur.com/a/aoCohNF
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Feb 12, 2024 17:18
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Sorry for the double post but they are two different thoughts. I wound up winning a nice sum of jack from a superbowl pool and think I may splurge on a larger scale model. Is there a particular large scale ship or tank that's a simple enough build? I've been eyeing either one of the Andy's Hobby 1/16 tanks or something like a Revell Type XII U-Boat. Some of the large aircraft carriers look cool too.
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Feb 13, 2024 15:41
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NTRabbit posted:There's also the relatively new SM U-9 German WW1 Uboat in 1/72 from Das Werk, and buying it rewards a team that sent divers into the ocean to record dimensions and details from the only reachable wreck! Thanks a bunch for this. I am absolutely buying one of these soon. I wound up going with a 1/16 Andy's Hobby/Takom Sherman after reading and watching so many good reviews on them. I've a feeling after building this one, it'll send me down the 1/16 worm hole.
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Feb 14, 2024 18:22
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Holy poo poo the 1/16 Sherman is huge. Its really badass. The quality of the kit seems very high though and thus far it's gone together quite easily. This is my first experience with Takom and I'm impressed.
ColonelJohnMatrix fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Feb 15, 2024 |
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Feb 14, 2024 23:31
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Your Tiger looks very good! I am putting the finishing touches on a 1/35 Tiger now (I may post pics, but it's nothing like some of you folks are capable of!) otherwise I'd of ordered one of those to start my 1/16 journey. My LHS also happened to have the Sherman in stock, so I figured it was a good one to start with. I'm so impressed with the build and my enjoyment of it so far that I am almost certainly going to be doing more of the Andy's Hobby line. Definitely the Tiger, but I may do the M8 next as it'll be out by the time I'm finished with the Sherman. I'm a longtime r/c car builder, so the larger scale stuff seems to work well for me and is more in my wheelhouse. Some of the smaller scale tank parts drive me crazy trying to glue, so I'm enjoying how even the smallest parts on this Sherman are still not that small. Building the tank treads are gonna be fun though. Hooo boy that's a lotta sprue. This is going to be the first kit that I go hog wild on trying to weather. The larger scale of it makes it less intimidating to me for some reason.
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Feb 15, 2024 15:49
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Thank you for that very insightful post as to the differences in rc tanks. I’ve long eyed the Tamiya kits and recently was looking to Heng Long. I’ve been trying to stay out of rc tanning because I know I’ll go hog wild and I’m actually quite enjoying how comparatively cheap the 1/16 static models are! Here are some photos of a recent 1/14 log truck I built. It’s a modified Cross RC HC6. It is MASSIVE. Also some shots of buddies heavy hauling trucks that they recently built. That scale MAZ, when loaded with the wood, weighs about 70 lbs total! https://imgur.com/a/lrq1tbp Anyways thanks again for the tank write up. I’m saving that post for personal reference. One day I know I will wind up building a tamiya tank. I recently build one of their 1/14 Globe Liner semi trucks and with the full lights and sound, I think I had 1k in just the tractor portion of the build!
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Feb 15, 2024 17:38
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I cannot assist you much in the discussion on steam engines or trains as I'm not into that. I know a bit about r/c construction equipment and a decent amount about r/c semi trucking though. It's amazing the level of complexity and detail you can in many r/c kits these days. The price for the super scale, niche stuff can get up there....but it's cheaper than full size! That's what I tell myself, anyways. Here are pics of the 1/14 Tamiya Globe Liner semi truck tractor I built last year. Had full lights and sound, and I installed an engine shaker unit to where when the truck was "running", the truck would indeed shake like it was idling. I built this truck be an off-highway style hauler. Wound up selling it though to go with the heavy duty Cross R/C truck that I showed in my last post.    I did the truck in colors to match my Tacoma. 
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Feb 16, 2024 20:48
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I finished my first Tiger. This is a 1/35 Tamiya. I need to do some paint clean up but I’m happy for babby’s first tiger. 
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Feb 16, 2024 23:16
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Lord Ludikrous posted:Fantastic r/c tank info Thanks a bunch for this! I've saved all of this as reference material too. It's fantastic reference material for someone that's a potential babby r/c tanker. I'm definitely going to be getting one of these, just not sure which!
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Feb 19, 2024 15:33
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Taking a break from military stuff and working on some other projects. I've been working on a custom classic monster truck hauler setup, using the new International Transtar tractor (amazing build, the tooling is new and instructions wonderful), an old Revell Nascar Racing Team hauler I got off ebay (not so nice of a kit), and then I combined a USA-1 repop Coca Cola monster truck kit with a 78 Ford body to build the monster (I have a bunch of r/c monster trucks I use this paint scheme on). I'm creating a diorama of what it would look like if I had owned a monster truck racing team in the 1980's, so I'm going to be putting it in front of an old arena.  I am also working on an AMT Sandkat sand rail as well as an AMT Blazing Bison pulling tractor, all of which I'm painting in the same color scheme to make them look like they are part of a team.   It is amazing what it's like going from Tamiya and Takom military products back to AMT car kits- the AMT stuff just builds like poo poo comparatively. I know many of these are re-pops from long ago, but good grief. At least the Transtar is a killer build. Having built several semi tractors and loving that genre of modeling, if you have ever thought of building one, do the IH Transtar!
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Feb 21, 2024 14:52
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That looks incredible. Wonderful job.
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Feb 24, 2024 14:29
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That's a very nice Kenworth! I'm hoping to do a KW soon myself!
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Feb 29, 2024 14:42
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If it was me, I'd just buy a cheaper old one. Those semi truck re-releases can be a crapshoot whether its a newer one or older. I've had great luck with the Ertl Blueprinter re-releases as even if they are older molds and you have some flash to take care of, the kits were quality to begin with with fantastic instructions. It's not like that with many AMT semi trucks, I've found out. I've heard that kit is kinda tricky, but if you want to build it go for it. It's probably just annoying in some parts, worst case. In seeing how your Honcho turned out, I'm sure you've got the skill to figure out any crappy building segments of the Pete. I am currently building an IH Paystar 5000 dump truck kit, though I'm not using the dump bed and making it as a logging truck. It's been a fantastic build so far- extremely enjoyable. Even with some flash to clean up. 
ColonelJohnMatrix fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Feb 29, 2024 |
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Feb 29, 2024 18:48
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What also makes it worse is when you have kits that kinda sucked from a design standpoint originally, like many of the AMT repops. Most Tamiya stuff seems extremely well thought out and much more precise across the board as originally designed. All of their r/c stuff is like that- even if some of the actual r/c models they produce are WOEFULLY outdated (many of them by design as they are retro re-releases), they still typically build like an absolute dream.
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Feb 29, 2024 22:38
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I forget if I commented on the Jeep or not but that is a really nice build and you did great! In re: to the mold making discussion, I actually do know someone who I "think" used to work for Revell/AMT. I'm going to reach out to him to see if he has anymore information to add to this discussion as I'd assume that he has quite a bit.
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Mar 2, 2024 01:59
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Darth Brooks posted:The hobby shop is closing in a week and dropped their prices to 50% off so I picked up a AMT Mack Cab over engine truck. It's a lot more detailed than the Kenworth but part of that is splitting up objects into as many component pieces as they could. The worst example is a bunch of hoses that could have been molded in one piece but are now a 2-4 badly fitting pieces. Ah, thank you for posting this. I've not been able to explain why some of the AMT kits annoyed me, but this is precisely the issue. So many of the kits have things molded in odd ways to where there is a lot more assembly complexity where it doesn't feel necessary. A good example of this is the Sand Kat sandrail that I picked up recently. I mean, the kit is just a sand rail which is basically a roll cage, engine, and tires. And yet, its very tedious because each of the exhaust headers is a separate pipe, and gluing them all together is a massive pain in the rear end. The roll cage also goes together with glue joints that are a big pain to hold together due to the way things bend. It's a kit that's just simply not enjoyable to build because of a few small things.
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Mar 4, 2024 15:53
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I just ordered a Tamiya 1/35 Dragon Wagon kit along with a book of reference photos. I also have a 1/35 Easy Eight Sherman sitting in a box on my shelf. 
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Mar 5, 2024 04:14
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Babbie's first (light) weathering. I finished a Tamiya Hanomog yesterday. Airbrushed it gray, dry brushed rust on the tracks, and then used a tamiya weathering kit for the dust/mud/rust. Now that I'm not afraid of doing it for the first time, I'll get a lot more aggressive with the next kit. https://imgur.com/gallery/XEN1rGD Funny, seeing the pic I notice I did a front windshield protector upside down. Whoops.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:34
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uwaeve posted:That's just how they maintained situational awareness in case of airborne attack. It's a funny thing. I was so happy with this half track, then i saw the error, and now I see I can't fix the error without messing things up (that window protector is glued solid, I can't pry it off), and now I hate it. That 1/700 corvette turned out awesome!
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Mar 6, 2024 21:19
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tidal wave emulator posted:70's Carrier This looks really good and I love your base! I am hoping to do a simple waterline carrier build just to mess with base building like that!
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Mar 7, 2024 15:16
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I have been on a tear as I'm nearly finished with my 1/35 Tamiya Easy 8 Sherman and just picked up and started working on a Tamiya BF109E. Question for you guys experienced with ships and aircraft- what are some good, simple Tamiya ship and aircraft kits that are simple builds? I dig how the BF109 only has a couple sprue trees and its a nice and easy build.
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Mar 11, 2024 18:58
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I recently finished a Tamiya Easy 8 Sherman and am working on a BF109, a 1/700 Yorktown Waterline, and an IH Paystar logging truck at the same time and I have to say, I'm happy to be whole hog into modeling. I'm not getting huge into fancy painting or weathering yet, but I'm having a lot of fun doing simple finishing jobs and machine gunning completed kits. After many years of building r/c's, it's nice to not have to worry about mechanical bits.
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Mar 15, 2024 14:14
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That pet shop looks cool- very Spring-ish in vibe too! Thanks for the recommendation on the 1/350 Tamiya Fletcher DD. My local hobby shop had one and while I haven't started it yet, it looks like a fun little build. While I was there they also had a 1/700 Hornet, DD Cushing, and Gato Sub w/ Japanese Sub Chaser kits (they were very cheap as they were being re-sold from someone's collection), so I picked those up too.
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Mar 18, 2024 14:43
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 17:52 |
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And on the flipside of that, I'm working on a logging truck that's a combo of an Ertl repop Paystar dump truck for the tractor (killer build) with an AMT/Revell logging trailer. Surprise, surprise but the logging trailer is a pain in the rear end to put together. I'll post pics when I'm done though.
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Mar 18, 2024 19:28
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