Weekend update (Windows and robots)

So I tried Windoze 10 for a couple of days, and while there were a few nice features, my overall feeling was that the new OS was half-baked shite. Actions were laggy, the ability to customize seemed very limited, and most importantly, trying to transfer to, or access files on external drives was severely impaired.

Long story short, I rolled Microsoft's unwanted install of Windoze 10 back to 7. Here are some more reasons why Windows 10 sucks.

Happily, restoring the old OS was painless so I was able to get quite a bit of modeling done on the weekend. The first thing I worked on was my Comanche Battle Suit with flamethrower. What I noticed about these models was that they seem to have high lead content, and they were slathered in mold release agent.

The softness of the metal made cutting the fuel tank off of the arm very easy. I mounted it to the hip girdle of the battle suit, and re-positioned the hoses. There was a smaller third hose from the center of the fuel tank to the arm, but I just removed it altogether because it would have been too much trouble to sculpt an additional length of hose to cover the increased distance between the two locations.

I thought about making the nozzle of the flamethrower smaller, but then figured why not have a giant over sized nozzle?

I'm going to have to rebuild the upper portion of the right arm, but after that the model will just need painting.

I was also able to complete my conversion of a Robot Soldier to a Robot Gardener. First, I used my heat gun to soften the arms and re-position them.

Then I cut off the spikes from the arms. The left hand was also cut off and then re-attached rotated 180°.

Finally, I used wood glue and Woodland Scenics Fine Turf to create the moss on the robot's shoulders.

Hasegawa M3 Stuart

I had a day off, so I decided to work on a project that I have been thinking about for a long time. It has been noted that the Hasegawa M3 Stuart is 1/70 scale (maybe larger), but when I compared it with a Mirage M3, I was thinking that it might not be impossible to fix it so that it would come close to 1/72.

A comparison of the Hasegawa and Mirage hulls can be seen at On The Way! I'd say that the Hasegawa hull is almost 2mm wider, and 5mm longer than the Mirage hull, which is ostensibly 1/72 scale.

What really concerned me however, was the turret. It seemed gigantic when I first compared it with the Mirage turret. I was actually thinking about trying to find an appropriate 20mm turret as a replacement, but when I actually measured them, it was actually the same length, although almost 2mm wider and 1mm taller.

I decided I could live with the difference in width, though the difference in size between the hatch on the commander's cupola for the Hasegawa and Mirage kits is quite dramatic.

Here is what I did to adjust the dimensions of the Hasegawa kit:

1. Shorten the rear deck by 0.5mm
2. Shorten front glacis
3. Shorten fenders
4. Glue bar in new position
5. Sand down the sides of the hull (reduction of 1mm+)

I think that overall, the converted Hasegawa hull on the left matches the Mirage hull on the right very closely.

The left fender is missing in the picture because it fell to the carpet while I was trying to glue it in place. I looked for it everywhere, and then started to check if it somehow got stuck in my clothes. As I was shaking out my jacket, it reminded me of a scene from Ganota no Onna... I didn't quite get to the stage Utsuki did before giving up though.

Next, the walls and bottom of the lower hull were cut and assembled to match the length of the upper hull.

Some more assembly, and some putty work. I even found the missing fender and attached it.

Disaster! I had already figured that I would need to shorten the tracks, but I forgot to account for the size of the wheels when moving the bogies closer. Actually the fit is really tight even where I didn't adjust the spacing. The rear road wheel can barely fit because it is pressed right up against the rear idler assembly.

I walked away in disgust at that point, but now that I've had some time to think things over, I'll have to see what diameter the wheels need to be in order to not be jammed up. Maybe some 1/76 wheels might work out...

絶望した！ハセガワ に絶望した！

Flammpanzer 38(t)

While waiting for some figures to come in for my FSV build, I decided to convert a Fujimi Jagdpanzer 38(t) into a Flammpanzer 38. I'm not quite sure what they were thinking when they designed the UM Flammpanzer 38, but there are a couple of easily corrected problems with it. From what I have seen, Flammpanzer 38s were late model vehicles, while the instructions for the UM kit would have you build it as an early model. The instructions also say not to include the machinegun in front of the loader's hatch, but from what I have read, it should be there. Finally, the gun mounting needs to be modified. But enough of the UM kit, what I built was the Fujimi kit with some UM parts. The Fujimi kit was built pretty much as directed in the instructions.


I added a bit of sprue to allow the UM barrel to be attached, and used a piece of plastic card with a hole drilled in it to wall off the area behind the mantlet. I also used some plastic strip to make the rail over the periscope. It should be curved, rather than angled like the one from the Fujimi kit.


I fixed up the barrel by drilling out the center, and then gluing a bit of plastic rod (also with the center drilled out) inside of it. Some scrap plastic was used as the small protrusion at the end of the barrel. The barrel was kind of flopping around, so I had to add a wad of UHU Tac around the ball joint to firm it up. As mentioned before, the hull of the UM model is longer and wider than the Fujimi jagdpanzer by 2 mm in each dimension.