Wall

Daniel Klink
So bad this will never to be seen finished by you Steffen..
Feeling really sad. Thank you for all your advices, the platform you gave all of us with IMPS Deutschland...
Always will remember you as a very fine and friendly person.

Cortex
will be following this project if you decided to post updates : )

Steffen Arndt
Cheers Cortex,

yes I will do. I am waiting for the Hauler set for the Jagdtiger that I ordered yesterday, but I have started on the gun already. Still looking for good photos of X1 but I will probably only find the heavily camouflaged Jagdtiger from the Iserlohn surrender.

Cortex
There's also a nice PE and resin set from Artwox for this kit. I've used engine grill and MG sight update and I regret not buying the full set, made the kit look so much better.
I built this kit and enjoyed it a lot that I got another copy to enjoy it again, hope you have a blast with yours!

Steffen Arndt
I hope that too as I took it out to get a bit more motivated. The double Spitfire project is not as much fun as it should be and taking much of my modelling spirit ( Spitfire Mk.I Bader & McKellar | Project by Steffen Arndt (1:48) ) ... just finished applying tiny decals for several weeks.

Steffen Arndt
As for the Artwox set ... I had a look: too much small pe for my taste. I think the combination of Blackdog track link hooks and Winkelspiegel plus Hauler grilles and some outside details (including sight for the AA gun) as well as command tank equipment will be sufficient. (of course the Aber barrel is a good addition too.

Cortex
Right, it can be too much especially this is 1/48 scale. I loved the Spitfire project!

Steffen Arndt
Thanks .. hope to finish the Spitfires after X-mas...

Luckily I found a reference to Panzerwrecks 3 for a larger photo series on the Iserlohn surrender of sPzJgAbt 512. Sadly the Jagdtiger X1 is heavily camouflaged but a few things can be seen.

Steffen Arndt
As promised a few pictures. Yesterday I used the day to clean-up and mount the running gear parts. Kind of tedious but not that hard. The gun was already fitted but I also glued in the Winkelspiegel (visors?) and the rear wall. I cut off the solid handles for the doors and will replace these with wire. The Hauler set is not here yet so I did not cut off the lifting hooks on the roof yet. These must be replaced or optimized ... I think this will be a rather slow project but when I click the parts together like in the last pic it already looks like a tank

Cortex
nice pics, very clear!

Steffen Arndt
As I find the application of decals rather boring I need a lot of time for that .. thus my Spitfire project will take a little more time and i started something fresh to keep motivated. The Revell 2018 Beaufighter was released this year as Mark If and it includes decals for an ace pilot with John Cunninghams NG o R in which he eventually shot down 10 of his opponents. I bought some Eduard sets and took some of the stuff I already had for the Mk.X and got started.

First let me say that I hate the colour of the plastic. It is a dark grey with some metal flakes included. I do not know why Revell does not just make it a light grey like most of the other companies do or at least choose a solid colour (except black or white)... Anyway. The kit is rather nice. Fit so far is good. I am still undecided if I will replace the throttle blocks with the Eduard PE ... it is a lot of work to make these folded boxes look convincing.

Anyway I started with the wings as I am not a big fan of doing cockpits. I must be the only one on the planet because everyone I talk to tells me he likes doing the pit. The wheel wells are rather nice and fit very well. I am not sure i took the correct parts for the supercharger intakes .. need to check my refs. The flaps can be positioned open and are not so bad but need some detailing or replacement with PE. So I chose to keep these closed. The inner flaps fit excellent while the outer ones need a little work to fit, nothing difficult though.

The parts of the interior also fit well. As written above, I need to make a decision and so the side consoles are not yet glued but just "clipped" into place. I will use the Eduard instrument panel ant the CMK pilots seat (plus steelbelts for the rear seat). As I have bought the larger set for the interior (491124) which has some side wall details for the access bay I will pose the entrance door open. Else the Zoom is more than sufficient for this kit.

Steffen Arndt
Little progress on this project. I have added the PE in the entrance bay and airbrushed everything interior green. Then I started to remove the throttle quadrants. First one is off, but I am a bit worried. Eduard also wants me to remove side wall detail which I also started...

Steffen Arndt
It bugged me so I removed the other two quadrants too. It worked out very nice in under a minute and I did NOT hurt myself ... I like this Tamiya tool

Steffen Arndt
So after another week here we are also close to finish the pit. As with kit No.1 I left of the foot straps as these are only hardly seen on the finished model. Everything is oob. I used the other seat type for this model so I could better distiguish them during the build phase.
I only noticed after the start that I would need the tank armour on this model too. The Antenna base rather looks like the early fuselage on the picture of the original I found (see here top picture: http://www.hyperscale.com/2014/reviews/decals/fundekalspreview_5.htm there is also a colourized version of this one online). I already masked the tank area, cut the mask to shape and used it as a template for a thin plastic sheet armour ... should look o.k. if i can get it on

Tom
Lovely work 👍

Steffen Arndt
Thanks Tom!

While I was working on the pit I also completed the wing. This way I could proceed pretty fast after the fuselage was closed. The filler hole in the armour plate was done with a punch and die set. Well see if I will have some melting on the armour. I do have this problem on the lower outer wings and I do not know yet how to cope with it

Steffen Arndt
I have added the gun sight and the head rest and put the fixed parts of the canopy on

Steffen Arndt
I have glued in the cockpit door with Maskol and cut one of the spare closed canopies to shape to fit in. I masked the canopy with the included kabuki tape masks. Here again only one set for the armored windscreen is included so I had to make the other one fit this kit. I sprayed interior green first and the underside got some black...

Steffen Arndt
After some more masking and painting white I also started on this model with the upper camo. Again I used Mission Models Dark Earth as the first layer. These paint works pretty well though I still prefer Gunze and Tamiya.

Steffen Arndt
For the camo I copied Tamiyas large instructions This crate has the same scheme as the Tamiya kit (I always forget which is A and B) So after some weeks on and off this is ready for Mission Models dark green.

Steffen Arndt
Here is the kit after airbrushing the DG and a gloss coat. After de-masking I noticed some imperfections and touched these up by brush... well that did not go well with the Mission Model paint (no problem with Tamiyas white and black). After drying over night there still was no improvement so I will keep it as it is. I airbrushed the whole kit in Tamiya X-22 Gloss. Much of the touch-up will be hidden under the roundels and I hope I can hide the rest with weathering and flat coat --- we'll see

Steffen Arndt
P.S. you may notice the sunk in plastic near the wing tips ... this is the result of too much glue. Nothing I can do about it without ruining the whole surface (I tried). Stupid mistake.

Steffen Arndt
I have started to apply decals. on the first try the decal slipped slightly down on the front side (pic 11) which I only noticed after it was dry so I removed it and applied a new code ... looks much better now (at least to me 🙂 pic 12)

Steffen Arndt
As written in the DB gallery, several weeks of applying decals stealing my motivation. Finally the stencils are on and sealed and I applied my usual sludge wash of umber and black (more black on the upper side very little below). Before flat coat I want to attach the wheels and u/c doors....

playtime 222
Ouch. Unlucky with the glue. ANd Y pic 12 looks fine 😄

Steffen Arndt
Here is the kit after airbrushing the DG and a gloss coat with Tamiya X-22 Clear Gloss.

you may notice the sunk in plastic near the wing tips ... this is the result of too much glue. Nothing I can do about it without ruining the whole surface as you can see here I tried. Stupid mistake. luckily it is the underside.

Clifford Keesler
I like Tamiya paints also. Gunze are kind of hard to get here in the States, the ones I have been able to get I like. I used to use Model Master acrylics, but they have discontinued alot of their colors, so can't use them any more. So hence the MM and MRP. I have used Ammo of Mig and vallejo. Vallejo is kind of hard to get the right thinness to spray.

Steffen Arndt
I also started applying the decals on this kit. I prefer to apply the larger decals first to get a bit of easy progress. Still it was necessary to start with the wing walks ... now on to the many stencils

Clifford Keesler
Looking very nice.

Steffen Arndt
Well, it has been a loong time since my last post. Several weeks of applying decals were not much fun and I lost a bit of motivation. Still the stencils are on and sealed and I applied my usual sludge wash of umber and black (more black on the upper side very little below). Before flat coat I want to attach the wheels and u/c doors.... but first I will be on x-mas vacation and avoid this double project ... I started a tank for a little variation