Soviet Equipment

Work continues on the T54 tanks, nearly all Roco, but a few SDV, these are Roco in the photo.

I have been taking them apart, mostly, trimming off the flash, repairing problems and putting them together.  Not all of them have the little wheels and I am not replacing any that are missing.

Many of mine had two right side tracks!  That created a lot of problems later.

This is a conversion that I made using parts of three vehicles.

It is a chemical weapon decontamination vehicle.
 

Painting Stuff and Tips

For the last month or more I have been working on upgrading my Cold War Soviet / Warsaw Pact army.

These are all HO scale vehicles from a variety of companies.

There was a time when the Soviet Union was building an anti-aircraft gun system to replace or supplement the ZSU-23/4.

Similar to the West German Gepard system this was supposed to be a twin 30mm cannon with radar guidance. 

Usually I paint vehicles upside down first, with turrets off if they are easily removable.  Then I can flip them over when dry and paint the upper side.

I decant my spray paints into little jars using a funnel.  I label the paint with blue tape, and I always include the name of paint, the brand and the stock number.

It often does not last very long in these jars, sometimes a few days or few weeks.  I try and use it up quickly.  It is perfect for touch up where the spray paint missed or did not cover well.
 

Der Waffle Haus

Amazon sells sheets of steel.

This one is 12 inches wide and 24 inches long, and 1.5mm thick.

It is nice and smooth and the edges are smooth too.

My favorite TV show was Dead Like Me.  Much of it takes place in a diner called Der Waffle Haus.

I decided to make a 1/72nd scale version of that restaurant and I decided to use interlocking bricks, generic Lego bricks.  The model is not finished, I am still gathering data, parts and making decisions about the model.  There were two different versions of the restaurant.  One was a real coffee shop in Canada but most of the show was filmed on a set that is very similar to the actual restaurant.  But they changed up a few things and being a set they built it to be able to move around the interior furniture and sometimes even walls.  So the building sometimes has different numbers of tables and doors in different places.  This is part of my American Cities project.
 

 https://canadagraphs.weebly.com/celebrity-blogs---ends-june-2012/dead-like-me-fans-i-give-you-the-original-der-waffle-haus-set 

Fixing the Van

I use this putty sometimes and it works okay.

I put a little bit on this aluminum foil and using a dental tool to fill in the bump in the roof of the van.

Put it on the roof to fill the dip.

Smooth it out with the tool.

Then sand it down with fine sandpaper. All better waiting for primer and paint.