Penguins

The Arctic set comes with both Arctic and Antarctic animals.  The ice floes are nice.

The penguins are well painted and include baby ones.

Orca from this set with the coral reef set from a few days ago.

More penguins.  Penguins are about 1/24th scale, Orca about 1/200 scale.

Some of the Penguins may end up with a Batman Villain.  Wack, wack, wack.
 

Motorcycles

The old Soviet Union used to have a lot of motorcycles in their motorized units.

They operated in small units and often were employed as messengers.  In the nuclear battlefield radios might not always work so motorcycles were employed for that purpose.

I have been gluing these Roskopf motorcycles onto Evergreen Scale Models item number 4504 Tile using the Model Master Liquid Cement.

They are going to be painted with Rust-Oleum deep forest green soon.
 

Snow Animals

Amazon has a lot of photo boxes.  They are cardboard or plastic boxes with the front and side open.

They often come with animals, terrain, and other accessories to allow you to do small set ups for your amusement or photography.

This one is an Arctic animals set.

It comes with removable base and side photos.

And a host of other bits in various scales.  1/32nd scale wolf and a 1/72nd scale igloo.

1/24th scale fox and 1/48th scale reindeer. 
 

More Reef Work

I tried something else for more three dimensional settings.

I rolled a bit of the coral reef border around itself and used it as a stand alone with the previous pieces.

The lobster liked it right away.

The crustacean was a bit crabby about it.

The border is over 14 inches long before it repeats the image.

Better still, the border is double sided and has a totally different, but similar print on the back side.

I am hoping to use this for James Bond, Thunderball type set ups, sunken ships, treasure, oil pipelines, U-boat adventures.  I think this will work for my purposes.
 

Underwater

I got some bulletin board edge paper from Amazon.  Since I have a lot of mini-submarines and a few large ones it seemed a good idea to work on ways to depict underwater scenes.

I took a few of my undersea plants and placed them in a photo box with a sky background and the coral.

I think the sky works okay as very clear, tropical water.

Note the nautilus, sea turtle and crab.

Here with a lobster.  I am trying for something that looks okay, does not take up too much room, is cheap, durable and will work with several scales.
 

Painting APCs and a Tank

Painting some Cold War Soviet armored personnel carriers.

BTR 50.

MTLB.

Some of these models are die cast, some are soft metal, some are resin.  Nearly all have been in my collection since the early 1980.

They have waited a long time for primer and paint.

My Chinese T54 upgrade.  See here the lower hull has been glued on and a bit of sheet plastic covers the gap between the front and rear lower hull parts.

I changed the pin on the bottom of the turret to fit a new tube on the upper hull.

If the outdoor lighting is not just right these sometimes look gray when they are dark green and vice versa.  I think the upper photo shows the tank in gray primer and the lower photo shows the tank in dark forest green.  Probably.
 

Chinese T54 Tank Modifications

Most of the parts from my new T54.  Turret and hull from a Chinese toy.  Engine deck from another Chinese toy, with an M60 style Continental AVDS-1790 engine deck.  Tracks are from a Roco M-60 tank and so is the main gun.

I trimmed down the front of the tracks.  I would be hidden by the upper hull.  The upper hull had a bulge where the tracks fit onto the hull sides.  Since the bulge was metal, it was easier to trim the track connectors and about 1mm of the plastic track then trim the metal bulge.

Trim from both track assemblies.

I had a Roco T54 lower hull that I was going to use instead of the original metal hull, since the original lower hull was too wide for the Roco M60 tracks to fit.  Note the T54 lower  hull has a gap in the middle.  The metal tank hull is about 3mm longer than the Roco T54 and so I had to cut the lower hull in half to make it fit to the ends of the metal upper hull.

Test fitting most of the parts.

I had an extra  T54 turret that had no gun barrel, and so I took the gun from the metal tank, cut down the fume extractor at the end of the barrel and inserted it into a mantlet of the Roco T54.  Not exactly like the original, but close enough.  Due to the weight of the metal barrel, I glued the mantlet inside the turret so the gun will not raise and lower.

Not perfect, but good enough.

The lower hull from the Chinese metal tank, the breech end of the metal gun, and the antenna mount with antenna and the rather weak M2 machine gun from the metal kit.  I will reuse the antenna and mount, but these other parts are surplus.
 

T54 Upgrade

The upper left corner is a Roco T54 and now I am working on a metal one.

I took tracks from M60 tank tracks and will replace the original rubber tracks and plastic wheels.

I took an engine deck from a M48 tank, a cheap dollar store one, and mounted it into this tank hull.

I removed the T54 gun and put in a Roco Minitank M60 tank cannon.

Inside view of the T54 tank gun replacement.

The metal tank will use the Roco T54 tank lower hull that was cut in half to fit.

Here are the parts before final assembly.
 

Rocket Testing

I took a cheap ink pen barrel and made some fins to fit the bottom.

I need a few long skinny missiles for the Soviet Union, WWII Germany, and the USA.

The pen was out of ink and rather than throw this away and so I think it can be a rocket.

I still need a warhead, or sensor package top, but on thing at a time.

Essentially I took a bit of 3x5 card and folded it, cut a couple slots and made it into the fins.  The final fins will be plastic when I return to this project.