Rule of Thumb

Last week, I commenced work on my 1:35 tank model. On Sunday, I had hoped to complete the wheels and suspension, preparatory to the tracks. Seeing as it was a nice day, however, I thought would go and do some things in the garden. This, sadly, resulted in me being very un/lucky in that I managed to jamb my thumb pretty bad but not crush or amputate it (which was never-the-less very painful). Which put paid to my plan to work on the model. Who want's real blood on their model, afterall?

So I went and looked at modeling sites on the web for a few hours, discovering some most excellent youtube videos along the way. Particularly informative is this guy, who's detailed, understandable, knowledgeable and practical productions will be very useful in future. In retrospect, it was very good that I had this enforced time-out from the blood rush of pushing ahead regardless that comes with a new model. Vicariously looking at the detail of what will be required in future, the various stagings of the project, better enables me to determine what needs doing next (my ultimate question at any particular moment). I suspect that this is saving me a lot of grief down the track, and rapidly accelerating my learning curve beyond the old trial and error ways. Of course, it must be matched by skill development which will take time, but you get what I mean. But I digress...

After a couple of days of web research I was in the middle of a busy working week and couldn't really bring time and inclination together, so contented myself in confirming a probable Xmas delivery of a selection of appropriate decals. By that stage, it would be nice to have the construction done, or at a stage at least where minor variants are all that is required to match up with the particular decal and paint job that I decide on.

The only 'real' modeling job I've done since spraying my 67 parts of wheel, suspension and lower hull, with undercoat last Saturday was to grind the diameter of the axles so they fit the wheels a bit more comfortably. Without doing this the fit would be too tight to allow what I learnt from the videos was the advisable method of construction (put on the wheels to fit the tracks during their construction, remove them then prior to painting, glue them on prior to final detailing) and I would likely have experienced grief and heartache at some point.

I've also checked out what a modeling spray gun would be worth, to give the enamel coats of paint and varnish prior to the weathering work with brush and oilpaint. Luckily for me, the Mrs thinks this is a good idea. I'm a lucky man.