Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Soviet tank crew at work 1/35 Miniart 35017 REVIEW

plBefore I have already made a review of new Miniart diorama Street with Ruined house Miniart 36001 and today we will make a review of Miniat Soviet Tank Crew at Work 35017

Advantages: nice, modern set of figures in casual poses "doing something" around any tank or vehicle
This kit is available at Plastic Models Store just check Soviet Tank Crew at work
Conclusion: Highly Recommended
Recommended: for all Soviet armor modellers and dioramists

For too many years, the wealth of facts, figures and attaches importance were produced too narrowly focused only on the Second World War, German subjects, the very frustrating for the rest of the arms and body. When the stray American, Russian or (heaven forbid!) Commonwealth set came out, Modeler would fall on them like a pack of hungry piranhas, no matter how good or bad it was.

By the way. we wait for opening web store of miniatr model. Plastic Models Store will opens in second part of 2008 year.
Happily many of the newer manufacturers have seen this and now the Chinese and Eastern European ones are filling the void, and with good, high quality figures too. Miniart has begun with a pretty good track record on figures, and now Soviet WWII modelers have been able to get some decent figures to compliment the growing number of WWII Soviet armored vehicles offered.

This set provides five Soviet tankers performing maintenance. Three of the figures are posed as it operating a bore brush for the main armament (which was usually carried in sections inside the longest of the stowage bins – "ZIP" in Russian for spares, tools and accessories – on the fenders of nearly all combat vehicles. One bareheaded figure is posing with a rag in hand and the commander is standing in a relaxed position with his hands set to drape over an open hatch.

The one thing that I have noticed about the new Miniart figures is that their facial sculpting yields to no one. The five heads in this set are the equal of many of the after-market resin ones offered and can be shown to have individual expressions and even ethnicity – one tanker hear looks to be a Tadzhik (central Asian) with a shaven head and it shows. The same goes for the other four.

Anyone with a good set of tank blueprints may want to have the man with the rag working on cleaning out the tank's air cleaners, which needed constant maintenance with a good cleaning by the crew every 3-4 hours (until 1951 when UVZ finally created a working design that solved that problem.)

Finishing is provided similar to DML boxing with an assembly diagram and color directions on the back of the box. Interior directions provide a handy sketch of where the parts for each figure are located on the sprue.

Overall, this is a great set and one that any diorama modeler would be able to find good use for with a T-34 or IS tank or other 1943 and later armored vehicle.


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Tuesday, October 23, 2007

NEW MODEL KITS of MINIART are IN SALE NOW!!

NEW MODEL KITS of MINIART are IN SALE NOW!!
New Miniart kits:

SOVIET SELF-PROPELLED GUN CREW 1/35 WWII MA 35037
GERMAN ARTILLERY CREW RIDERS 1/35 Miniart 35040
GERMAN SOLDIERS w/FUEL DRUMS 1/35 Miniart 35041
Russian SOVIET NAVAL TROOPS 1/35 Miniart 35043
STREET with RUINED HOUSE WWII 1/35 MiniArt 36001
RUSSIAN STREET with ADVERT COLUMN 1/35 Miniart 36002

All this new releases of Miniart manufacturer are in sale now in eBay.
Welcome to my auctions. And you are welcome in my Plastic Models Store where you can find many Miniart model kits.
Thank you.

Here you can check the review of 36001 Miniart Street with ruined house
Here you can read How to glue different parts of models.


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Monday, October 15, 2007

How to remove paint and chrome from a model.

How to remove chrome from plated parts? How to remove paint from your models?

The chrome plating on model parts is very fragile, and most hobby paints are not much tougher. There are hobby specific paint removers available at different hobby shops, Easy-Lift-Off made by Polly S has been recommended, but many household cleaners will also remove paint and/or chrome. Take a plastic container with a lid and soak or scrub the part or complete model in/with one of the following, listed in roughly increasing order of chemical nastiness:

Castrol Super Clean (hand cleaner ? - buy at auto stores),
Fantastic, Formula 409, Pinesol (not lemon scented),
Chlorine bleach (works good on chrome, maybe not paint),
using a toothbrush to scrub with Comet cleanser (for chrome, not paint),
EZ-Off oven cleaner,
common dot3 brake fluid (more toxic - not good to wash down the drain -but good for long dry paint).

By the way, you can try another method. You can very carefully reverse plate the chrome off, using an acid pickle. You should be able to remove the chrome layer down to the nickel underneath without harming the plastic.
It's unlikely that a bit of acid on the plastic will harm it anyway....after all the acid probably came in a plastic container, right?
You can also buff it off.

The time to soak varies with harshness of the chemical, from a few minutes to a some days. Chrome plating would just disappear, you will likely have to scrub the paint off with an old toothbrush, especially from the nooks and crannies. Many cleaners are reported to etch or
embrittle plastic, so keep the exposure brief and flush with water afterwards. A downside to the harsher, faster acting chemicals is that they tend to remove putty as well.

One thing you shouldn't to use is standard methyl-ethyl ketone based paint removers - this stuff will disolve styrene very quickly. Lemon scented Pinesol has also been reported to soften plastic.

Finally, the nastier of these cleaners - especially the EZ-Off and bleach - can cause burns to the skin, eyes and nose, and who knows what else. Use common sense and lots of ventilation (common sense includes wearing safety goggles, rubber gloves, and a respirator when using this sort of stuff).

I have already wrote about paint removal in my prevoius posts, so you can read this:
Thanks.


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Thursday, October 11, 2007

Street w/Ruined House diorama review Miniart 36001


Hi again friends. As I promised before, today I will post the review of new model of Miniart from new "Diorama" line in 1/35 scale.

They have announced the release of 3 new diorama kits in September this year.

And now I want to show you the first model in new line - "Street w/Ruined House" Miniart 36001.
Today we will look in the box, check the molds and we will look a built photos of this kit.
So here we go.
Box:
BOX Dimentions: 345x240x60 mm
Number of plastic parts: 63
Inside the box we can see this molds:


There are 4 plastic parts of walls of ruined house and Stone blocks Road.



And now you can check built photos of this kit "Street w/Ruined House Miniart 36001".
Please, Enjoy!




Thanks, guys. Please, comment this post. Bye!


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Wednesday, October 10, 2007

New Dioramas by Miniart.

Hello. Today I want you to present new kits of Miniart manufacturer. In September Miniart opened a new deparment of model kits. And this is a "Diorama" line. Now there are available only 3 kits but only 2 of them is in sale.

MiniArt is becoming a household name, partly due to the constant release of new products. They have announced the release of two new diorama kits in September this year.

Two new releases come from MiniArts new "Diorama" line. This line of kits states that each comes as a complete diorama.
They include everything you need ; you will find a base, a building, and building details in each of these kits. In past kits they have included propoganda posters too. The website does not picture these. This could have been an oversight, because the site does state that they are included.

The kits are:

36001 Street w/Ruined House

and

36002 Russian Street w/Advertising Column.
And the third item in "Diorama" category is

36003 STREET w/PARK WALL

and this kit will coming soon.

The first and third kit is fairly generic and can be set in a number of locations while the second has strong Soviet architectural themes in it.
This 3 dioramas are available in Plastic Models Store for a good prices.
In next posts in this blog I will make a reviews of this three dioramas.
Thanks and good luck!


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Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Painting Model Aircraft Interiors Part Two - Cockpits

Painting of your plastic models is so difficult for you?! Helpful video from youtube.com
Part 2.


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Painting Model Aircraft Interiors Part One - Wheel Wells

Painting of your plastic models is so difficult for you?! Helpful video from youtube.com


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