Waiting on some supplies for another building for the diorama, so switched gears a little.



One of my favorite things as a kid on the farm was riding on the bagging platform on Dad's Allis Chalmers All Crop combine while he harvested wheat. Scoop a handful of wheat out of the bin, blow the chaff off it and chow down. Yum! I can still smell the smells too.

I wanted one for my diorama but there's nothing out there that I can find in 1:64 for a combine that old. The new self-propelled stuff yes, but the old pull-types I can't find.



So, what with social distancing and all, I decided to try building my own. Downloaded a bunch of pictures, asked around for some basic dimensions (several folks were kind enough to go out and put a tape measure on theirs - they're fairly popular amongst the antique/hobby farmer crowd as they're dead simple) and interpolated a few from known dimensions.

Dug into my stash of sheet plastic and round and square tubing and went to work. Tiny little pieces - the whole thing will be about 3 inches long - so tweezers and a lot of creative parts-holding.

The biggest challenge was getting the curve in the plastic for the hood on the end. Three attempts and none of them really ideal, so I took the least messed up and "fixed" it with glazing putty.



This is where I am as of this afternoon. I think it'll look okay once it's painted. Got to build the frame, axle and hitch yet and then it's just adding details here and there.

Found this c.1975 Japanese-made Philadelphia-distributed unfinished model in the basement ...

Da'whole t'ing 2214 by 2971 pixels - https://avatarhost.files.wordp...odel-helicopter.jpeg

^^^^^ So when will you finish it?

flashguy

Done.

Admiring your skills! Excellent work.

You need at least 2 dogs in the yard, preferably 1 with 3 legs. And barn cats.

quote:

Originally posted by Johnny 3eagles:
Admiring your skills! Excellent work.

You need at least 2 dogs in the yard, preferably 1 with 3 legs. And barn cats.

You mean like so?

There's another one sitting at the end of the sidewalk.

That scratch-built combine is awesome! I love where you've gone with the whole display. I'd love to get into something like that, but I lack the skill, the time, or the space. I have done a few airplane models over the years...I should get a couple more ordered to do with my kids while they are all stuck at home.

Here are a few that we've done:

Hey 92---I have an A10 Warthog kit that I've lost interest in. Email me at the address in my profile, let me know your USPS address and it's yours.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Hey 92---I have an A10 Warthog kit that I've lost interest in. Email me at the address in my profile, let me know your USPS address and it's yours.

Thank you, sir! E-mail inbound. We will have a great time with that. There's a reserve unit that flies A-10s out of Ft. Wayne, and occasionally they fly over the house. We're all big A-10 fans!

I can't take any credit for this one, but I saw it in a little museum at Norway, Illinois. I thought you might like to see it.
DSC_6333.jpg by David Casteel, on Flickr

flsshguy

So my son and I have been working on the A-10 that PHPaul graciously gifted to us. The bombs aren't done yet (we ran out of paint), but the plane is together. Thanks again for the gift, sir...it provided some solid hours of entertainment for the two of us!

I haven't modeled in years. I never really did dioramas just regular models. The one model I really want to create a diorama for is Star Treks USS Enterprise with lights for my brother.
For me I want to make an F4U carrier landing.

@92FSTech - Wow! You guys did a great job!

I see you re-did a lot of the crude paint work I started. My brush work really sucked and I didn't have my airbrush rigged up. Part of the reason I got discouraged with it, just looked so amateurish.

Thanks...the canopy was a whole lot of time with paint and a toothpick! I considered going for the original camo color scheme, but I quickly realized that was well beyond my skill set, and the paint I had available. It's far from perfect, but we had a good time with it, and the landing gear is strong enough to hold it up (always a concern going in, lol), so I'd say it's a win!

Speaking of canopies, dip it in future floor wax. They stay shiny. I wish I had known that for all my 109s and FWs.

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
Speaking of canopies, dip it in future floor wax. They stay shiny. I wish I had known that for all my 109s and FWs.

Nice! Thanks for the tip, I'll give it a try!

I’m a late arrival to this thread. The work depicted here is GREAT!

While my skills never reached the levels shown in this thread, I was an avid scale-modeler in my childhood. One of the biggest highlights for me was the diorama-insert that was included with a lot of the Monogram-brand WWII kits. The granddaddy of them all (for me) was their B-17 kit and the featured diorama they included an insert for.

I liked them all, including the additional one shown below.

Thanks to the lovely weather (near white-out snow squalls earlier today) I'm spending a little more time on the diorama.

I built a shed to store the combine in and have slowly been detailing around it. The idea well was running pretty dry so I posted on a farming/tractor site about needing ideas for "stuff" to put around the shed.

Got a lot of good ones, many of which I'll act on but the best was to add some weathered signs to the building.





Original shed





Shed with signs. I snagged the images off the internet, tweaked them to suit and printed them on decal paper. Wasn't sure decals would adhere to wood, but they seem to be fine. Makes a huge difference IMHO.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PHPaul,

Those signs are awesome! Where do you get decal paper?