Friday, February 15, 2008

Testors Landing Ship Tank


LST
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker.
Normally, I don’t do grey boats but I just fancied having a go at this one. My friend Chris has a similar model on his layout and it’s always fascinated me. The different is, he built in 1:72nd and this Testors “Easy Build” kit is 1:613rd – there is a just a slight different in size ! In fact Chris’s model is the size of a short canoe whereas mine is under 15cm in length. He runs trains into his (they were used to transport rolling stock for French railways during D-day), I’d struggle to get a row of Smarties in mine.

For £2.99 this was a nice impulse purchase and occupied an undemanding half hour one evening when I couldn’t be bothered to do anything useful. The parts are pretty flash free and fit well. The only care required is to get the forward gun turrets level as the bases are angles to allow for the foredeck not being horizontal.

Painting is easy too – a quick spray with Halfords primer and then a wash of Humbrol 69 (appropriately Tank Grey) with just a bit of effort to make sure there we no obvious streaks.

Now I wonder what to do with it. I’ve had the fun and don’t need a tiny model of a giant vessel. Putting radio gear inside would be more than a little challenging. I suppose it would sail nicely on a puddle though.

For more information on the prototype, try this Wikipedia entry.

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