The MVTF in Menlo Park

This Saturday I found after several delays the time to visit this very interesting museum.
I checked the location the day before with Google Earth as they are located in a beautiful corner of Menlo Park, really nice but hard to find.
After passing the gate you come to a huge complex with in total 4 garages. Each garage is full with tanks from World War I until nearly modern tanks.
I had the luck to catch one of the best guides they have. So I heard a lot about the tanks from the Korean and Vietnam war they have.
My highlight was their German Panzer V, the Panther. They told me, that it is ready to drive.
I can tell you only, if you have a chance to pass by, take one of their tours, it is the time more than worth.

Here some of their highlights:

 

Tank Museum in Portola Valley

Close to Christmas I found out, that we have a very interesting Museum not that far away from where I live.
This Satuarday I will go and visit it.
Here a picture from Google about the area:

Matilda Mk II with crane

The Matilda MK II with crane
Nothing special, just a bit more than an evening work. The Matilda, or as the British called her, the Queen of the dessert, is a really nice model. My model comes from PanzerDepot, so that I had to add only some details to get a new engineering tank for my collection.
The crane itself was done with a sheet of plastic. The dimensions I took from a book, or if you want to save the money, here you find the drawing as well and some nice pictures from a model in 1/72:
http://panzerserra.blogspot.com/2011/01/este-e-o-meu-novo-projeto-um-matilda-ii.html

http://panzerserra.blogspot.com/2011/01/matilda-cranecontinuacao.html

http://panzerserra.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

The wire is wire from an old electronic part and fits perfect.
At the moment I have no diorama, but you never know…..

at the moment on the work bench

At the moment I have to correct a model I started last year. It is a German Marine Nachschubleichter. There were not that much of these ships but they should be able to transport 2 or 3 tanks via the European channels to the front. Based on a stupid mistake my model is to lage, therefore I had to cut both sides and trim it to the right dimensions. Shit happens.

Marine Nachschub Leichter

the AA gun on the back

a small weekend project

the roof is waiting for new paint

top secret German tank project found

On this weekend I found the plan for a top secret unknown German tank!!

I believe the idea was to use common material, to save metal and other rare stuff and the production time should be not longer than 30 minutes. As far as I heard, none of these tanks ever arrived at the front.

For more details see the pictures:

and here what was left:

I wish you all happy holidays and a lot of presents!!

Famo with spade and recovery equipment

I have changed the design for the spade at the back. The new one is more like what people know from the Bergepanther.

From old pictures I saw that there is not the one design, so it looks like a lot of changes were made out in the field.

Further I added a work bench on the back and a small welding device will follow soon.

At the moment I think about offering these parts as a remodeling set. So if anybody would be interested, please feel free to leave a comment or to send me a PM.

next diorama and new tanks in 1/144

Here a short update about my running projects: