Author: Seb Palmer

Hannah and co gave me this model for Xmas. Thanks!

The above photo is my source of visual ref’ in this latest build. I like it because the tank is in pristine condition, but has her exhausts/mufflers, and sundry other bits, removed.

This – and the zimmerit – allows me to customise the model a bit, without too much work. Also I put together the simple but clever road-wheels/track assembly first. In the instructions it’s one of the last steps!

Below is a gallery of images showing how I scraped off certain rear plate details, filled some holes, made some newer/larger holes (exhaust ports, etc.), and masked off where there’s no zimmerit.

The running gear in this kit is interesting. Each side is put together from two very simple blocks that incorporate both wheels and track. The wheels don’t suffer at all from this arrangement. The tracks, however, do. some detail is lost. What will I do about this, I wonder?

In the two detailed close-ups of my ref’ photo, above, you can see a few interesting details. The towing cleats are attached to the rear chassis eyelets; a towing cable lolls over the rear deck; the jack has been removed, as has over of the (?); and the rear-traverse gun lock is in an up and open position.

I take an almost perverse sado-masochistic pleasure in doing milliput zimmerit on a good number of my models. This anti-magnetic mine paste just adds a real zing to things. But it’s a mother to emulate.

Well, that’s it for this post. This has been great fun so far. My first kit build in aeons. I do hope I can see this one through to completion? Thanks, Hannah et al.

*Left to glue overnight, the UHU bond only lasted about 20 minutes. Back to tape!

I bought myself this, as a birthday present. Partially funded by Amazon voucher giftage (thanks to those who helped).

I first saw it in Topping Books, Ely, at the list price of £40. I bought it via Amazon, at closer to £30. I’d prefer to support Topping, not Bezos, in all honesty. But sometimes, alas, economics dictate…

The above images are just a few from the first wee of chunk of this absolute treasure trove. As Diarmaid MacCulloch so rightly says, on the back cover blurb:

‘What fortunate isles are these, to boast thousands of local sculpture galleries, scattered through towns and villages, nearly all accessible for free: churches that host funeral monuments and memorials spanning more than a millennium.’

Amen to that, aulde fruit!

I’ve only just started in on this weighty and handsome but not oversized tome. So this is hardly a full on review. Just a few initial thoughts, notes, and snaps.

There are, it says in the intro, 365 monuments, covered here. One for every day of the year. Culled from visiting nearly nine thousand parish churches! I can’t wait to really dig in…

I bought this lectern from a local reclamation yard. £20, or poss’ £25? I lovingly restored it, after it having being left outdoors for months, poss’ years.

I call it ‘Hannibal’. Is that wrong!? Well, anyway, I love him. And doesn’t he look just fabulous, with a big book on Gothic art and architecture on display?

Teresa and I are watching a BBC Gardener’s World Winter Special (Ep. 4). I adore Frances Tophill’s outfit, which mirrors the hollies she’s looking at.

Arit visits a fabulous garden, in Buckinghamshire, belonging to James and Sue, with numerous wonderful features, such as the ‘river of twigs’…

I liked how the camera focus changes, on some of the above shots. A d the river of twigs is wonderful. The snowdrops look amazing…

Some very inspiring ideas to be had, looking at this garden…

I think we may take a few leaves from their book, so to speak.

I finally have both of my self-built snare drums set up as part of my drum kit. And, to my immense relief and satisfaction, they sound – to my ears – as good as they look.

Decided to get both drums set up. I’m not usually a two snares guy. But for the sake testing these two out, it’s a good set up. 

I’m still very rusty, playing wise. I want to get back in the saddle a bit more, before committing any recordings of these drums to any public spaces.

I was feeling rather miserable today. In part due to trouble with bandsaws, both at home and at Shedders. Playing drums – and in particular my two DIY snares – lifted my spirits somewhat.

I bought a punch, specifically for this job. And it worked well. Somewhat annoyingly, despite this, the holes weren’t all aligned as desired. I think it’s ’cause the drill has issue with a circular hoop; it cause the drill bit to deflect a bit.

Anyway, with lots of filing, the two slot were achieved. I may want to work a little more on them… hmmm? Not sure!

So, with these slots cut, I could finally put the new Evans head on. And that means – aside from possible further fettling – she’s done. Yay!!! She certainly looks fab. Tomorrow I’ll see how she sounds.

Is this Fury, only set in a panzer? And on the Eastern rather Western Front? Well, yes and no. Mostly no.

The IMDB blurb for the film sums up the basics very succinctly: ‘The five-man crew of a German Tiger tank is sent on a secret mission far behind the fiercely contested front line. Fueled by the Wehrmacht’s methamphetamine, their mission increasingly becomes a journey into the heart of darkness.’

The ‘yes’ aspects are the stock war movie clichés (at least of this era): a bleakly elegiac score; taciturn gruffly spoken men covered in grease, mud and blood; and slightly laboured attempts to confront moral issues.

The ‘no’s are more varied: the all German cast are unfamiliar, at least to a non-German audience (and very much as opposed to Fury’s star-studded all American roll-call); it also looks like the budget was, by many orders of magnetite, far smaller; this movie also has what hints of what seem at first to be supernatural elements, but which finally resolve as more metaphysical, or even philosophical aspirations.

Overall this film seems to me to suffer from falling between stools, so to speak. Is it a straight ahead WWII action film? Well, mostly/kind of. Or is it perhaps aspiring to be a German version of Elem Klimov’s awesomely powerful Come And See? Partially, perhaps. And if so, much less successfully or powerfully.

It’s certainly of interest in terms of a German made film dealing with WWII and their own Nazi ‘I was only obeying orders’ history, as well as the nature of war more generally, and war of a type that was particularly virulent on the Ostfront, where two horrifically barbarous empires spent lives in a statistical race to the top coupled with a moral race to the bottom.

It also quite literally shares a few elements with Come And See: the village massacre by fire, and the innocent animal, glimpsed amidst war’s carnage (a deer here, and a strange bird in C&S).

Ultimately this was, to me, a bit what I call lustlacquer… a bit flaccid and off the mark. But it certainly wasn’t utterly shite. Indeed, I kind of enjoyed it.

NB As a panzer-buff, I was impressed with the authentic looking armour. I read, somewhere, that the tank used in this film is a Russian tank – poss a T-55?* – dressed up as a Tiger. If that’s really so, they did a very good job.

*For another war film centred on a German tank crew that uses a T-55 as a tiger, but without the ‘make up’, check out Wheels of Terror.

Every time I’ve opened the boot, in the last couple of months, the handle has practically fallen off. So I’ve had to load and unload mostly through the side doors. Far from ideal!

Above, various images showing where the anchoring points were broken, or, as in the final two pics, still hanging on, just.

I’ve had a kit for fixing the broken handle of our Nissan Qashqai – it’s been falling apart for several months now – for quite a while now (a few weeks!).

But there hasn’t been a decent chance to do the job until today. And that’s only arisen because the car is currently undriveable!* Cars, eh!?

The kit, by X8R Ltd, is terrific. It was simple to install. And there’s an excellent video showing how to do the installation on YouTube. I watched that several times, to prepare.

As can be seen above, several of the parts that should have been holding the handle to the boot, or ‘tailgate’, have gone AWOL.

The new parts are much better than the little fragile and mostly broken parts they replace. And they are bonded – plastic to plastic – using the supplied acetone.

The hardest part of this job – which I did a week or two back – was to remove the internal boot trim panel. That still needs putting back.

Anyway… it’s now working better than ever before. It’s not just working. It’s a nicer tighter fit, with a lesser and much smoother action. Dead chuffed!

*Something in the drive-train is disintegrating, very noisily. Took it to Tyre Pros, locally (my normal garage is closed till Jan 5th), and they’ve told me it’s too dangerous to drive.

Still sans new snare side head, snare wires (& snare bed). But in situ. She sounds fabulous, tuned high, tight and dry. I’m really happy!

A much more pleasing sound right off the bat than my Keruing snare. I can see that drum will need some serious fettling. Poss’ recutting the snare beds?

A 12” snare is noticeably dinky. And, to my eyes and ears, actually quite cute.

Very chuffed! Will post videos with audio when both drums are properly finished.

Today I made some new gaskets for the lugs on this drum. This involved the tricky operation of slicing thin (and old, possibly brittle?) rubber gaskets in half!*

The 13”x5” shell is rosewood and white oak staves, with mystery splines. I went with triple-flanged hoops on the other (Keruing) snare. This one sports die-cast hoops. And don’t they look utterly fab!

I’m loving how this drum is looking. Can’t wait to get the snare wires, and a new/better snare side head. I’ve still yet to cut the snare beds. Definitely going to make these shallower and wider than I did on the Keruing drum.

It’s NYE… in fact it’s now 1st Jan’, 2026. I can’t wait to try this drum out in the context of my drum set, later…

*The gaskets that the came with the lugs were too thin, hence the need for new ones. I had some spares, but they were too thick!