A day of sadness, a day to be proud!

I am not going to be the only person making reference to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. I was sad, even the odd tear at times as I watched the proceedings on TV but also proud of the way in which it went. Being from a military family I know that the UK military are some of the best in the World. Today they showed that mixture of professionalism and tradition in the proceedings and made me and most of the Country proud of our traditions and history. 

RIP Queen Elizabeth, God Save The King! 

On a more minor note Mrs. Woody and myself are now testing negative for Covid! 

Having spent much of the day watching the ceremony I did have a little time this evening to see if I could sort the tracks out on the T34/122 model. Having had both sides come apart yesterday as the fit around the wheels was very tight I tried again having glued them back together last night. The one I tried came apart again so I cut my loses and went straight to Plan B thus avoiding contributions the swear jar! Plan B involved inserting a pair of spare links from the kit into both sides which I did.

You can see them in the picture above. Once the glue had hardened I painted them to match the rest of the tracks and fitted them with the wheels to the tank. As I outlined yesterday I was fearful that they might look loose with the additional links and yes they do but I am living with that! In the overall composition of things and looking from a distance it looks OK which is all I need. I build these kits for my pleasure not a museum or competition - I leave that to modellers who actually know what they are doing!

So the tank is just about there. I just need to fit the tow cable and spray it with matt varnish and make a base similar to those made for the other T34's I have built. In the mean time here are a few staged photos.

Two red lines!

After two and a half years of avoiding Covid and being triple jabbed both Mrs. Woody and me tested positive for it this evening. I was feeling well this morning having done a 22 mile bike ride but by this evening headache and aching joints for both of us made as reach for the testing kit and confirmation came a few minutes later with two red lines showing themselves on the test pallet. Why any self respecting virus would want to infect me is beyond my understanding but I guess it must be getting desperate for victims!

Had this have happened back in March 2020 I think we would have both panicked but hopefully it will be like a bad cold and we will get over it in a few days. However we are staying away from anyone else to avoid the risk of passing it on.

Despite feeling somewhat rough this evening I had already finished painting the wheels for the T34/122 and I fitted the tyres to the wheels. I have temporarily attached the main wheels to the hull as I still need to construct the tracks but the whole model begins to look a great deal more interesting.

The tyres were sprayed in Vallejo Grey whilst the wheels are in Vallejo Sand. Rubber never stays black for long as it weathers and ages and the grey is a good representation for this.

You can see the odd shape of the turret from this aerial view. I still think it looks like a bunker! 

A few more details have been added to the front including the drivers hatch, spare track links and the splash board which goes over the top of the links. The idea, I believe, is to stop water going up into the drivers hatch and the machine gun port if the tank goes through a large puddle or wades a river. Whether it worked is a question I have never seen an answer to but I guess it must have as just about every T34 I have seen has it fitted.

You can see the grey rubber gun cover supplied in the kit in some more detail here. It appears to look OK although I believe some modellers do not like this feature of the kit. However it works for me!

Not sure if anything will get done tomorrow but I will see how I feel after hopefully a good nights sleep and a few flu tablets to see if I can minimise the impact of this Covid virus.