Glamour pix … and a summary.
I haven't worked on the ammo belts or the water hose; not a rush and it may help to make a simple base that I can anchor stuff to, in fact see last picture.
The M1917A1. This was the major disappointment because it's the one I really wanted a neat model of, but it had the most accuracy and shortcut flaws, not to mention the most incomprehensible instructions of the two -- it is almost unbuildable without external references. Still I am somewhat happy because I tried for a 3-tone effect, an off-shade of OD for the tripod & mount, gun metal for the receiver, and a darker shade of OD for the barrel. It almost looks pre-WW2, and probably would if I had done some detailing of brass fittings, etc … and who is to say that might not happen later ….
The M1919A4. This one was relatively easy with perhaps the only danger spot being the joining of the two halves of the longer legs -- very tight & fiddly tab going into hole that you could break if not careful. Otherwise, it has OK detail. The thing is that I realized part way into the build that I could have robbed a few parts from here to fix up some of the accuracy issues with the M1917A1. Oh, well ….
Just to give you a sense of size, and because I mentioned it several times in the build, here are the two .30-cal alongside their bigger brother, the M2HB .50-cal -- all 3 designed by Browning, they are very similar in appearance and operation. I had put the .50-cal on a cheap-o sand base just to hold the tripod legs, but it gives me an idea for another (cheap-o) base with all 3 guns tastefully arranged.
OK, so I did two models at once in one Blitzbau, well that's a "record" for me, but I'm not sure it was a challenge, other than what was detailed in the build and that is mostly small stuff. Either one was easily do-able, as were both. A proper challenge might have been to just done the M1917A1, correcting the errors and fixing the tripod to be truly workable. I had somewhat of a plan, but when it came time to touching, cutting, gluing, I found that I hadn't really done that good a job looking things over up front. This could/would have been fatal except that I had prior experience with the M2HB kit and, most importantly, I am familiar with the subject equipment and have references.
Thanks to everyone for watching & cheering. This was not one of my best Blitzes, and I apologize -- I did not post as frequently as usual and I did not engage in as much chatter over my build or the others going on around. I'm not sure what was going on (no, not the dinners, clubs, Legos), some of it may have been working about 6 sub-assemblies, neither sequential or parallel, and then having the issues with the M1917 throw my plan off. Regardless, again I do apologize for not having the right "spirit" ….
