1/35 WW2 Armour

[robemcdonald]

Just put the finishing touches on my Italeri Sherman "easy eight" fury.

I started out really liking the kit. Nice crisp moulding, no flash. What's not to like?

Well it's just poorly engineered really. No real connection points for any of the surface details made it a real pain.

I have to say though I am impressed with the results.

I saw the original tank from the movie at bovingdon last year and took a lot of reference photos just in case.

To start the real tank...




Now my version.

[robemcdonald]

The_Jackal said:

Some nice tanks on here. I do like how you can build them easily then have more fun painting and weathering them than planes.
Here are my two. Need to get some inspiration to build my others.
1/76 Revell Jagdpanther


1/48 Tamiya Cromwell Tank

Nice work. I really like the Cromwell.

I had thought about going for a smaller scale, but there doesn't seem to be so much choice as 1:35.......

Also 1:35 is nice and easy for my basic skill set.

[robemcdonald]

A couple more shots.

[robemcdonald]

So after a holiday I did build the Takom Chieftain.

Initial impressions of the kit were awesome. There was something about the square sprues and 3D cad instructions that appeals to my inner engineer.




You also get wonderful full colour painting guides for all the different schemes, really nice decals and probably the nicest PE (super thin) I have used to date.





The problems came when I was removing some of the small parts from those massive sprues. Access was limited so I ended up having to cut sections of sprue away to get to the parts. Not a massive problem, but a bit thoughtless. The fit of the parts also wasn't great with no specific locations marked for major items like storage bins. This meant eyeballing their locations (which quite frankly is a bit st)

The individual link tracks, each with its own pad were very time consuming, but preferable to rubber band type.

I used a piece of masking tape to assemble sections, then cemented the parts together, waited 30 minutes for the glue to go off a bit. This gave me semi workable tracks.

Anyway heres the finished model prior to paint...


And now the completed model.






Overall it's a nice model, but hard work. 6/10

[Fast and Spurious]

Another great job!

[MBBlat]

How about some WW1 armour
Tamiya Mk.IV Male_01 (2) by MBBlat, on Flickr
Tamiya Mk.IV Male, with metal gun barrels and a few bits of photoetch. Its been used for a bit of a weathering learning experience, which went wrong in a few places so not 100% happy.
Tamiya Mk.IV Male_04 by MBBlat, on Flickr

Broke the Stbd MG mount trying to get the metal barrel to fit, that's why its missing
Tamiya Mk.IV Male_06 by MBBlat, on Flickr

And I left the motorisation in, so it moves.

[SpamCan]

Excellent work!

dr_gn said:

Look good to me. Should the small wheels have thin black tyres or not?

Depends on the tank. Some of them have solid rubber tyres to reduce track noise whilst driving others don't, the later war armour tended not to have (I asusme due to shortening of rubber supplies and a demand to increase the speed of production. The Panther, Tiger, Tiger II and derivatives based on those chassis did not have rubber tyres on their wheels.

Some tanks had rubber wheels because they could be driven (for transport purposes) without tracks fitted.

[Yertis]

SpamCan said:

Some tanks had rubber wheels because they could be driven (for transport purposes) without tracks fitted.

That's interesting. How did they get the power to the road wheels?

[SpamCan]

Yertis said:

SpamCan said:

Some tanks had rubber wheels because they could be driven (for transport purposes) without tracks fitted.

That's interesting. How did they get the power to the road wheels?

On the Soviet BT series tanks the crew (after removing and stowing the tracks) would link a chain drive to the rear most road wheels so that they were powered by the engine. This was done (according to wikipedia) to extend the life of the still unreliable tracks of the 1930's.

[IroningMan]

SpamCan said:

Yertis said:

SpamCan said:

Some tanks had rubber wheels because they could be driven (for transport purposes) without tracks fitted.

That's interesting. How did they get the power to the road wheels?

On the Soviet BT series tanks the crew (after removing and stowing the tracks) would link a chain drive to the rear most road wheels so that they were powered by the engine. This was done (according to wikipedia) to extend the life of the still unreliable tracks of the 1930's.

One of the (precious few) successes of British tank engineering at the time was the development of manganese steel tracks, which offered a massive extension in running life.

[MrBrightSi]

Your work is incredible, keep the pictures coming as you complete more of that amazing work.

[robemcdonald]

Taking a Christmas break from cars I thought I'd try the academŷ m10 wolverine, with full interior.

It took a little while longer than tank kits normally take me. Christmas duties also limited my window of opportunity for making models.

Finished now though.