A weekend challenge - Mk1 Male tank
Discussion
About 40 years ago we were on a family holiday in Cornwall and by chance the local sweetshop furnished my brother and I with an old "folded paper and bag" Airfix Mk1 Male tank kit, even then this was an old kit but it kept us quiet. Roll on the clock to this weekend just gone and I'm on the Isle of Wight for a long weekend. On our usual walk round on the first afternoon I made my usual visit to the LMS that the town is lucky to have, whilst there I pondered, could I buy something and by grabbing the odd moment here and there build something well enough to not go straight in the bin but without breaking the bank on modellers home comforts? The choice was wide but there could only be one choice really ........
A modern boxing of that same kit we built all those years ago, apart from a Swiss army knife and a Leatherman I had no other tools - challenge on!
A modern boxing of that same kit we built all those years ago, apart from a Swiss army knife and a Leatherman I had no other tools - challenge on!
I know Eric, I'm a Scalpal man at home but this was cheap and once it dulls I'll pop a Rivet-R tool into it.
Close but we stay in Sandown and the shop is called Upstairs Downstairs, he's a rail modeller primarily but has a good selection of other plastic from Eduard Royals to Airfix starter kits, I usually come home with something (support your LMS) but building it was a first.
Close but we stay in Sandown and the shop is called Upstairs Downstairs, he's a rail modeller primarily but has a good selection of other plastic from Eduard Royals to Airfix starter kits, I usually come home with something (support your LMS) but building it was a first.
The quality of this old kit was quite a surprise, there were a few heavy seams to scrape flat (mainly on the rear carriage section) but after two short sessions I'd got this far by Saturday - well it looks like a tank!
I headed back to the shop as the thing needed paint, I came away with a rattle can, two pots of Humbrol enamel (more on these later), some wash, some thinners and a few brushes ..... Oh and a lighter to join the tracks (already used when I took the pics)
I headed back to the shop as the thing needed paint, I came away with a rattle can, two pots of Humbrol enamel (more on these later), some wash, some thinners and a few brushes ..... Oh and a lighter to join the tracks (already used when I took the pics)
72twink said:
The quality of this old kit was quite a surprise, there were a few heavy seams to scrape flat (mainly on the rear carriage section) but after two short sessions I'd got this far by Saturday - well it looks like a tank!
I headed back to the shop as the thing needed paint, I came away with a rattle can, two pots of Humbrol enamel (more on these later), some wash, some thinners and a few brushes ..... Oh and a lighter to join the tracks (already used when I took the pics)
That assembly looks as neat as anyone's going to get...I headed back to the shop as the thing needed paint, I came away with a rattle can, two pots of Humbrol enamel (more on these later), some wash, some thinners and a few brushes ..... Oh and a lighter to join the tracks (already used when I took the pics)
Tins of Humbrol Enamel
I hope this isn't going to end the way I think it could...Thanks GN
I finally had to bite the bullet, with no airbrush and minimal supplies (by choice) I had to break the paints out! I wanted to follow a standard route so went straight in with a brushed pre-shade of matt black ...... well it's supposed to be matt but as you can see is a lovely satin finish. This was even after I skipped the mixing step and just dredged out the settled pigment and used bottled thinners outside of the tin. It did dry quite quickly though and covered well. (excuse the rough application) We then went out for the day while it dried.
We got back as the light was going so I quickly grabbed a newspaper, the tank and got busy shaking a rattle can of desert sand (closest I could get to the earthy brown these tanks wore in monotone camo - the box art multi colour scheme was beyond time allowances) and headed out onto the balcony.
As you can guess the rattle can lacked the subtlety of an airbrush and my preshade mostly dissappeared (some might say good job too!) ....... or so I initally thought. As outlined over in the Paint/Glossing/Decals thread Humbrol spray Acrylic reacts with their enamel and in places I was blessed with pre-wrinkle instead of pre-shade. Luckily it was minimal, I accepted it as the inevitable snag that had to happen at some point and we headed off for dinner although I did have a back burner idea to strip and repaint once home if it nagged me too much. (I neglected to catch this step on the camera)
After dinner I found a space and gave the bottled wash a good shake, new to me this was also an experiment. It worked well, could be washed off with thinners and was easy to apply, a gloss coat might have helped but wasn't essential, it dried quite quickly too - I used a rust colour to try to darken the sand base coat.
I used the same dredge and thinners trick on the pale grey I was going to use to dry brush, it worked quite well, the flat brush I had bought wasn't as stiff as the one I use at home but I got by.
So here it is, it's not getting stripped, the niggles are tiny and I'm living with them as testament to how it got here, the choice of kit helped, the tooling for this ancient kit has survived well, it didn't fight me and was simple enough for the time I had available. It was refreshing to accept things and move on, although I did have to keep reminding myself of that.
I finally had to bite the bullet, with no airbrush and minimal supplies (by choice) I had to break the paints out! I wanted to follow a standard route so went straight in with a brushed pre-shade of matt black ...... well it's supposed to be matt but as you can see is a lovely satin finish. This was even after I skipped the mixing step and just dredged out the settled pigment and used bottled thinners outside of the tin. It did dry quite quickly though and covered well. (excuse the rough application) We then went out for the day while it dried.
We got back as the light was going so I quickly grabbed a newspaper, the tank and got busy shaking a rattle can of desert sand (closest I could get to the earthy brown these tanks wore in monotone camo - the box art multi colour scheme was beyond time allowances) and headed out onto the balcony.
As you can guess the rattle can lacked the subtlety of an airbrush and my preshade mostly dissappeared (some might say good job too!) ....... or so I initally thought. As outlined over in the Paint/Glossing/Decals thread Humbrol spray Acrylic reacts with their enamel and in places I was blessed with pre-wrinkle instead of pre-shade. Luckily it was minimal, I accepted it as the inevitable snag that had to happen at some point and we headed off for dinner although I did have a back burner idea to strip and repaint once home if it nagged me too much. (I neglected to catch this step on the camera)
After dinner I found a space and gave the bottled wash a good shake, new to me this was also an experiment. It worked well, could be washed off with thinners and was easy to apply, a gloss coat might have helped but wasn't essential, it dried quite quickly too - I used a rust colour to try to darken the sand base coat.
I used the same dredge and thinners trick on the pale grey I was going to use to dry brush, it worked quite well, the flat brush I had bought wasn't as stiff as the one I use at home but I got by.
So here it is, it's not getting stripped, the niggles are tiny and I'm living with them as testament to how it got here, the choice of kit helped, the tooling for this ancient kit has survived well, it didn't fight me and was simple enough for the time I had available. It was refreshing to accept things and move on, although I did have to keep reminding myself of that.
72twink said:
Thanks GN
I finally had to bite the bullet, with no airbrush and minimal supplies (by choice) I had to break the paints out! I wanted to follow a standard route so went straight in with a brushed pre-shade of matt black ...... well it's supposed to be matt but as you can see is a lovely satin finish. This was even after I skipped the mixing step and just dredged out the settled pigment and used bottled thinners outside of the tin. It did dry quite quickly though and covered well. (excuse the rough application) We then went out for the day while it dried.
We got back as the light was going so I quickly grabbed a newspaper, the tank and got busy shaking a rattle can of desert sand (closest I could get to the earthy brown these tanks wore in monotone camo - the box art multi colour scheme was beyond time allowances) and headed out onto the balcony.
As you can guess the rattle can lacked the subtlety of an airbrush and my preshade mostly dissappeared (some might say good job too!) ....... or so I initally thought. As outlined over in the Paint/Glossing/Decals thread Humbrol spray Acrylic reacts with their enamel and in places I was blessed with pre-wrinkle instead of pre-shade. Luckily it was minimal, I accepted it as the inevitable snag that had to happen at some point and we headed off for dinner although I did have a back burner idea to strip and repaint once home if it nagged me too much. (I neglected to catch this step on the camera)
After dinner I found a space and gave the bottled wash a good shake, new to me this was also an experiment. It worked well, could be washed off with thinners and was easy to apply, a gloss coat might have helped but wasn't essential, it dried quite quickly too - I used a rust colour to try to darken the sand base coat.
I used the same dredge and thinners trick on the pale grey I was going to use to dry brush, it worked quite well, the flat brush I had bought wasn't as stiff as the one I use at home but I got by.
So here it is, it's not getting stripped, the niggles are tiny and I'm living with them as testament to how it got here, the choice of kit helped, the tooling for this ancient kit has survived well, it didn't fight me and was simple enough for the time I had available. It was refreshing to accept things and move on, although I did have to keep reminding myself of that.
I think it looks excellent, especially good given the limited amount of modelling stuff you had available. The Airfix range of military vehicles was always pretty good IMO.I finally had to bite the bullet, with no airbrush and minimal supplies (by choice) I had to break the paints out! I wanted to follow a standard route so went straight in with a brushed pre-shade of matt black ...... well it's supposed to be matt but as you can see is a lovely satin finish. This was even after I skipped the mixing step and just dredged out the settled pigment and used bottled thinners outside of the tin. It did dry quite quickly though and covered well. (excuse the rough application) We then went out for the day while it dried.
We got back as the light was going so I quickly grabbed a newspaper, the tank and got busy shaking a rattle can of desert sand (closest I could get to the earthy brown these tanks wore in monotone camo - the box art multi colour scheme was beyond time allowances) and headed out onto the balcony.
As you can guess the rattle can lacked the subtlety of an airbrush and my preshade mostly dissappeared (some might say good job too!) ....... or so I initally thought. As outlined over in the Paint/Glossing/Decals thread Humbrol spray Acrylic reacts with their enamel and in places I was blessed with pre-wrinkle instead of pre-shade. Luckily it was minimal, I accepted it as the inevitable snag that had to happen at some point and we headed off for dinner although I did have a back burner idea to strip and repaint once home if it nagged me too much. (I neglected to catch this step on the camera)
After dinner I found a space and gave the bottled wash a good shake, new to me this was also an experiment. It worked well, could be washed off with thinners and was easy to apply, a gloss coat might have helped but wasn't essential, it dried quite quickly too - I used a rust colour to try to darken the sand base coat.
I used the same dredge and thinners trick on the pale grey I was going to use to dry brush, it worked quite well, the flat brush I had bought wasn't as stiff as the one I use at home but I got by.
So here it is, it's not getting stripped, the niggles are tiny and I'm living with them as testament to how it got here, the choice of kit helped, the tooling for this ancient kit has survived well, it didn't fight me and was simple enough for the time I had available. It was refreshing to accept things and move on, although I did have to keep reminding myself of that.
One technique I've tried with some success is to use the thick, gloopy wash from the neck/lid of the bottle and dot it onto the model in places where you want streaks or run stains. Then after it's dried a bit, wipe it in the direction you want the streak with a lint free cloth. If it goes wrong, just wipe it with thinners and try again. Not saying your model needs it, just saying.
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