Coyote from Ottawa

Welcome aboard Coyote!

I haven't posted an introduction about myself, but if/when I did this sounds like what mine would say. I'm also into wargaming/miniatures (primarily GW Fantasy) and read FSM.

How long have you been working on the Predator Tank? How well did it go together? Do you need to do a lot of filling? I have never built any 40K vehicles so I'm just curious.

I've been working on the predator tank seriously for about a week. I was slowly putting the big bits together, but now I'm working on filling the gaps.

I've found all GW kits have badly aligned seams. Do other companies have chronic sinkholes and mold seams that are off by over 1mm like GW?

Now, I'm going beyond what most gamers do. I've drilled out all the exausts and bolters. I've filled seams that GW didn't fill in their pictures, but were obviously not meant as panel lines.

The rivets I've replaced were sanded off when I was working the putty. There was also a little filling to do with the front armoured visor which is supposed to be able to flip from buttoned to un-buttoned, but it would have had to be glued to stay open. I decided to model the tank fully buttoned, so glued it down. However, there was a couple of gaps where the hinge was which wasn't realistic, so I filled there as well.

Also, the sponsons are engineered to move, up and down and right and left. However it's plastic on plastic, so one is nice and stiff, the other is loose and droops. I'm going to glue them so that they don't tilt - right and left will have to do.

I'm basically taking my time, enjoying the process, and learning techniques I'm going to use on my first display model. I think I have another 3 days of build left, before its time to paint. All told, I estimate about 20 hours total to assemble everything.

Get some squadron green putty if you plan to do any filling. Milliput and Greenstuff (the most common putty in the GW gamer's toolkit) just don't cut it. Their too thick, they take forever to work into the gaps and are basically better used for sculpting. I started with milliput, but it took me forever to do anything. Squadron Green goes on fast and sands off easy (let it cure a fully 24 hours first)

Thank you for the tip about the putty. When I've needed to fill in gaps I've used the Citadel stuff. Mainly because that's what they recommend in their publications (of course, it's their product). I don't particulary care for it. Like you said, it is thick and difficult to work into gaps. I've thought about trying something else, but I just never did. I'll have to add that to my list of things to pick up next time I stop at the hobby shop.

if they have them, pick up some Tamiya paint stirrers and perhaps some acetone (or tulene).

The Tamiya paint stirrers make excellent small spatulas for applying the putty. I use the aceton to clean the stirrers and thin the putty. Becareful, both are hot to plastic, and will cause it to soften. It eventually hardens again, but don't get to fancy applying the putty. Slap it out, leaving it bulging out of the gap, then let it cure. It shrinks a bit, so if you apply it, then clean the seam before letting it dry the seam will still be visable.