1/35 Tamiya M3 Stuart Tank (MkI “Honey”)
Paints: Vallejo Model Color
Weathering: Vallejo acrylic washes, Vallejo Model Color and Golden Fluid Acrylics, Iwata Com.Art paints, MIG & Sennelier Pigments with Liquitex matte and gloss varnish
I had ten spare days in St. Paul and needed a styrene fix. There was no real time for a complex project and the stash in Minnesota is small. So I picked on a very old Tamiya M3 Stuart figuring it was something that I could finish. It would also fit into our 1943 Group Build because a handful of Australian Stuarts (eight operational) played a key role in ending the sordid and miserable siege of Japanese fortified zone in the area of Buna in southeastern New Guinea December 1942-January 1943. Might add that I wrote about this campaign a few years back and interviewed several participants – another incentive.
The Kit:
Not much to say here. It's old and simplified – a long distance from contemporary armor kits. But I hope there's a place for kits like this. It has decent detail. It looks like a Stuart. By and large everything fit very well. Had I been willing to do a very basic weather I could have finished this in a weekend. The major inaccuracy (I believe) was not the fault of the kit. Early Stuarts given to the Brits (who in turn supplied the Aussies – although the details aren't crystal clear) had diesel engines. There was a nice photo build of the Academy Honey with a M3A1 resin conversion kit from Mouse House. I could have tried to alter engine deck but I decided that the time invested relative to the change made wasn't worth the candle and I left it alone. Frankly I'm not sure this is the kit I'd chose to micro-detail regardless. (I think I got a little sloppy with such an easy build. I've noticed in the photos that I left a seam on the gun. Ooops.) I did scratch a large storage locker on the right front fender that appeared on all Oz tanks photos. I originally intended to load the thing down with all kinds of gear, but the photo record showed that infantry didn't use these tanks as pick-ups. The entire fortified zone was twelve miles long and engagements involving the Stuarts normally involved advances against strong points a few hundred yards from the start point: so why bother? Photos did show one tanks with a locker on the rear, some extra tools and one had a helmet: all of those I put on. And I made the decal (my first) of the First Australian Armored Division although I saw it in none of the photos, although it was stenciled on one tank. Censors may have removed markings from the photos, but very little could be seen. The kit came with decent Commonwealth decals and they worked fine. The basic build was done in a day plus. Might add that I thought the vinyl tracks looked fine and they went on after weathering with zero fuss.
Paint:
I found some data with the help of some kind people on Armorama to find the right color. As I understand it, Aussie khaki green was a little different than the Brit scheme. If the Aussie paint was one these tanks (probable but not certain) it was would have resembled FS 33070 – which is very close to Vallejo Model Color Reflective Green. I put in a little Model Color Khaki Gray with the Reflective Green for the base. I made two lighter shades: one with more Khaki Gray and another with Golden Fluid Primary Yellow added to shade two. Prior to base, I gave the kit a coat of Vallejo Sand Polyurethane Primer. (I do like that product: it comes in several colors.) I preshaded by hand with Golden Carbon Black which is so opaque that a light brush stroke did just fine and was invisible after the base was applied. Many modelers don't like to airbrush with Vallejo Model Color. I beg to disagree. If used with either Vallejo thinner or art acrylic airbrush medium it works very well. It has the same pigments as Model Air, but is thicker and hence about half the price. As a bonus you have some of the best brushing paint available. (One cautionary tale. Art acrylics and Model Colors are thinned with acrylic polymer. When thinned correctly it aerates wonderfully and is a cinch to clean when wet. Because the thinning agents have drying retarders you do have a few minutes. However, you would not want this stuff to dry solid inside an airbrush. No damage would be done, but it would take a serious cleaning. I find the same thing is true with Future.)
After preshade I tried something that worked very nicely I think. I checked a lot of M3/5 photos and it appeared that the rolled steel was pretty clean and I decided not to texture it. The cast gun mantlet, front vision slits and hull machine gun mount needed a little work. Instead of putty or cement, I put on some Golden Molding Gel with Lava. This stuff is thin polymer with little bits of lava mixed in giving it a slightly rough texture. The result is as good as anything I've done with glue and a lot easier. I don't know how evident it is in the photos. I've got a T-34 in the stash and will give the technique a proper trial soon. I also glued on some stretched sprue and melted that with glue to emphasize the weld line on top of the hull: it worked okay, but I'd like another shot at it.
After the prime, I put on the three shades of base. Next a coat of future and decals went on.
The real object in this project was another crack at all acrylic weathering. Obviously I had to make a guesstimate about what one of the Buna Stuarts would have looked like. The tanks themselves were only a few months old although it's likely they had been used in maneuvers in Queensland so they weren't fresh from the showroom. (Anyone interested in why a half dozen Stuart tanks played a major role in a major campaign can check my historical notes in the 1943 Group Build – it was a miserable moment in US and Aussie military history.) Suffice it to say that the Buna area was mostly an alluvial swamp interspersed with some soft but (sometimes) passable clay rich soil covered by 6' long, razor sharp, kunai grass. (Google Earth photos of the area show gray and reddish soils in the battle zone which guided by choice of pigments.) Conditions were frightful. 100 degree temperatures were common. Rain took place every day – often over 10”. There was no ground that could be considered “dry.” Some of the ground traversed by the tanks was so soft that it was pointless to move over walking speed. Tanks regularly drove into bogs and needed to be towed out. Unless resting on a plateu some ten miles southwest (which became the site of the major US airbase at Dobodura) infantry slept in the mud. Suffice it to say, these tanks were seriously filthy. I don't doubt they were also well chipped by plowing through the fringes of a rain forest. But I'd guess that if when cleaned up after battle, the Buna Stuarts (with the exception of two victims of Japanese fire) would have been in decent condition, at least after a full rebuild of the transmissions. So I didn't want rust or major battle damage. I did want tanks that had been given regular mud baths interspersed with blazing sun, torrential rain and trampled on by filthy soldiers and crew. I wanted the model faded, splotched in color and and very dirty. As it was never dry in New Guinea, I did want a satin finish. Below are some pics of the wonderful world of Buna (the last is one of the nearly invisible and extremely strong Japanese bunkers made out of fibrous coconut logs – the instrument of two months of military torture and the main target of the tanks):
Weathering:
I first gave the kit an overall sepia wash with one of Vallejo's new acrylic washes thinned with water applied generally like any filter. I used black and gray washes for panel lines and pin-washes. You have to use these differently than enamel or oils working in smaller portions of the model. I'm not sure what Vallejo puts in this product – I'd guess leveling agents and drying retarders. One thing nice about them is that because you're using water or water-based Vallejo thinner to remove excess, the only thing coloring the kit is the paint, not the solvent. I did some chipping with Vallejo Model Color paints of various shades – a task these paints are made for. (Still haven't figured out how to make a convincing machine gun track across a tank surface. These vehicles were under constant small arms fire and it's hard to imagine a machine gun not scratching the surface.)
The heavy lifting was done by the Iwata/Medea Com.Art paints. All the colors used are transparent. This paint is designed for work on canvas not plastic which helps greatly for weathering. It has a kind of grainy texture – almost like a cross between a paint and a pigment. I used black and yellow with just a bit of green to make some shades of khaki drab and used them to fade the model: about six different colors. One great advantage is that because they don't adhere well to plastic they come off very easily with water, even after drying which allowed a lot of fine tuning. After that I used some Transparent Smoke and Umber dabbed in a rag to apply major smudges especially on and near the turret. I like this effect. A bottle of Com.Art Transparent Smoke can be bought at a good art supply store or online for about $3 – little to lose and you might find it useful. (I used it on my last airplane for panel lines: because it comes off so readily the dark stayed inside the line and is almost invisible outside of it – and no residue from solvents.) Lastly I did some streaking as befits a vehicle that was rained on twice a day at least. I used the Com.Art with a satin finish for light streaking. I used standard Model Colors (a black/green) for darker stuff. I wasn't satisfied with all of the results, but some turned out okay as I was getting the hang of things. I think one needs a little more paint and some drying retarder. Last year Mig Jimenez and AK did a DVD on Acrylic Weathering and that was the technique he used for rust streaking. I finished the hull with Com.Art mixed with some gloss varnish for oil stains near the fuel caps.
I used MIG and Sennelier pigments – both very fine. For a bonding agent I used acrylic matte and gloss varnish. This is a wonderful technique for sand weathering. But I wanted mud here mixed with foilage. I mixed in some synthetic grass and it worked pretty well. Because you don't use plaster in the mix, you have very good control of the color. I really wanted to evoke clumps of mud and grass in the tracks and wheels. The results were acceptable, but getting a heavy wet mud is a challenging.
It's a humble kit no doubt but I think it worked out okay. I must admit that I don't miss the various solvents at all. And some of the weathering effects I think can be better done with the acrylics (especially the Com.Art type paints) than with oils or enamels. Your opinions may differ. But please don't knock the decal – I'm proud of that. Pics below.
Eric
