What Color Can I Use For The Headlights For A M3 Stuart

Headlights on a tank are like the old school headlights on a car. Some folks paint them silver, others drill them out and replace with 5 minute epoxy, others replace the lenses with clear pieces.

Yep, sealed beam units.  As Rob says, you can drill them out, paint the hole with silver/chrome paint as the reflector, and cover with some type of clear material like epoxy, Pledge Future, or shaped clear sprue pieces, or you can buy complete lenses I believe.

Another method would be to paint the horizon reflection right on the lens.  Just look at some photos of a real Stuart parked outside to get some ideas.

Here's how mine turned out:

regards,

Jack

Hello Jack,

that's a real beauty of a Stuart! Exquisite detail!

Your headlights turned out a lot better than mine usually do. Some people think drilling them out is the only thing to do. For filling the "glass" part you could also use white glue, the kind that dries transparent.

I think painting the lenses is avery practical option. Once I accidentally got very nice results by painting the lens silver (that was intended as base for white), and then putting particularily badly covering white on top of that (you might want to substitute thinned down white here). Then I looked at the headlights and I said - done! Who would have thought? Here's the model I'm talking about:

Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

Pawel

Hello Jack,

that's a real beauty of a Stuart! Exquisite detail!

Your headlights turned out a lot better than mine usually do. Some people think drilling them out is the only thing to do. For filling the "glass" part you could also use white glue, the kind that dries transparent.

I think painting the lenses is avery practical option. Once I accidentally got very nice results by painting the lens silver (that was intended as base for white), and then putting particularily badly covering white on top of that (you might want to substitute thinned down white here). Then I looked at the headlights and I said - done! Who would have thought? Here's the model I'm talking about:

Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł

 

Out standing! You got more large pics of this someplace?

Hello Glenn!

Please take a look here: http://www.vietnam.net.pl/M42en.htm

Have a nice day

Paweł

I'm one of those who likes to drill out the buckets and use "mushroomed" clear stretched sprue.  

Although Jack and Pawel have some really nice painted examples to follow. Jack's are really impressive.

So yeah, many options here.

jgeratic

Another method would be to paint the horizon reflection right on the lens.  Just look at some photos of a real Stuart parked outside to get some ideas.

Here's how mine turned out:

regards,

Jack

 

 

Hi Jack, hi Pavel,

Nice samples - thank you for posting.

And Jack,
"Painting the horizon reflection" :) 
Love that idea!

Very Best Regards
Johan

Thanks everyone for the comments of painting 'reflection' on the lens. 

It has been a few years since that Stuart was built, so checked the dedicated folder I had saved progress pics to see if the reference photo was there.  It is not, so it is possible I had just used an automotive headlight photo on google search.

regards,

Jack