Sergeant

 

Carlos, when you painted the exterior of the lower hull with black primer were you able to keep paint off the surface where you glue the upper and lower hulls together? Do you think it matters? I've been under the impression that glue like Tamiya Extra Thin Cement can be contaminated if paint is present.

 

Harold

 

Harold I had no problem with the black paint on the contact surfaces. Most of it was clear due to my angle of airbrushing on the black. The areas that did have paint I hit for a few swipes with a fine grit sanding stick and cleaned up.

Thank you Carlos, your explanation confirms it's important to keep the glue surface clear of paint and allow the cement to melt the plastic making a good strong Joint without paint contamination.

I want to use your technique and give the exterior lower hull a coat of black primer as a shadow coat. Then I will paint the interior, but I'm still a little confused about the exterior.

With a full interior I must do the following steps:

1. Clean all the parts with alcohol before they are glued in place to remove molding compound and surface residue.

2. Then paint the interior with grey or white surface primer for good adhesion to the styrene, resin, brass and aluminum parts.

3. When the primer has dried, paint the interior with semi-gloss or satin white paint as a base coat.

4. Then hand paint the interior details.

Once all of the above steps are completed I can glue the upper and lower hulls together. At this point the lower hull has black primer and the upper hull has no primer. Do you paint the complete exterior with black primer? What if I want to use grey primer on the exterior, do I paint over the black on the lower hull? This is where I'm a little confused.

Harold

In this case, if I were to prime the hull in gray, I would leave the black on the suspension and running gear areas for shadow effect. Probably on the hull bottom also. But the hull front and rear would be in gray along with all surfaces abover the fender topsides for a uniform base color. If I were to prime. Seeing as I usually work with enamels, with their excellent adhesion qualities, and I’m not using brass or PE on the exterior, there is no absolute requirement to prime in this case. As there would be if I used that AM here and was working with some acrylics for my topside.

 I could have also gone with a base color of Burnt Umber on the running gear instead of black. I really wish that Photobucket hadn’t pulled their extortion stunt, because I had some good photos of the process that I’m going to use here on older build threads.

stikpusher

In this case, if I were to prime the hull in gray, I would leave the black on the suspension and running gear areas for shadow effect. Probably on the hull bottom also. But the hull front and rear would be in gray along with all surfaces abover the fender topsides for a uniform base color. If I were to prime. Seeing as I usually work with enamels, with their excellent adhesion qualities, and I’m not using brass or PE on the exterior, there is no absolute requirement to prime in this case. As there would be if I used that AM here and was working with some acrylics for my topside.

 I could have also gone with a base color of Burnt Umber on the running gear instead of black. I really wish that Photobucket hadn’t pulled their extortion stunt, because I had some good photos of the process that I’m going to use here on older build threads.

 

I don't think I would have considered that option of two colors of primer, but it makes perfect sense. The reason that I like to use grey primer is I know what to expect with #71.043 Olive Drab. And while I haven't had much opportunity to experiment I have read that primer color can change the top coat color shade. But under the fenders is not a problem.

On my current project I originally intended to paint both vehicles olive drab. However I realized that after the Vietnam War camouflage paint schemes were the norm for tactical vehicles.

I'm watching and learning by your example.

Harold

SP: Nice work there- good to see the threads all together!!! 

Thanks Gamera. It is so good to be past that point.

Harold, I’ll show you my T26 Pershing here and the weathering look that I am shooting for. In this case I painted it normally first. But as you can see, those colors pretty much disappear under the weathering.  And you can see where shadow areas missed are illuminated by the flash in the rear 1/4 view. But basicly it’s dark  earth tone, in this case Raw Umber I think, on top of the base colors, then a light earth tone, usually raw sienna applied over the darker colors in a light misted look to give more depth and the look of more wet stuff underneath drying out. 

stikpusher

Thanks Gamera. It is so good to be past that point.

Harold, I’ll show you my T26 Pershing here and the weathering look that I am shooting for. In this case I painted it normally first. But as you can see, those colors pretty much disappear under the weathering.  And you can see where shadow areas missed are illuminated by the flash in the rear 1/4 view. But basicly it’s dark  earth tone, in this case Raw Umber I think, on top of the base colors, then a light earth tone, usually raw sienna applied over the darker colors in a light misted look to give more depth and the look of more wet stuff underneath drying out. 

 

 

It’s really easy to do.And you do it last after decals, washes, etc. A solid dark coat of an earth color over the running gear and areas likely to be covered in dirt/mud. Then a thinner lighter coat of dry earth tones to replicate the drying out and dusty areas. 

Practice on a paint mule and you’ll get the hang of it quick. You can also add pigments for a little texture of clinging mud. Another option is to leave just the dark color on for a fresh wet look. There is quite a bit that you can do with this technique.

Sorry to interrupt this post, but where the h--l has everybody been! I've had nothing from this forum for about 3 months, and today, about 20 posts show up. Any ideas on why?

M1GarandFan

Sorry to interrupt this post, but where the h--l has everybody been! I've had nothing from this forum for about 3 months, and today, about 20 posts show up. Any ideas on why?

 

 I’ve seen a bunch of complaints on here about folks not getting notifications. Then within the last 24hrs saying that they’re working again. 

I just check in every day myself...

So yesterday’s progress. 

I had to clean up the bottom side of the fenders, as they had some serious ejector pin flaws sticking out about 6mm or so. At best there is perhaps 2mm clearance between the top of the tracks and the fenders.

Before clean up

After clean up

Then I airbrushed on a coat of Flat Black over the outer surfaces of the tracks and lower surfaces of the fenders

Then I completed Step 8, gluing on the fenders and the right side headlight details, plus a few other small details

Today’s update:

Step 9, assemble the fender stowage boxes... easy enough, just add the grab rails and latch handles

Step 10, glue the stowage boxes in place, assemble and add the exhausts, and final front hull small bits

Step 11, add final bits to the rear hull

and the hull assembly is now complete! 

M1GarandFan

has everybody been! I've had nothing from this forum for about 3 months, and today, about 20 posts show up. Any ideas on why?

I gave up on email notifications long ago--Kalmbach has got something messed up with their forum software.

Which is not helped by the amount of bandwidth used up by WFH.

Today’s update:

Step 12, build the 90mm main gun tube

Step 13, build the mantlet 

Step 14, build the basic turret

I think in about 48 hours I should have the construction all done!

It's coming along nice Carlos.

Looking good Stik! 

Carlos,

Very nice progress! I'm looking forward to seeing some paint on this beast!

It's looking very good stik and can't wait to see the colorful art work on this one.

Just thinking about this colorful front art which actually defeats the OD's camo ability. I'm surprised the Army allowed such bright art work making it a very visible target for anti tank guns and other armor.  

Harold, Graysnake, Bruce, PJ, thanks guys! For an early DML/Dragon kit, it’s not bad at all. It certainly holds up well for its age...

plasticjunkie

Just thinking about this colorful front art which actually defeats the OD's camo ability. I'm surprised the Army allowed such bright art work making it a very visible target for anti tank guns and other armor.  

 

stikpusher

And supposedly the Chinese were superstitious about big cats, so there was a psychological warfare aspect as well. 

 

Very interesting facts. Smart idea to play with their heads.

plasticjunkie

 

 

stikpusher

And supposedly the Chinese were superstitious about big cats, so there was a psychological warfare aspect as well. 

 

 

 

 

 

Very interesting facts. Smart idea to play with their heads.

 

Who knows if it worked or not.... in any case it looked great!

Well last night was another online Zoom AMPS meeting. During the course of the meeting I worked on this kit and finished up the build work.

Steps 15 thru 19, adding all the turret fittings...

And with the turret on, the basic construction is finished!

now comes the fun part... the Tiger paint scheme!!!!

I'm watching Carlos, to see how you do the primer and paint.

Thanks Harold. I’m gonna black base the hull, especially the OD areas. Not sure how I’m gonna approach the turret yet due to the scheme. I have to ponder over the color scheme on there, as it’s most.y yellow with black and white tiger stripes. 

Nice work, you're making great progress. 

Looking forward to seeing how you do the yellow on the tiger face.  I thought about trying it on a Takom T29 but decided I didn't feel like the extra work and just went with olive drab all over. 

BTW I read somewhere, I don't remember now, that the tiger is considered a guardian spirit by the Koreans. So it seems the tiger face was also to boost moral in friendly troops. 

So I took a long pause on this trying to decide how I was going to approach painting the turret. Particularly if it was yellow or OD on top, and far around the rear the yellow went. So I looked for any photos that I could find of 6th Tank Btn. during this time frame. And after looking and looking again at them I noticed several things. Turret top color could be yellow or OD, but then afterlookng at many photos, particularly this one with many in it, some construction details appeared. They all did not have the right side turret stowage rack. Also many had a Browning M1919 .30 cal. placed into the standard .50 cal. pintle mount because the .50 had a second one installed over the gunners roof periscope for the commander to use. Lastly, there look to be grab handles welded onto the turret bustle sides.

So I removed the side rack, retextured that area with a grinding bit in my Dremel, added the grab handles, modified the original pintle mount to accept a .30 from my spares bin, and opened up the antenna mounts for some music wire antennas...

Before

After

And then yesterday I airbrushed on a base coat of Tamiya Flat Black in preparation for the painting

More to come soon...

That's lookin' real sharp Stik. 

Thanks M1! Next up, some OD...

Carlos, this is the point where I get a little nervous. With all your work on assembly and primer the finish is critical, but I know you have done this a hundred times.

Harold 

Carlos,

Are you going to do the black and white? Or just blackbase? Looking really good so far! 

Harold, black basing is still something that I’m getting the hang of. I’ve only done it maybe a half dozen times at most. But I’m confident that this will come out looking good.

Bruce, are you talking about using a white base under the yellow areas? I am thinking of doing that. But I don’t want the yellow too vivid.