Definitely not something you see done every day! It always amazes me just how many different ways the Carden-Lloyd chassis design was adapted by various countries in the interwar years. Very neat subject, look forward to seeing this one come to life.  

Hi Bill!

You're definitely right. I didn't see that. I knew that the soviets bought some Carden-Loyds from GB, but I didn't know that the direct inspriration for the T-38 (and T-37) was the amphibian A4E12 that Carden-loyd bproduced in the beginning of the 30's.

/Bultenibo

Here's a little update on the build.

The original tracks turned out to be useless. Both the moulding and the quality of the plastic made me chose an alternative  that usually is not prefered - ordinary vinyl tracks. Fortunately I had a couple of these in my collection.

I also chose to get some slack on the tracks, using wires fitted into the sides of the chassi in order to pull the tracks down. Hopefully  the wires will not be visible after painting the tracks and adding some dirt to them.

After that I detailed the mud guards with some photoetch parts, metal stripes and plastic bolts. Since I now have decided to build a tank captured by the Finns I chose to remove all of the original tools that usually are fitted to the mud guards.

Some of the photo etch was really tiny. I'm not used to work with that small stuff:

Here's the larger part of the hull finished. This is one of the benefits with these kinds of kits - they are quite simple in construction and it doesn't take weeks to build them (in contrast to a 500 pcs DML kit).

The great surprise of the day was that I found, not one, but two T-38 photoetch sets in my collection! Had totally forgot that I had them. One came from the Cooperativa version of the same T-38 kit (the one to the left). The other PE set  was actually 18 years old (right) and even contained some white metal details that could be useful, a horn for example.

I'm going to use some parts from both sets - and in my world thats amounts to SUPERDETAILING!

Tomorrow will be photo etch day!

See ya!

/Bultenibo

Great looking work. I've got the Coopertiva kit that came with the small PE fret, but have not gotten around to the build. I also collected up a set of MK tracks and a more extensive Airwaves PE set.

Rob Gronovius

Great looking work. I've got the Coopertiva kit that came with the small PE fret, but have not gotten around to the build. I also collected up a set of MK tracks and a more extensive Airwaves PE set.

Thanks Rob!

You're definately doing the right thing when you add a lot of extras to these kind of old Eastern European kits. The PE does miracles on an otherwise poorly detailed kit. A bunch of plastic bolts will also come in handy!

I've just checked the Coopertiva kit, and it is the same tooling. The plastic are of better quality in the Cooperativa, even though it seems to be much harder than in the AER kit.

I wish that one of the bigger companies-  DML, Tamiya -  would release a version of one these otherwise overlooked soviet light tanks (T-37, T-38, T-40). Maybe it's not just wishful thinking considering that Tamiya seems to expand in interesting directions. The release of Italian, Finnish and French armor was a thing that I definately didn't foresee a couple of years back.

/Tony

Here’s the last update on the building part. The detailing was, as I always think it is, more fun than putting the basic parts together.

Here’s the hull with PE and other details:

I chose to put some work into the muffler, adding PE and metal stripes. I also did some ”texturizing” on the body of the muffler, using ordinary white putty added with an old brush. When painted and pigmented with rust this ususally results in a quite realistic wore-down muffler.

I had to do some extra work on the turret, since I wanted an open hatch for the tank commander. The top part of the turret was molded in one piece, so I drilled some holes in it and removed the molded hatch with a small file. Then I made the new hatch from a spare metal sheet from an old PE-set. The thickness of hatch should now be in the right scale, since the top of tank turrets usually are quite thin.

Another modification is that I replaced the turret MG. Ordinarily the T-38  was fitted with the Degtyaryov DP 7,62 mm machine gun designed for tanks (on the bottom of the photo), but I replaced it with the infantry version (top).  Since the build is thought to represent a captured tank pressed into Finnish service I wanted to signal the improvisational aspect of this practice: the captured  tanks were often disabled and demanded repair and modification before they could be used agian.

(In 1944 the DT MG was in fact the most common LMG in the Finnish army, some 9000 of them had been captured and put to use under the sweet nickname ”Emma”.

Here is some pics of the finished build:

When it comes to the tools and the other equipment on the the tank, my idea was to keep it sparse. Not just because there is not much room for this kind of equipment on this small vehicle, but again to signal that the war on the Finnish front was caracterized by material shortage and improvisation. So, besides a small tarp that will placed on the front hull, only three items will be added (actually representing the three major sources of equipment to the Finns during WW2): an over-sized Soviet towing cable taken from the KV-series, a Swedish infantry shovel and a German WW1, m/1916 helmet (which were much in use in the Finnish army.

Before I continue with the painting, there is some conversion work to do on the Finnish tank commander.

All kinds of comments and critique are very welcome, especially if there are something I should do before I start the painting!

/Tony

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Tony,

The PE details certainly add a lot of value to this little guy. The turret hatch is some nice work as well. Looking forward to seeign this one get some paint.

I'm really liking this build. The turret alone is pure eye candy! Excellent work! 

Thanks for the input!

Bill: I thought that the PE worked out well too. Adding those kind of details is quite important when it comes to these kind of basic kits.

Regarding the turret, I think I have to add some interior details. My first thought was to put the tank commander standing inside the turret hatch, but now I'm converting a figure that is stepping out of the turret. This way  the inside of the turret is visible an ought to be detailed and painted. I'll problably do that later and work with the exterior first.

Ed Sisco: Thanks a bunch for the kind words!

Here's some pics of the first part of the paint job.

I used the Tamiya TS "Dark green" as a kind of primer. It's really not the base color. Since I'm into handpainting I usually only use the spray paint to get a good foundation for the acrylics and to get a kind of unformity in the color so I will be able to spot uneven surfaces or faults that should be a adjusted before the the base color comes on .

This is what it looks like now:

And this is the green color that will be the base color: a kind of light, whiteish green that are found on a lot of repainted Finnish vehicles from WW2. These pics are from the tank museum at Parola, Finland and shows two other Soviet tanks that was captured and used by the Finns.

Considering that the color of the tanks must have been pretty sun bleached, I aim for a bit darker tone of this color. I'm thinking that a combination of Vallejos "Russian uniform" and "White" and maybe some "Light beige" might do the trick.

/Tony

Tony,

Really nice work there on a really interesting AFV. Please keep updating, I love seeing stuff off the beaten path like this.

Cliff

Thanks Cliff!

I'll keep the updates coming! One or two per day probably, sincethe flu I've got seems to quite stubborn. That's the best thing (theonly good thing?) with being on sick leave - you have suddenly have time for building stuff!

/Tony

Now I've gotten around to the tank commander. (I'm still waiting fo a postal delivery of Humbrols Acrylics Matt Varnish that I need before I begin the actual painting).

After a lot of tryouts, piecing together arms and legs like Dr Frankenstein, I've settled for this pose:

will

This will also add some hight to an otherwise rather flat build.

On right shoulder the commander will have a submachine gun slung. At first I thought that it would be a Soviet Ppsh 41 with drum magazine, but to my great surprise I found that the DML German weapons set included a Finnish m/1931 Soumi submachine gun with box magazine, so I chose that insted. The two SMG's are pretty much alike, but I thought that there's a point in adding SOME Finnish equpiment to this build.

Regarding the uniform, I'll go with the black leather tankers jacket from the early stage of WW2 (on the left hand):

The trousers will be the blue-grey woolen trousers of the Finnish m/1936 uniform:

The field cap will be made out of a slighly modified German cap (with - of course - a cocade with the Finnish national colors). It will probably be painted in a more light grey color, that usually were the color of the Finnish m/1931 summer tunic:

Here's a reenactment page with  good reference pictures for Finnish uniforms.

See ya around soon!

/Bultenibo

At last I'm finished with the tank commander.

Usually the figures are the last thing I do, so it feels pretty good to have taken care of this already. I'll probably  paint the tanker in inbetween the paint job on the tank.

/Bultenibo

Hello everybody!

The work on the little T-38 is coming along just fine again. Atlast I've gotten my Humbrol "Matt Varnish" that I needed before I started with the paint job.

The base paint is now finished. I had to experiment a lot before I found the right color for the Finnish light green that I sought. A combination of Vallejos "German field grey", "German bright green camo" and a little white turned out to be the right combination.

After that I did some basic highlightning on the center of each panel, trying my best not to highlight any protruding details.

After that I sealed the whole thing with a coat of matt varnish.

Now I'm about to give the it a general wash with oils, but I'm not sure which color to use. Normally I would go for the Winston "Van *** brown", but I'm afraid that is a little too dark for this light green color. My other choice is a "Raw Umber" wash, but the pigment in it is kind of crude and must be applied carefully not to get too concentrated.The whole thing gets a bit more complicated since I've not yet decided if I should try the dot filter method on this build. If I don't, the general wash become much more important in the wheathering process. 

Hmmm....

/Bultenibo

Even though it's a small tank, you stil have some large panel areas to work with that are ideal for experimenting with the dot weathering approach. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!

You're right Bill!

I went with the Raw Umber wash, and even though it was a very light wash, the overall color got too dark. I'm thinking of trying the dot method using relatively light colors. We'll se how that goes tomorrow....

/Bultenibo

Here's some pics after the basic paint job and weathering is done.

This is what's been done since last post:

1. Applying the markings, and re-paint them by hand (since the quality was unacceptable).

2. A general wash with Raw Umber.

3. My first weathering using the dot method! It was a pretty amazing experience, but I'll guess that it will take some time of practicing before I get used to it. Some lessons was learned this time. For example: don't put a coat of varnish over the treated areas unless you want some serious fading effect, use a good, soft brush, and white is a powerful color! The oils I used was White, yellow Ochra and yellow.

4. A pin wash using Van ***  brown oils.

5. Some chipping using the sponge method and Von *** brown oils.

Now, I'll paint some details (headlight, muffler, MG etc) before it's time to do some metalizing on some small areas.

/Bultenibo

I just noticed that the name of one of the oils I used was automatically censored: "Van ***  brown oils".

In an attempt to communicate the meaning of the deleted part I'll refrase the sentence.

The name of the color is:

"Van [a four letter word, often used in a derogatory context to denote a woman that is sexually attracted to another women] Brown oils".

Hope that works.

/Bultenibo

Nice work on the weathering...and yes, white is a very powerful color (as are all the primary colors) and a little bit goes a very long way. The auto censor here is somewhat sensitive about certain words as you've discovered!