Evenin' gents, another update from the land Down Under.
Here's the trumpeter 1:35 Strv 103B a couple of nights ago, complete but for eight small handles (or whatever) around the rear decking:
Today I began painting. I sprayed the tires on the sprue with Tamiya acrylics, XF-1 with 20% XF-63 to ease the black, plus 10% clear gloss to give it the faintest lustre, like new-ish rubber. They actually came out pretty flat so maybe thay was an experiment that didn't work.
Next, I removed them from the sprue and stencil-masked to paint the hubs, using an 18.5mm template from a set by Alliance Model Works which, though designed for a different kit, was exactly the right size for this one.
I posted to the Armor forum last week to see if anybody had a clue what shade the Swedish Army was using on these things but I never drew a reply, and my online research suggests there was plenty of variation. Other reviewers painted it in NATO Green or mixed various shades, and some replicated the complex Swedish camo. I wanted to do a monocolor job and followed the lead of the reviewer who mixed RLM-02 Grey with Japanese Army Green (XF-22 and XF-13). The kit plans ask you to paint the tank RLM-02 but photographs distinctly show a green -- which, however, in some lighting conditions is almost indistinguishable from a grey. I mixed two parts XF-22 to one part XF-13 and came up with a grey-green which looks pretty much like the shade in some photos. I know that's far from an accurate matching, but it'll get faded, shadowed and dusted as well, all of which will help obscure what the median shade really is.
Next I need to clean up and touch up the sprue attachment points, then I can assemble and install the wheels, test-fit the tracks and see if they need any modifications. Reviewers have alternately reported them as too long or too short. The former is easy to deal with, the latter, impossible.
I hope to have this one done in a few days time, then finally make a dive at that F-84 for NMF.
Cheers, Mike/TB379