Thanks PJ. Good to see you back.

Bish, Gamera and Snake, fantastic work on your builds. I have been away from the bench dealing with an issue but I'm back on the saddle. 

I figured I would do some kind of mix for the SCC 15 for the Firefly but I'm almost out of OD paint and have 3 more Shermans and an M10 to build so I placed an order to SB for some paints.

Gamera, your tank looks fantastic! Just a thought, you can rotate the tracks around and create a small dio base and cover the missing tracks with terrain material. Here is a picture of my KT with a base I made but my tracks are ok, it's just to give you an idea. The terrain can hide a lot when pressed into the terrain material while still wet.

Thanks guys. Hopefully this weekend I'll get the tools on her and the figures done or at least close to done. And some work on the base, I'm going for something simple here.  

Gamera,

Good fix with those unforgivably short tracks!  The Comet is looking fabulous by the way.

Now where is that PIAT of mine..

Nice fix on those tracks G.I have not used that type in years, but i don't recall seeing tracks that bad before. Good job you could hide it.

Thanks Cliff, and best wishes for the upcoming Indpendence Day celebrations to you and anyone else south of the border.

regards,

Jack

Ouch, I hope it's not too common a Bronco thing, I've got two early boxings of their M24 Chaffee! At least I know now so I can check before I put the fender parts on! 

Hey Jack, how are you, hope you had a good Canada Day! 

Hi Cliff, like how the Comet is coming along.  Short tracks must be a Bronco thing, their first boxing of the A13 Cruiser tank had the same issue, and subsequent releases had individual track links.

regards,

Jack

Thanks Greysnake. And I'm very happy to know that your kit came with a better set of tracks. I swear they're the worst part of the kit, and I really should have replaced them. 

Anyway, photos finally. 

As I said the 'rubber band' tracks aren't long enough. My stupid fault, I should have tested them first. It's almost like they were made for a Cromwell since it's a bit shorter than the Comet. They're about an inch and a half/ four cm too short:

So I grabbed some dental floss sitting nearby and treaded it though the holes and pulled it slightly tight. About halfway- 3/4 of an inch / 2 cm. Just enough for it to be tight without taking a chance of ripping the tracks. Then I painted the floss black to better hide it: 

Then I rotated the whole horrible looking mess up under the rear fenders. Thankfully it's pretty hard to see unless you're looking for it. Hopefully they won't break one day, I didn't pull it very tight so there shouldn't be that much stress on it. I also didn't worry about track sag, most of the photos I've seen of the Comet didn't show much at all so I'm not going to worry about it. 

Frankly the best thing would have been aftermarket tracks. But as I said I really didn't want to rip the mud guards off the fenders and then clean up and repaint them again:

I think the whole thing looks pretty decent if not great if I do say so myself.

A few more items like tools to add. Then detail painting and a good matte coat of varnish. Then hopefully I'm done. Just need to finish up the figures and build a small dio to set the thing in:

Eric: It's good to hear from you again. That's weird, there's been a couple of people who have had to create new accounts to get back on. 

Thanks Chad. ye, i am going to have be careful with all those little straps. I had one come off when taking off the mask, but nothing major.

There's a lot of metal and AM on that warrior Bish. Now you have to be extra careful that nothing pops off during weathering! I know it's going to look great.

They're still no bouncing emails back to me. Let's try again.

Eric

EricB

Hi Bish

I've created another account - maybe this one will work. Screen name is EricB - used to be Ebergerud. If I'm back online, I'll build you a Tasca Sherman firefly.

Fingers crossed

Eric

 

Welcome back Eric, i take it you were having issues with your other account. I'll get you on the roster.

Hi Bish

I've created another account - maybe this one will work. Screen name is EricB - used to be Ebergerud. If I'm back online, I'll build you a Tasca Sherman firefly.

Fingers crossed

Eric

Thanks guys.

Tracks are coming on well GS, i usually paint mine NATO black.

Bish: Oh wow, now that's a LOT of work. But it's going to be cool to have a replica of the vehicle you served on. 

Greysnake: Great job there getting all those links in order! 

Speaking of tracks I put the 'rubber band' treads on the Comet and they're about an inch and a half / four cm too short. My fault, I should have checked beforehand instead of assuming they'd fit. I think I'm going to try tying them together with some thread and rotating the tied areas up under the fenders where you can't see it unless you turn the model upside down. Then I'm going to bolt the #@#@ thing to the base so you can't turn it upside down... 

Really Greysnake and anyone else who buys this kit- please pick up aftermarket tracks. Those for a Cromwell would probably fit, though a Comet is a little longer so you'd probably need two sets.  

On the other hand I'm very happy with how the figures are coming along. Will get some photos up soonish. 

The Warrior is now at the painting stage, given the amount of AM and scratch work, i am surprised at how quick it come together.

After the last update, the next thing i got to was prepping the road wheels. In this pic, the kit wheels are on the left, resin the right. On the inner wheels at top, you can see bolt detail on the resin wheels. And on the outer set, the resin wheels have much nice detail around the hub as well as the oil filler plug for the hub oil reservoir.

The resin wheels were cleaned up by running a rough sanding stick around then and then i took a needle file to some to take out a few small chunks of rubber. Then they all got primed. Can't beat wheels on sticks.

I also primed the inside of the hull after fitting the rear. I had to open the 2 small windows as these were solid.

While that was drying i got most of the turret together. The barrel trough was fitted as this is the same green as the rest of the vehicle. The barrel will be painted seperatly and added later. The antenna base mounts came with clansman antenna bases. These were removed and replaced with bowman one. The set included 3 styles. The small device on the front right antenna is a GPS transciever and had to be taken from one of the other style of bases.The armoured covers for the Raven sites have been left off to paint seperatly. By 2006 this vehicle had the new BGTI sites, but the houseing is the same and externally there is no differance.

There are still a few more bits to add.

These two parts are the rear light houseing which comes with the bottom and rear of the rear bins attached. The two areas indicated are the buttons for the door of the 510. But on the real vehicle, these buttons are only on the left, the right is just a blanking plate. However, the 511 has a manually operated door so there are no butons at all. Accurate Armour does not mention that the buttons have to be removed. A quick swipe with a scalpel blade will do the job.

And the cam pole holders are pretty poor. I wil replace these with brass tube. There are 8 sets in total.

And with all these parts sorted and the hull fully assemebled, its now ready for some paint. I had to modify and move the fire extingusher holder just behind the left lights. Tools are secured with canvas webbing straps secured with a metal plate. I use lead foil and styrene rod for these. The long bit of lead foil and the metal brackets for the shovels and axe. I will trim to fit later.

The cover for the side bin was cut out of lead foil.

Close up of the front tool holders. Also you can see the access step. this had to be thined and reshaped. The part coming out from the side is the step thats designed to be fited with the chobham. The kit step was to short. You can also see one of the new cam pole holders on the front light guards. The lightguards had to be raised at the front as i realised the angle was wrong when fitting the cam pole holders.

Closer short of the right side cam pole holder.

Rear all fitted out.

The the whole thing was hit with primer and the underside painted with Alclad aluminium.

I also sprayed Alclad where i will do some light chipping. namely the ice breaker and access step.

I have since given it a coat of green. Tomorrow it should be ready for masking and the black.

Greysnake: That looks good, glad to hear the tracks are going so well. 

Funny, I looked up what you're building, the early M4 suspension with the central roller had me thinking you were building a M3 Lee/Grant. 

Thanks Gamera. 

GreySnake

 

 

PJ, those markings look a lot better then what’s in the box. Can’t wait to see it painted. Are you using the kit track links?

 

Yes will be using the kit tracks.

Real G

I think the incorrect torsion arm direction was just sloppy research.  Sometimes kit makers just mirror left/right details.

I was also surprised to learn that several AFVs had torsion arms that swing forward.  Was this to keep the road wheels more or less parallel, or maybe it was just for better packaging/spacing of the torsion bars?

 

I would have thought that arms that swing forward to take a bigger impact on anything that might hit when compared to arms that swing away from anything. But, i guess these guys have a reason.

PJ: Ohhhhhhh that looks good!!! 

Greysnake: Thanks! Good to hear they're working out for you. I like link tracks but they tend toward giving me a headache too often. 

Bish: Lol, I'll look for the tartan paint!!