1/48 Armor GB - 2007

 A lot of nice work! I realized that the Firefly would have to meet the airbrush at some point and here are a few shots of the results so far. I see some areas that will require attention (interior of commanders hatch and air intakes on rear deck are two). My attempts at humble, homebuilt parts are the turret and rear hull storage boxes in styrene as well as some headlight brush guards from brass sheet.

 The paint is Tamiya acrylic XF61. My question of the day is: What's the group view on covering this with a Future/flat base topcoat before moving on?

 Dave

(Edited to correct pic links - June 25/07)

Lu, now you've got me going! Not being a Sherman expert - just a armor novice - what you suggest sounds so cool that I must have spent 30 minutes serving on the web on sherman periscopes. I have 3 books about the sherman, but so far nothing that gives me the details as to what your suggestion should look like! Any source you can recommend?

And once you start surfing, you see guys who put weld seams, foundry numbers, casting textures.... the mind boogles at how much longer I can stretch this build to.

Hey guys, it seems this GB is getting hot recently and it is very motivating to see how we encourage each other.

Grant: To give yours extra Kubel to one kid who can be seduced by the dark side of modelling is a sacrifice that Modelling Gods will appreciate a lot. From now on you are a blessed guy and your Sherman must go well.  

Darson: Thanks for the update pics. Believe me, that Pershing is beging for paint and your assembly looks good. It is very reasonable to keep some parts off (tracks and side fenders) until painted. Okay now you can go back to your Fw, but please do not make us wait so long for more pics.  

Waikong: Limited progress you said? cutting edgerow complete, interior painted and brush guards corrected ... not bad right?. Your model is -like Darson´s- asking for paint. As for me just one more thing. If you are going to leave driver´s hatch closed, then you could add one opened periscope with one evergreen triangle and one plain cover made with fine styrene strip. That is one detail that would complete your elaborate assembly and it is not a hard work really. What do you think?  

Telsono: Well done! Those decals are noticeable in the pics and are exactly what I would need for the 247 because instrument panel is plain totally, but I do not have anything like that available at home, so I had to paint dials finally.  

Lu

Waikong - You are actually further than I am with your kit. It looks great.

Darren - I can't see the rear of your Pershing (one of my favorites btw), but did you remember NOT to add the talk box? The WWII vehicles didn't have that feature. It's just that its included with the kit and people add it via the instructions.

Lu - I can't wait to see the final result of your painting.

I forgot to mention that on the instrument panel I added 3 dials from the Mike Grant Decals 1/48 Aircraft Instrument set. One dial should be similar to another. Tonight I'll start putting the chassis together.

Mike T.

LU - that's a very interesting way of painting, I must give a try as it looks great.

Karl, Telsono, Darren, Your kits are really coming together - makes me feel like a bit of a slacker. So here's my limited progress, I painted the interior details and built the PE Hedge device. I also corrected the front brush guard as you guys mentioned it was too far back - thanks for tip before I committed the thing to paint.

LU,

Nice work once again.  The streaked paint is fantastic.  I'm getting the itch to shoot another order over to France for some more Gaso.Line parts.

Karl,

The T-34 is looking fine.  Oil paints are the way to go.

Telsono,

The bren is one tiny kit...even in 48th scale.  Nice paint on the interior.

Darren,

The Pershing looks cool.  Nice work with the cast texture.  Does the 48th scale kit go together as well as the 35th scale one?  I had a lot of fun building the large scale version.

I bought a sacrificial Kubelwagen for wheel hubs for my Schwimmwagen.  It was cheaper even though I wanted the kit of the "bug" for myself.  The Kub is going to a kid up the block who likes to build and is afraid to paint.  I'm helping him along with paint skills.

The Sherman is getting "Futured" for decals today.  By Sunday, the decals will be on and the detail painting will begin.

Grant 

darson wrote:

Grant, oops sorry I forgot to make mention of your shermy, which looks great!  I made a big mistake with my 48th Sherman in that I went for the two tone red/brown OD camo scheme and the whole thing just came out way too dark.  The kit is now sitting on my "almost complete" waiting for the day when I finish it.

darson,

I've been experimenting lately with shading paint using 90% Isopropyl alcohol (bought at the local drug store) and 10% Tamiya paint (buff or white), and it works really well at lightening up colors that appear to be too dark.

My paint turns out dark a lot due to my painting in front of a 500W bulb.  Everything looks too light in front of it.  :)

Give it a try.

Grant

OK guys here's a couple of shots of the Pershing to date, nothing spectacular, just a progress update.

The white stuff you can see is Mr Surfacer 500 stippled onto the tank to create a better "cast" effect on the vehicle.

The tracks are complete and are split into two sections each to allow me to paint them separately and then fit them back onto the tank

The armored skirts will be painted with the tank but fitted last after the tracks go on.

Karl the T-34 looks absolutely fantastic, great job .  What techniques did you use on those oils of yours???

Lu the 247 is coming along fantastically, I'm watching very closely to see how your Dark Grey and Desert Yellow technique works out.  By the way you take very professional looking progress shots.

telsono the Beute UC is looking very nice indeed and I agree with Lu, it's great to see some unusual subjects like yours.

Cheers 

Mike: See? Those pics are not that terrible you said and your work can be clearly seen. That Beute UC is going well and you can be sure to have one very original subject in my opinion. I like the look it has without side armoured plates, well done and keep us posted, okay?

Lu

My photo experiment seem to work somewhat and here are some results.

First two views of a partial dry assembly of the Beute UC:

The driver's compartment components:

And a closeup of the running gear assembly - not weathered-

These should give you an idea of the progress so far.

Lu, thanks for the link.

Need to get my head around different colours, one I wouldn't normally associate with AFVs, such as ultramarine, and orange to add depth to my models.

Nice job on the 247 paintwork BTW.

Karl 

GasoLine Kfz 247 Ausf A (Conversion set for Tamiya Krupp Protze)  

Who said one plain base color must be plain shade?

Yesterday I could have little time and now ours 247 is panzer grey finally, As you can see, I did not paint a base colour in a plain shade and tried to get some advantage for future weathering since first stage as I did with earth brown lower hull before.  

In order to get that, I simply overlaped panzer grey and dark yellow directly from the bottle, I mean I did not make any mix and painted with pure colours up to my taste until I got a faded panzer grey base. Do not panic if you think contrast between both shades is too high now, because now I have to give a gloss coat to my model before continuing, so contrast will not be so strong after, and panzer grey will become darker too.  

Lu  

Darson: Take and share some pics of your build when you can, please. That will help us to wait until you complete your Fw.  

Waikong: I do not believe paintwork can hide any assembly detail at all. I am sure anything/everything we make to our models can be seen on the complete thing, and a good paintwork will always enhance/highlight a good assembly.  

Mike: Glad to hear yours Beute UC is going well. I am looking forward to seeing some pics, and do not hesitate to take some shoots with digital camera just to see how it works meanwhile you spend and develop your 35mm film. It is also promising you are making a second UC and to compare both sounds very interesting indeed.  

Karl: I see you do not fear to try new things on your models when the chance arises and that is very good I think. As for your T-34 you can tone down rust effects with more oils if you wish. If I were you I would blend(?) more colours on the surface of your tank to make base color richer. Here you have a very useful link you can follow well because -although article is written in spanish- modelling is mainly visual fortunately.  

http://www.afvplanet.com/pasoapaso/lavados/index.html  

Also glad to see you will continue on this GB with your new Tiger I.

Lu

Lu, great job on 247 so far.

Looking forward to seeing the finished article.

Grant, really like the camo on the Sherman, makes a real change to the usual OD.

Mike, looking forward to pics of the UC. 

Darren, pretty much as Lu said with regard the MIG oils. Saw them online, and having read various articles about using oils for weathering figured I'd give them a shot.

I've never used oils before, well not a tank at least, so this is very much an experiment with a new technique. 

Will probably end up toning down some of the rust. 

Also picked up my second build for this GB, Tamiya's Tiger 1 Early.

Karl 

I finally received my Hauler upgrade sets for the Universal Carrier. Afterwards, I have decided to scratch build some of the interior using the Hauler set as a template. Plastic pieces and metal wire was used to accomplish this. Next week I should have pictures, dusted off my old 35mm, as my digital is not good enough for closeup work. I am buying new batteries and film today.

Right now the driver's compartment is about completed with detailing. The oil paints are left to dry now. I tried to give it a well used appearance (worn paint and metal showing), but not ill-used (low on the rust and interior dirt). the exterior will have a fresher paint appearance with scrapes and such to show active use.

Alongside this I have started a UC in late war Allied use. This will use the Hauler and Verlinden upgrades and stowage sets. I thought the comparison would be interesting.

Mike T.

Grant, your sherman is looking good - definitely went through a lot of Tamiya tape on that masking effort.

Lu, your build looks great. The closeup of the undercarriage really shows off the details, too bad you can't show the model upside down when its finished.

My sherman is actually almost complete, I've built the hauler PE hedge device and added almost all the PE from lion's roar. The machine gun PE is almost a kit all by itself, I'll still have to see how much of the PE bits will actually make it to the finished kit. Some of the parts are so small, I wonder how much can actually be seen once its painted - I would imagine the paint will hide much of the details.

Grant, oops sorry I forgot to make mention of your shermy, which looks great!  I made a big mistake with my 48th Sherman in that I went for the two tone red/brown OD camo scheme and the whole thing just came out way too dark.  The kit is now sitting on my "almost complete" waiting for the day when I finish it.

Progress update: The Pershing is complete as far as assembly is concerned I just have to lay down some paint.  As soon as I finish the Fw 190 I'm doing I'll be able to get back to it.

Cheers

GasoLine Kfz 247 Ausf A (Conversion set for Tamiya Krupp Protze)

Time to paint finally!

As this subject is one early war vehicle, I have got no many painting options. I only could find two well documented painting schemes, (1) pre-war brown-panzer grey camo or (2) early war plain panzer gray. It is also reasonable to think white wash would probably work well on this subject, but I did not want to be so speculative this time, so finally I decided to go for an early war command car.

I saw on reference pics this vehicle must have white temporary markings used in the early days of WWII. As GasoLine kit does not include any decals, I realized it would be easier to paint white crosses prior to spray base color instead of masking carefully once the vehicle becomes panzer grey totally. In order to make that, I first airbrushed flat white, and following I masked crosses with small tape strips I cut with a sharp modelling knife and one ruler.

After that I painted lower hull and wheels with earth brown color because does not make sense to me to paint those areas panzer gray to change shade by weathering later. Most of the times, base color is not noticeable when weathering is finished on my models, so I much prefer to save that step from the beginning, and that contributes to give more "character" to our models since early stages in my opinion.

Now "our" 247 is ready to receive panzer grey base color soon...

Lu

Grant: Thanks for your kind words regarding my 247. Yes, I agree with you and think GasoLine has some very interesting kits, and your Lancia proves it. That one is a really beautiful subject in my opinion, plus trucks (and wheeled vehicles) are always attractive to me.

It is good you did not wait longer for the Schwim wheels to join to modelling practice with your desert Sherman.  As for your model there are two things that called my atention. (1) I think it would be better to paint sand color first, because it is easier to apply dark colours over light ones, and that avoid paint saturation. (2) As for your masking, it would have been easier to mask your model little by little cutting and adapting masking tape to shapes you wanted instead of masking everything and cutting after. Masking tape is easy to cut in rounded shapes with a sharp modelling knife on your cutting pad, and it is not necessary to cut the complete "piece" at once, and you can add more tape until complete. I made that before and it is easier than many can think. Anyway do not get my words wrong, and I am looking forward to seeing your Sherman complete soon.

Finally as for your Schiwm wheels replacement, I strongly suggest to get one VW Type 82e because it has TWO sets of wheel hubs (with or without hub caps) so you can use the standard one (without) for your Schwim tires and the other (with hub caps which implies more civilian look) for your VW. Actually the Type 82e is a very "cute" kit that will give you a very good time when you make it. I did past year and it is really "lovely" model.

Darson: The 502Ab oils are a new range of oil colours for modellers. Do not get me wrong and do not think the product itself is something new or revolutionary, because oils are oils, I mean 502Ab are exactly same artist oils we always had, but what is new is the "colour selection" which is very intuitive for military modellers and helps to pick the right colour to use.

 Lu

KJ200 wrote:

I've just bought some MIG Abtielung 502 oils to play with for this build.

I forgot to ask, what exactly are MIG Abtielung 502 oils?

Lu,

Nice work on the 247A.

I just got a Lancia 3RO in the mail from Gaso.Line.  It is one of the nicest resin kits I've ever had.  It may make this group build.

Grant 

Marc,

Sculptors rock. Nice work.

Karl,

Very nice work on the T-34.

As for me, I've been waiting for parts (fat tires) for my schwimmwagen from Gaso.line in France.  They arrived, but I found out that the fat tires need the Tamiya inner hub from the kit...unfortunately...they are already glued to the original tire.  I'll be ordering another 1/48 German Kubel or VW of some sort to keep moving on.

While waiting for the tires, I started my M4 Early and painted a faded olive base coat.  Now I'm applying the Tamiya dessert yellow for camo.  See the next 4 pics.

More pics to follow. 

Grant

Karl: That T-34 is looking good after those coats. As for presahding I am sure will be more noticeable after spraying future. As for hand rails it would have been better to make them with fine rod to avoid cracking and to help damaging alike. Now I will wait patiently your next update because I guess your model will change a bit in future steps. Enjoy with those 502Ab oils, I also have them and work well!

Lu

The T34 is now firmly in the paintshop....

What do you mean my post shading is too harsh!

I filled the centre of all the panels with RLM82 Light Green, then applied a coat of 50/50 RLM 83 & RLM 82 over the entire model.

The pre-shading is barely visible in the photos, but then it's pretty subtle up close, as seeing that this machine is undamaged, I didn't want to over weather it. 

Tomorrow I'll paint the tracks, and apply a coat of Future before starting on the weathering.

I've just bought some MIG Abtielung 502 oils to play with for this build.

Karl 

E, I used MrSurfacer 500, applied with a tooth pick in blobs to each ejector pin mark. Once dry I scraped it smooth with a no.10 blade.

This worked reasonably well, however the filler did sink slightly in a few areas, but nowhere I'm going to worry about too much.

Alternative method would be a punch and die set. Just punch out some suitably sized disks of plastic card, and CA into each pin mark.

Progress Update

Had to sort out one of the previously broken handrails following primering on Saturday, then applied an overall coat of flat black yesterday.

Top coats will have to wait until next weekend. 

Karl 

 A question for those in the know. The tracks on my Firefly have the standard tamiya ejector pin marks on them. This filling of ejector pin marks is new to me so I'd be interested in some ideas on how it's done. Karl's example on the T34 seems very neat and tidy compared to anything I've attempted so far.

Dave

Karl despite the problems it's still a pretty good kit and yours is looking very nice indeed.  I'll be looking forward to seeing some more pics.

Cheers

Darren, I know exactly what you mean about the idlers!

The next time I do one of these, and I know I will, particularly if Tamiya bring out a T34/85 or SU100, I'll use some of the spare track links to move the idler forwards.

Fully agree with your sentiments on the handrails too! I ended replacing one with wire, as I completelt destroyed it, as well as snapping several of the others.

BTW love the tiger. 

As you can see in the photo below I used some MrSurfacer 500 to recreate the cast texture on the rear of the turret where I had filled the joints for the rear fillet. Also did the same around the MG mount, just stippling it on with a cut down brush. 

Painting starts today.

Karl