Karl, DM - thanks a lot for your comments, it really means a lot to me!
And Karl - I’d also like to have it painted and stuff, but of course it’s gonna take some time.
Well, thanks again and have a nice day
Paweł
Hello!
I’m almost done with the tracks - at least no more cutting and glueing those little center guide teeth. I still don’t have enough of the return rollers, so this is what I have so far:
Now as soon as I get those rollers, I’ll put this side together, in the meantime I’m movin on to the top hull and the turret. Thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
Amazing stuff.
Tracks are always the big bugbear with 1:72.
And I complain about 1/35 track…[:'(]…Outstanding…I would be blind for sure!! Nice details insuch a small package.
Rounds Complete!!
Thanks for your comments guys!
Madmike - yeah, tracks! And machine guns. And aerials… But it all can be fixed with enough creativity. I’m not surprised 1:35 is more popular than 1:72, but I like 1:72 a lot, and I know you do, too!
Mike - thanks a lot, and I hope to give you some more details in my next posts, so please stay tuned.
Thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
The return rollers have arrived!
That was good news… Like six weeks ago I wrote a polite letter to Revell with requestt for parts. About two weeks ago I begun to lose hope, so I phoned 'em and the very nice lady I talked to told me the have always a real flood of requests like that after every christmas, but they are taking care of it - and here we go. I put them rollers on as soon as I got my hands on 'em:
I’m also working on the upper hull right now. I decided to model the driver’s hatch open and the fenders disturbed a little, so I took advantage of having two upper hulls and I cut three of the quarters out of the new hull, then I cut the quarters of the “old glue” and put them on at slight angle, so as to suggest bad things that happened. I also drilled out the driver’s hatch and cut the hatch out of “old glue”, so now I’m ready to show it open. I also made the lifting rings out of wire - rear was no problem, because there was nothing there in the kit, but in the front I had to get rid of the “blobs”. Here’s what it looks like now:
I also started working on the turret - I drilled out the loader’s hatch (it will be open too), and I drilled out the visor in front of the TC’s cuppola (by the way - somebody help me, what’s the correct name for this visor? Rob? anybody?). And I’m using the turret that is many years old. Here’s what it looks like:
What do you think? Thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
It’s the gunner’s primary sight housing, often referred to as the doghouse.
Rob, thanks for your help!
I put the turret together and started filling the joint between the top and the bottom part. In order to do that, I had to take care of the main gun. I removed the old gun and shield and put the Italeri gun and shield in. I drilled out the muzzle brake so that it doesn’t look ultra-heavy (scale!) and I also filled the big hole between the turret and the shield. OK, so now the gun isn’t movable anymore, but hopefully it will look a lot better with a scale mantlet cover. Here’s what I got so far:
As always waiting for your comments, thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
[Y] nice build great pics .
Ron
Thanks a lot, Ron, and please stay tuned!
Paweł
And here I go with another update. First I got the hull almost ready for paint. I made the sand shields out of thin sheet styrene, and I also added the telephone box, taken from the Revell kit:
I also added the lights and finished the fenders
On the turret I built the commander’s cuppola (opened up) and the details around. I added the resin bustle rack loaded with stowage. I also made the lifting rings and the MG-limiter frame out of wire. Curiously enough, if you take a closer look at, you can see slight recesses in the turret’s surface, allowing to accurately position details not included in the kit, like the lifting rings, or the towing rope hooks. The turret:
And since we were talking about the towing rope, look what I managed to solder:
The whole tank is slowly starting to look like a Patton:
Hope you like it, thanks for reading and have a nice day
Paweł
Pawel, you’re really doing this build justice, It looks awesome; nice detailing!
Can’t wait to see it come to life in color!
Pawel - Very nice work and then realize it is 1/72…impressive
Rounds Complete!!
Some fine looking work there.
Looking forward to seeing a layer of paint on it [:)]
Gentelmen - thanks a lot for your very nice comments!
You want to see it painted? Me too! And I hope I can do it soon, I just have to make a tough decision or two on the turret. Then I’ll be good to go.
The 1/72 scale is funny - there is some detail, I thought I won’t be able to reproduce, and then I gave it a try and it worked. After soldering the eyes on the towing rope I had a hard time I pulled it off - four times in a row[cwby]
Thanks again for the comments and please stay tuned - and have a nice day
Paweł
And the beat goes on!
After thinking about it for a while I cut off the plastic handrails off the turret and replaced them with ones I soldered from a thin wire - much more realistic now! I also added a transport bracket for the xenon searchlight on the fan housing (the xenon searchlight is hung glass-down from this bracket when not in use). So after I was done, the turret looked like this:
Then I did what we were all waiting for - started painting!
First I sprayed a lot of Humbrol 113 red-brown, then I picked up certain areas of the model with Humbrol 66 - the closest thing to Olive-Drab I could find in my neighbourhood. After I was done the model looked like this:
And the undercarriage:
From what I’ve seen on the photographs, uder certain conditions the surfaces of the running gear being rubbed constantly maintain the colour of the material (in this case rubber or steel), the other surfaces remain dusty red-brown. That’s what I want to get, so I took a fine brush and started applying Humbrol 32 (Dark Grey - my favourite for weathered black) and Humbrol 53 Gun-Metal. When I was done, this is what it looked like:
I hope I proved you can assemble first and paint later. Not that I insist on this sequence, but in case of this model (and some others with styrene tracks, for that matter) it was of advantage. How do you like it? Thanks for reading, and have a nice day
Paweł
Pawel, I just love this little gem of yours! The detailing that you’re doing is outstanding and the painting is coming out real, real nice too… WOW!
Kevin, thanks a lot for your kind words! I hope, with a little more work, to make it even better.
Thanks again, have a nice day
Paweł
Hello!
It’s been a long time, but I wanted to let y’all know, I’m still working on it. Here’s what it all looks like:
So, from top left we have the major tank components still on their painting holders - pigmented some, futured and decaled. The crew is almost formed - I took 'em from the kits by Preiser company, number 72524 and 72530. Nominally they are year 2000 figs, but I say in this tiny scale they can be backdated to 1968 - the helmets were modified and the sleeves rolled up. I mean in 1:72 it’s hard enough to tell the holstered Beretta 92 apart from a Colt 1911 [:D]
I also started to prepare the stowage - the big things like Ma Deuce, the Xenon searchlight and spare road wheels (which I carved from Old Glue’s leftovers). There’s also the small stuff, like fuel cans, ammo cans, duffels and tarps. There are also the spare track links, doubling as add-on armour for the weak turret sides.
Now to paint it all… Hope you liked it - thanks for reading, have a nice day
Paweł
Even more time passed, but I managed to return to this project and paint the crew. And here’s how I did it: First I assembled the figs, filled the seams and did some little conversions (older helmets, rolled up sleeves). Then I painted the flesh sand - Humbrol 63 if I recall right. I let this coat dry really well (hence those two months delay [:D]. Then I used a brown oil wash, and before it dried I drybrushed the flesh with custom-mixed light pink. The photo below shows the result:
Next thing to do was to paint the non-flesh areas with flat black:
Then, before the black coat could dry throughly (after some 45 minutes) I gave the uniforms a not-so-dry brush coat of Humbrol 116. Then I added some yellow to the 116 and lightly drybrushed the highlights on the uniforms:
Finally I painted the helmets, boots and pistol holsters wwith harnesses. The finished figures (minus the final red dust) look like that now:
Hope you liked it, thanks for reading, and have a nice day
Pawel