AFV M5A1 Stuart - My First Tank Build

Modeling Subjects Armor
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First, to those that remember me from a couple years ago, I am sorry that I just stopped posting. My wife was diagnosed with stage 4 oral cancer (never smoked anything in her entire life) and I just became consumed with being a caregiver. Fast forward 2 yrs and all appears to be well. After a brutal treatment regime, she has been cancer free! She had some great doctors. Thats to everyone who wished us the best back then.

Anyway, last month I was looking at my modeling bench and my stash and thinking, I need to build a model. I really enjoyed the Armor group build I was in a couple years ago, so I thought, “Why not a tank?” I never build one before and didn’t feel like another aircraft, so I took the plunge to the dark-side.

I started building the AFV M5A1 Stuart Early Production (AF35105). Sorry, I neglected to take any build pictures, but here is the final result. I learned a lot from this build and while I am fairly happy with how it came out for my 1st tank, there is lots of room for improvement. The dust/dirt effect I was going for turned more into “stipples” and I’m not sure I like it. The rubber tracks were a challenge. Even primed, the paint kept flaking off, so if anyone wants to give any guidance here, I’m more than open.

The AFV kit was pretty straightforward but there were places in the instructions that I had to guess on, not having a bunch of tank builds under my belt. My biggest complaint with the kit is, in my opinion (and maybe armor is like this), it is an incomplete kit. If you look at the rear grill, it opens into nothingness. The rear has 4 doors that open into nothingness - no floor or compartment at all. While they may have wanted to leave that open for an aftermarket engine, not having a basic compartment was really surprising. In hindsight, I could have used plastic card to build one, but I don’t know why one wasn’t included.

Stuart 1

Stuart 2

Stuart 3

Stuart 4

Stuart 5

Comments and suggestions are most welcome. I just started on a Task M4A1 Sherman Direct Vision Type - ouch. They seemed to have forgotten to translate a lot of the instructions!

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AlanF - that Stuart is lookin’ good! Good luck with your next modelling projects and best greetings for your lady - thanks for sharing and have a nice day

Paweł

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Alan Great news about your wife, great tank turned out really well.

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I hope your wife continues to improve.

And nice work on the Stuart, I’ve two of the AFV Club kits and they’ve about a zillion teeny parts so my hats off to you by starting on one of the harder kits out there.

BTW: I’m found ‘rubber bumper paint’ from the auto parts store to be a good primer for rubber band type tracks. Make sure you scrub them well with dishwashing detergent, dry, and then give them a light coat on both sides before you paint.

5

Very nice!

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Thank you Pawel, Captfue, Gamera and MrT.

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That looks great! If you still have the sprues, look for the ventilagor cover that goes between the driver and assistant driver. It should look like a little disc.

AND most importantly Give your wife a hug for all of us. I am also a cancer survivor. She’s not in remission… she’s CURED. (a good mindset to have).

Cheers!

Ron

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Hi again Alan

Great positive news about the wife! Sometimes life throws us a curb ball but all is turning out good for both.

The Stuart looks good all around. Yes most armor models leave huge cavities open without anything so that’s were the resin am parts or scratch work come in.

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Good looking Stuart.