Build Log - Trumpeter 1:72 Scale T-34/76 mod. 1942 (#07206)

[pr154]

Some sneaky after-work Friday patching makes for a more productive weekend hobbying. This Deluxe Perfect Plastic Putty is magical stuff…

The initial priming might have been premature, but it’s identified that the fit of the turret is tight to the point of stripping primer. A light sanding of the tabs under the turret loosened it up, hopefully enough to retain a firm fit without damaging paint during manipulation.

A tapered sanding stick to start and a #600 sanding pen with a 1x2mm stone to finish has done the job without compromising the strength of the tabs

[pr154]

After spending some more time going over airbrush fundamentals, I’m quite pleased with how the 4BO went down…

We started with a 3:3:1 ratio of Tamiya’s XF-21 Sky, XF-67 NATO Green and XF-69 NATO Black

We then followed up with some progressively lighter shades targeting raised details of the upper hull and turret

• 1:1 XF-21 and XF-67
• 3:2 XF-21 and XF-67

Going to sit on this while I mull over next steps…

[Schmidty13]

Do to space reasons, if/when I do armor, it’ll “have to” be 1/72, so this thread has been a great motivator for me to add some armor kits to my stash. Thanks?

Great thread. Appreciate you sharing your progress.

[GreySnake01]

That 4BO came out excellent I may have to try that mix on my next Soviet build.

[pr154]

@Schmidty13 - Haha, my pleasure! May your stash be minimal and your array of completed 1:72 armour be maximal! I imagine the hardest past about shifting scales is that one does develop a preconceived notion about how much detail is enough detail, which is probably easier to manage when you’re going up in scale because you have more details to explore but one might feel like they’re making compromises on detail when reducing scale. Fortunately if you’re new to armour, no such preconceived notions apply and you can just enjoy yourself…

@GreySnake01 - Thanks mate, I hope it works as well for you on the lucky kit There are more targeted products by Ammo, LifeColour and Vallejo out there, but I’m comfortable with how Tamiya paints thin and perform. It was nice that this worked as intended the first time without complicating matters by learning how a new paint behaves…

I should reiterate if you’re intending to follow this recipe, the prime coat was Citadel 's Chaos Black, which has been a highly dependable staple over years of 40K miniature painting. Folks who prefer a white/grey primer would probably want to preshade with a darker mix, either by increasing the ratio of NATO Black or NATO Green. Comrade Stalin won’t be proud of you, but I will be

[GreySnake01]

That Stalin picture made my day.

[pr154]

@pr154

Going to sit on this while I mull over next steps…

One of the sidesquests associated with this project was to come up with a more realistic turret inscription than what’s provided in the kit - Inspired by the below photograph, the “За горь ковск” inscription has been mass-produced by Trumpeter across a range of Soviet kits but incorrectly interpreted as symmetrical unit markings. According to some Russian-speakers on another forum, the inscription doesn’t make sense on its own so it’s more likely that this was an inscription on the turret made by the crew which wrapped the full circumference - This is what we want to replicate, preferably via custom decal

The rails fixed to the turret have been moulded as raised edges rather than separate parts as per the hull. This creates a striking manufacturing inconsistency between the two parts of the model, and complicates the fixing of decals, particularly if we’re going to design our own.

To this end, we’ve decided to grind the moulded handrails off and replicate the turret rails with some paperclip. We’ve also elevated the rails slightly to give us more room to work with our custom decal design

Acquring the paperclips was a mission on its own, so do feel free to join the discussion on dashes of desperation to ensure project continuity…

Hobby emergencies, and what we've done to ensure continuity

Hi Folks, This evening I decided the mouldings of a current project were not accurate, and that grinding them off and replicating the detail with bent paperclip would provide a more representative outcome. The good wife is a teacher, and good teachers usually have a surplus of stationery lying about the home. The problem? The wife and I are packing to move, so she’s either drawn down or packed the stash, and the chances of finding random paperclips in the house short of unboxing packages of pur…

Bit of a bummer that I’ve only made this decision after putting down the initial paintjob, as it does risk slightly inconsistent paint between the turret and hull. I think the risk will be worth the reward in this instance however, and I wasn’t exactly past a point of no return.

After roughing up the new rails with a file so they grab paint more effectively, and fixing them into drilled holes with CA, I’ve taken a few happy-snaps for scale which will help us work out how to design and fit the custom decals. The red marks come from painting the ends of the rails red in order to guide drill points. I probably could have installed the rails more evenly, but such was the quality of Soviet manufacturing of the day that I can probably just blame Ivan and his mates at the factory…

Trumpeter decals for size guidance…

Turret profiles for design/fit…

Next steps are to restore the paintwork we’ve destroyed, hope our finish is consistent wtih the hull, and spend a little time in GIMP (Free Photoshopsort of programme) designing a custom decal…

[pr154]

So with a little bit of digital manipulation and the magic of AI, we’ve generated this inscription translating as “For Gorky’s Suffering”

Scaled and applied to the tank, we should theoretically end up with something like…

The above is based on a 1200dpi output. The printer at work is pretty decent so hoping the DPI will hold, and give us a nice crisp rendition of our intent on decal paper…

[pr154]

In the meantime, we’ve restored the basic paintwork to our turret, achieving very good colour-consistency despite being a mix. This is where setting proper mix ratios rather than using a less scientific method has been a godsend…

Next steps will be track and where installation. The wheels have been painted separately but the tracks supplied with the kit are rubber, and really need to be installed before painting, or the stretching and manipulation of installation will crack the paint.

Any other track set, I’d defer install until much later in the project, but I’d rather not risk an accident and I have no intention of buying a replacement track set that’s worth as much as the kit

[dadoffour]

@pr154

the tracks supplied with the kit are rubber, and really need to be installed before painting, or the stretching and manipulation of installation will crack the paint

Totally a curiosity thing on my part since I’ve never built armor… How does that work? I understand the basic idea but can’t wrap my head around the idea of painting tracks in place after all the other work you have done.

[pr154]

Sure thing! There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with fully assembling the undercarriage before painting, but you lose opportunity to paint/apply details on the inside edge of the tracks later on. Its less of an issue for a parade-ground finish, but can make the model look a bit funny if you have a muddy and weathered undercarriage on the outside but a pristine finish where the brushes can’t reach.

Tracks are supplied with model armour kits in a variety of ways, between moulded plastic sections, individual plastic/metal links, or as strips of rubber.

With the former two cases, you can sit the road wheels, drive sprockets, return rollers and idler wheels on their spigots without glueing them in place and then install the tracks around these parts that define the shape of the track. The track links/parts can then be glued together to provide a rigid structure, which can then be lifted off the undercarriage, wheels and all, once the glue is dried.

This means you can maintain full access to wheels and undercarriage during painting, weathering and applying environmental effects such as mud. You then glue the track and wheels down with CA when you’re done…

Rubber tracks are elastic, and rely on the wheels being installed and glued-in to give them shape. They’re stretched over the wheels and then some tabs at either end of the loop are welded together with a heated hobby knife. Once they’re in place you can paint them, but dry paint is often much less flexible than the rubber.The paint will crack if the rubber surface they’re applied to is stretched further or allowed to contract.

I’m therefore trying to judge how far I use the opportunity to apply more details to the inside edge of the tracks, knowing that I risk damaging those details when I have to paint the rubber tracks post-assembly. It’s probably why most experienced armour modellers toss the rubber and go aftermarket for something they can glue into a more rigid shape

[dadoffour]

Thanks for enlightening me. It seems like a conundrum. I look forward to your solution.

[pr154]

Minor update on this one… Just added some AK Terrains Muddy Ground to the inside edge of the undercarriage.

The vehicle that this tank is based off is believed to have been knocked out during Operation Kutuzov, which was the Soviet counter-attack after the German assault on Kursk, Operation Citadel, had stalled in mid-July 1943. Being a Russian summer, a heavy application of mud doesn’t feel appropriate for the time or place in this case.

The straight-from-the-jar colour is a fair bit darker than we want on the base, but that’s probably okay for the recesses we’re applying it to. We can colour-match more precisely with the dirt/mud we apply to more visible areas in later steps. For now, we really just want to apply enough so that an observer peeking through will see some texture of accumulated dirt.

[GreySnake01]

Looking good. I need to remember to get more of that terrain mixture.

[pr154]

Bigger update on Trumpeter’s 1:72 scale T-34/76 mod. 1942 today…

Front idler, road wheels, and rear drive sprocket have been installed. From the outside, they don’t look too bad…

…but a look at the underside prior to track assembly reveals my frustrations. The fit of the two parts making up each wheel was way too tight. We tried to make painting a little easier by priming and painting the wheels on the sprue, so denied ourselves the opportunity to make sure everything fit without arguments.

Indeed there were arguments, with spigots and penetrations requiring sanding and lubrication with polystyrene cemete so that they’d pass through each other. The result was some damage to paintwork which required some touchups

Working with rubber-band tracks is always a pain, and these were no exception. The ends were melted together using a lighter and a hot sculpting tool to create a continuous loop as the instructions directed, but they pulled tight between the drive sprocket and front idler rather than sagging over the road wheels.

German and American track tends to pull tighter, or are supported by return rollers, but you expect to see some sag with Russian track. Getting rubber-band track to act like gravity exists can be challenging. Overstretching the rubber would not be a good idea, as the rubber simply lacks the gravity of steel and could end up performing acts of levitation around the drive sprocket and idler that look even worse that if we just let the tracks pull tight from either end. Reseach suggested that superglue doesn’t work on Trumpeter’s rubber compound to glue or down, so I’ve poked a thin wire through preformed holes in the tracks and tied the upper track down to the road wheels either side of the drive sprocket and return roller. It’s not a perfect solution, but cheaper than buying aftermarket track that costs more than the original kit

While it’s definitely easier to paint track prior to installation, it’s arguably better to paint a flexible rubber track after installing. The paint won’t stretch or compress as well as the rubber as it’s manipulated over the wheels, so there’s a high likelihood that the paint will deform. We’ve brush-painted a Tamiya X-10 Gun Metal to start with, which will provide a dark metallic colour finish. This looks a little shiny right now, but washes and weathering to follow will tone that down…

We’ve touched up the axles damaged by the fit issues with our darker 4BO blend. This has turned out a little lighter than the original, but does create an interesting colour variation that doesn’t look too out of place

Next steps will be picking out a few more details and highlights of raised edges before proceeding to clear coat to seal it all in…

[pr154]

Starting to look like a proper model tank now!

There weren’t too many details to pick out on this kit that wouldn’t be addressed by the weathering process, just the bow MG, tow cable and headlight. Metallic details were picked out with Tamiya X-10 Gun Metal, while the headlight was treated with XF-2 Flat White tinted with XF-8 Flat Blue

The tank was given a light drybrush with XF-21 Sky to highlight corners and raised edges. Additionally, any bolt heads were topped with the same. This looks a bit stark now, but is expected to help retain their detail after following weathing steps

The exhausts were picked out with a 1:1 mix of X-34 Metallic Brown and XF-64 Red Brown

Off for glossing before we finish off our custom decal design!

[pr154]

Our model was glossed shortly after my last post - Decided not to bore you all with photos of “same model, but shiny” since it’s modelling, not Pokemon. But for what it’s worth I used Tamiya X-22 Clear.

No progress through the week as I needed to finish design and print of our custom decal, which we were finally able to do today!

We started with a test print on standard A4 - Pretty happy with how the design turned out, and it appears to have faithfully rendered onto the paper

The next bit was slightly more challenging as I tried without success to get my decal paper to feed through the bypass tray of our Laser Multi-Function Centre at work. As I watch the feed rollers fecklessly spinning over the back face of the decal paper, I was reminded of this classic tweet from 2021…

I ultimately resolved the issue by cutting out a slot in a sheet of grid paper at the right location (unfortunately this was totally off the grid) and infilling with a suitably sized cutout from my decal paper secured with tape. This printed without issue

I bought the decal paper from an Australian supplier, rather cutely named Dr Decal & Mr Hyde (https://drdecalmrhyde.com.au). They recommend a coat of White Knight Crystal Clear Acrylic over the top of the decals once printed. I’ve let the first coat dry for an hour and then applied another coat. The manufacturer says one coat is enough, but I’m conscious that I’ll be using either low-odour turps or white spirit to dilute oil paints in the next steps so would rather be safe than sorry

I’ll let this settle overnight and we’ll get into some decal application tomorrow! Hopelly they’ll behave like any other kit decal - If this works I’ll be making a habit of scanning any decal sets in a kit before I commit them to a model, just in case I have an installation error or they shred from age and I need to make a replacement

[pr154]

The custom decals have acted as intended, although came out slightly darker on the model than I’d hoped as well as presenting a fair bit thicker than most OOB decal sheets I’ve ever worked with - Hopefully nothing a light sand at the edges can’t fix

I can’t deny the decal thickness is probably out of an abundance of caution where I’ve put two layers of clear coat over the print instead of just the one

Taking a leaf from The Inner Nerd Scale Modelling’s video at 30:18 (https://youtu.be/W3zDmJwpPcY?t=1818), it looks like the best remedy is to clear-coat the model to seal the decals in and then use a 2000 and 3000 grit sanding sponge to do the work to remove these “witness marks” where the decal appears raised against the model surface

[Frozin]

@pr154

Acquring the paperclips was a mission on its own,

@pr154 , I don’t work in 1/72 for armour, but I was thinking that using staples might work as well. They seem to be about the same size, shape, come pre-bent and are a bit thinner than paperclips. As well, one small box will supply a few divisions worth of tanks with rails.

Good work on the tank, colour looks really good.

[pr154]

Thanks mate, not a bad idea in hindsight as it’s probably more scale-appropriate without losing stiffness. I have a bunch of twist ties that I periodically scavenge the steel wire inserts from, but just had visions of deforming them during painting and handling. I’ll keep staples in mind for the arsenal for future builds!