I started this kit a good 4 months ago, but that was with shelving it for a month and a half. I had kind of gotten into a funk and moved on. But last month I decided to pick it back up again and roll. I have tried to work ONLY one kit at a time (or at the very most I will work one armor and one aircraft while the other is drying, etc.) Anywho, long story short this is what I have been working on for the last few weeks:
Details:
I used the Eduard full photo etch kit for this. Obviously did not use everything, but there is quite a bit of tiny metal on there. That is partly why it took so long. Paint is a base of Tamiya Desert Yellow for shading with Buff for the highlighting. I spent a good 3 hours one day looking at Abrams pictures, and I have to say that while there were a bunch of beat up Abrams, the vast majority seemed to be surprisingly clean…and we are talking about field operating vehicles here! Thats why I once again chose to go simple dusty type weathering. Now, I have had problems lately with Mig Pigments on the desert colored vehicles. Basically they all seem to vanish amongst the sand colored vehicles. So to make it stand out this time I decided to mix Buff and Dark Earth until I got a color I liked and then airbrushed on the dusting except for the tracks where I was able to used Dry Mug pigments. I used Tamiya’s smoke for the bulge on the gun because I saw a bunch of photos where this was prominent. Also for the vents on the back I saw some 50/50 with darkened smoky coloring and clean. I took a little artistic liberty and chose a more heavily smoked vent simply to add contrast. So I don’t know how close to reality it truly is. But to me it looks good. Stowage is from Italeri’s modern US equipment except for the ALICE packs which were given to me by ModelManiac96*. They were painted Tamiya Olive Drab, shadows black artist oils, highlights MM Russian Armor Green. That is about all I can think of for right now.
Anyways, I am thinking of calling this one done, but before I make that bold statement I am looking for comments and critique that might need working on. Anyone spot something that could use working on? Looks good? Looks bad? Let me have it fellas!
Brian
*He actually only had 3 to give me, and I was going to use these as a base to make a mold and try my hand at resin casting. Long story short I don’t know what I was doing wrong. Mold came out fine, but I had serious problems pouring. Tons of bubbles no matter what I did, and it took me literally 6 attempts to get ONE extra pack decent enough I could use gap filling super glue to fill bubbles on and give me a servicable pack. And sadly this was the best of the pieces I modeled and tried to cast…I won’t even begin to describe the troubles the K89 Mausers gave me.
Looks pretty good. Good job on the finish and weathering. A few pointers though. The circular race for the loader’s MG should be steel. It is actually bare metal. The antennas should be dark green as well, and only 2 3/4 inches long in 1/35 scale. The wheel center hubs should be painted a black with a sand colored nut in the center. They are actually clear and filled with oil. They are clear so the crew can quickly check to ensure there is plenty of oil to lubricate the hub. Here is how they look.
Lastly, you need to paint the periscopes around the commander’s cupola. The actual ones have r iridescent anti-laser coating. To represent this, I find it best to first paint them black. Next, put on a couple coats of clear red, then a couple coats of clear gloss. This gives a good, thick finish that changes color when looked at from different angles, just like the real thing.
HeavyArty, thank you very much for the tips. I had to go with the “looks about right” length for the antennas, but now I know better I will fix those. I wish the darn instructions would have listed such a simple detail. I will also try your method for the windows around the commanders cupola, paint the machine gun race and wheel hubs. I can’t believe I actually missed something so simple as the windows around the cupola…
Nice Abrams, I like the subtle weathering effects. [Y]
Apart from Gino’s observations and suggestions, I believe you have the ammo box/mount on the wrong side of the 0.50 Cal. It should be an easy fix though.
Nice Abrams you have there. The details the other chaps have picked out would really make it! But i still think it is really great so far. [Y]
What is the box on the right hand rear? Is it the APU? If it is…i have never seen one mounted here before. I have only ever seen APU’s at the rear of the turret. Interesting.
It is indeed the “early” APU, which was used up till the early 90’s (?) and mounted as you see, on the rear right of the hull. This was superseded by the bustle rack APU.
Man, I don’t know how I screwed up the ammo feed rack. I am a gun guy and should have KNOWN better. [:$] . I popped that off and fixed it to the other side. I cut down the antennas (my “Looks about right” method worked pretty good, the antenna were 3" as measured but I still cut off the extra 1/4") and painted them Olive Drab. The hubs were hit with MM Burnt Umber. And the windows got painted black and clear red as suggested. All I have to do now is break out the artist oils and blend everything down again in the areas I worked on. Will repost new pics when I can.
The standard M2HB as used on the Abrams is a LH feed only. The aircooled “aircraft” version is configured to feed from either side. Im not sure the AC is still around in the inventory.
You can distinguish the two by the barrel. The aircraft barrel is slightly shorter and the cooling jacket runs to the muzzle. Internally the differences are more pronounced if you know what youre looking at. The standard M2 has a 550 RPM rate of fire, the aircraft upwards 900.
Think of a B17, B24, PT boats, etc. those waist/turret/dual mount guns were all AC so to feed from either side.
Not sure Jesse, I’ll make a couple of assumptions here and say that on the M1A1 at least, the 0,50 is/can be fired by remote from within the turret when buttoned up and the optical sight is on the right side of the mount. If the ammo box was on the right, the field of view of the sight would be obscured. This is not the case on the M1A2, where the 0.50 is fired manually. (Different cupola design)
From doing some research, the modern M2 is still capable of being fed from either side. It just requires some reconfiguration of the internal components which can be done in less than a minute with no tools.
I image then the the mount for the .50 cal on the Abrams limits the ability for it to be fed from either side.
Thanks G! I have come to find the best modelling tool purchase I have made to date was to upgrade to a Badger Renegade Velocity airbrush. My other Badger has served me well, but the kind of detailing I can get with the Renegade has opened up great possibilities for me. I spent a good 3 hours working on the basecoat between spraying the Desert Yellow base to finishing the last of the Buff highlighting. It was a long paint session, but I am very pleased with the results.
USMC1371, thank you for your comments. I too like a nice “lived in” but not abused look. I think there are plenty of skilled modellers here who turn out some gorgeous mud, rust, and in “dead and burned” looks. But for me I like building dirty but not thrashed.
