It has been quite a struggle to do anything model related in the cave over the last few days due to the heat. Not knocking the weather just saying! Today it's about 26C or 78F here at 1800 hours so time to catch up on admin I think.
However my time was not wasted this weekend with the final two display cabinets being delivered and avidly assembled by myself. Now everything matches nicely in the cave and more importantly I have ample space for many future builds!
I've now finished all the main construction on the model. Just some stowage to add now and then I can get some primer and paint on. I found the kit easy to build even with some very thick attachment points on the parts, especially the small ones! The tracks although time consuming are excellent and the included 3D light guards are a welcome addition as well.
Just a bit of work over the last few days. Mostly focused on the turret although there is not much to show. However the replacement brass .30 cal barrels arrived today so I cracked on and fitted them this afternoon. I used some Master barrels which are excellent. A quick and simple but very effective upgrade. I've also started adding the 3D printed light guards. They are very fine so I'm being extra careful with them. It beats trying to bend etch to the right profile, something I always have trouble with.
A very pleasant day yesterday adding various parts and details to the hull and making a start on the turret. I will add some straps and tie down points to the hull soon as well as some extremely fine 3D printed light guards which are provided in the kit.
The turret again had a very rough added texture which I felt was over scale so a quick sand followed by some Mr surfacer before a final sanding produced a much more acceptable finish to the turret. As you can see the kit provides a nice metal barrel which I've fixed in place. The hull and coaxial machine gun barrels will be replaced with some brass ones for better detail as well.
Back working on the Sherman and I have now finished the tracks. A very tedious task especially during the clean up process of all the end connectors. However the tracks just click together very positively and fit perfectly with the prescribed 79 links per side. Now I can start to add the interesting stuff to the hull.
Decal time now and a mix of dragon and aftermarket decals sorts out the model. The aftermarket decals are on the thick sde, most noticeable on the red roos on the turret. A sealing coat of varnish should blend them in though later.
The tracks received a coat of my custom track colour followed by the track pads picked out with the good old AK marker pens.
A start has been made on the detail painting on the model. Not that much to do really but I will also start adding some wear and scrapes to the model as well. All the road wheels have had the rubber portions added using the AK real colours marker again. A nice quick process, much easier than paint. I've also sorted all the periscopes and main sight glazing which can now be fitted once the model is ready for final weathering.
I've now finished building up the bogies for the model. They were quite fiddly and had some annoying bits that needed cleaning up before assembly but they look good once in place. The tracks have also been looked at and apart from some tedious clean up of each end connector they just click together. I think I will clean up all the parts first then build up each run.
Whilst waiting for stuff to dry and contemplating my next steps on the Abrams build I've decided to crack the box on this kit. Having never built a Border Models kit I initially gave the kit parts and instructions a good look over. The plastic and the instructions are very similar to Takom, I did notice that there are some very large attachment points on some parts though.
So straight away I decided to get the upper and lower hull parts joined together and encountered my first issue. This was a slightly warped lower hull tub. I think this was down to the rather thin sides but with a few dry fits and with the transmission in place it all lined up eventually. The hull and turret have a cast texture which I think is on the heavy side especially for 1/35th. So some sanding has been done on the hull to knock this back slightly.
Turning to the wheel assemblies and starting with the rear idlers this is where you will notice very large attachment points on the sprues. As the plastic is quite soft care needs to be taken in removing them without taking great gouges out of the parts. The idlers are made up of six parts which need some clean up but look good once done.
The Bogies again have multiple parts and with care can be made movable. lots of clean up though and some annoying seam lines to remove once all assembled. Saying all that though the detail looks very good and it's building up nicely so far.
I've finally got around to spraying some paint on the model. This time I've made up a custom colour from tamiya paints and I'm much more happy with this. Using tamiya flat flesh & flat earth this time for a tan sort of colour. I will now work out a suitable green colour then start the camo painting.
Some nice resin packs and stowage have been purchased as well to help fill up the stowage baskets.
