Time to ditch the wingy things and armour up! First AFV WIP - Academy M3 Grant 1:35

[clive_t]

23 minutes ago, Das Abteilung said:

Continuing the riveting saga of rivets, my attempts to contact Grandt Line have gone unanswered.  Very strangely, their website has just become blank grey pages for the last few days.  Could they have folded?  I found a note on a US model railroad site to say that the founder had passed away and his children had taken over, but it isn't dated.  Lots of US Model railroad stores seem to carry Grandt Line.

 

Noting Clive's revelation about being a railway trackhead, I found a UK model railway site who claim to offer a very similar alternative product here: http://www.ngtrains.com/Pages/Details/NBW/nbw.html .  However, the last note on the page is dated Oct 16 predicting a re-stock.  An email to them has gone unanswered too.  Clive - is there anything like this in the Gauge 1 community??

 

Thanks for your efforts in this respect Peter

 

I am told that 'great minds think alike' - there is an alternative saying which I shall ignore! I too happened across that EDM Models site a day or so ago, and indeed was disappointed to find their re-stock was still pending from last October   It was through pursuing a line of inquiry in the context of railway modelling that I found the site. Sadly, although the larger-scale model railway fraternity has its fair share of rivet counters, there doesn't seem to be anyone (at the moment at least) who is prepared to supply anything for them to count!

 

At the moment, you water filter bead idea is looking favourite!

 

 

[Cromwell]

Think your leather effect on the chairs is good

[clive_t]

9 hours ago, Cromwell said:

Think your leather effect on the chairs is good

Thanks, I'm not sure if the colour is right, but at least I managed to get it to look lived-in

[Cromwell]

The texture is excellent I like how you did that. 

[clive_t]

1 hour ago, Cromwell said:

The texture is excellent I like how you did that. 

The effect was achieved with a small square of tissue paper, split into its separate layers, slightly larger than the surface to be covered, Apply the first layer, then paint on 50:50 diluted PVA, ensuring that the edges are folded to cover the edges of the seat (same for the seat back if appropriate). Repeat with the second tissue layer, this should result in some wrinkles appearing, or failing that just move the paper around a little with either a small brush or toothpick. Once dry, it should be solid enough to paint. A suitable 'wash' colour brings out the wrinkles and depressions.

[FrancisGL]

NIce progress for now..., cheers Clive

[clive_t]

2 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

NIce progress for now..., cheers Clive

Thanks Francis!

 

Some more modest progress from yesterday evening with the PE bits on the front fender:

 

 

Some of these are damn-near microscopic!

 

Also, I appear to now have several life-times' supply of rivets of various sizes, courtesy of open-heart surgery on a redundant Brita water-filter cartridge, thanks to Peter @Das Abteilung for the suggestion:

 

 

Finally for now, I have this evening opened up a new WIP thread for the crew for this vehicle, over here , should you be sufficiently interest to follow along

 

Thanks for watching

[Cromwell]

Good idea for the rivets.   Post some close ups please to show us how it went. V.interested in this idea

[clive_t]

Will do, won't get a chance to try it until Friday unfortunately - but the filter content is fully dried out now so I will be able to get straight on it then

[Kingsman]

Continuing the riveting saga (groan!!!), the Grandt Line website is back up again but their foreign ordering page link is still broken.  I have email confirmation that they will ship direct. $3 a pack, waiting for shipping info.

 

They suggested the 7mm Narrow Gauge Association, who do seem to have some Grandt Line in stock at £3 a pack and claim they can get anything else not listed.. http://7mmnga.org.uk/modelling-goods.php 

Probably a good idea to look up the Grandt Line list first as it has drawings and dimensions: http://www.grandtline.com/products/miscellaneous-hardware/#.  There was a time when £3 would have been a lot more than $3 .............

 

I didn't get an email reply from EDM about their alternatives.  I left an answerphone message earlier in the week but haven't had a response to that either.

 

As I said, I have used the water filter ball method but it is a little tedious and many will go to feed the Carpet Monster along the way.  Fortunately you get many - very many! - and they're free if you have a filter jug.  As I recall I used MEK as that works with a wider range of plastics than standard liquid poly and is very thin.  A quick bit of Googling revealed that "The white and yellow balls are ion exchange resin that is basically a functionalised polymer chain which swaps its protons for calcium, magnesium and copper ions.". So the balls are a resin of sorts.  I suppose the teeniest tiniest drop of cyano would be a more certain bet.

 

Drilling the divots takes practice to get right, and you can't really use an electric drill.  Hand pin vice only.  On which subject I got a really nice one with a rotating ball top and a knurled ring you twiddle with your fingers, which I find really easy and nice to use.  Mine came from Hobbycraft, can't remember the brand - maybe Gale Force 9.  But I have seen them elsewhere.  Here's an identical one I found quickly on eBay: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Proops-Ball-Head-Pin-Vice-Holder-4-Collets-0-3mm-Modellers-Jewellery-M0993-/112328107488?_trksid=p2141725.m3641.l6368

[clive_t]

Thanks again Peter for this information.

 

By a happy coincidence there is a model railway exhibition being held very locally to where I live this Saturday, for which I have made myself an appointment to attend. It's usually a well-supported show, trade-wise, so it's quite possible that there will be someone there selling such things - rivets, pin-vices and the like. I already have 2 pin-vices - one of which is double-ended, the other has an (Archimedean?) mechanism to aid manual 'drilling', but a ball-type looks a potentially useful addition

 

By another coincidence, at the last such show back in November, I availed myself of some MEK which is as yet untouched, so I have plenty of options it seems. Looking forward to at least giving it a try and reporting on the success (or otherwise!)

[Kingsman]

These are new to me from Bronco: not seen them before.  Limited range, but perhaps the only source for crenelated nuts (I'm sure you can get cream for that in Boots!) or the German-style single wing nuts.  About a fiver a pack, so maybe not such good VFM.  Seem to be available from the usual suspects.  I'm pretty sure someone on eBay from China is selling unbranded resin knock-offs of these.  I bought some a while back and the product pictures are suspiciously alike.

 

Grandt Line shipping works out at about 30c a pack for the quantity I want.  Still $22 / £17 though: hmmmm.....  Apparently the 7mm NG society were sent a large order last week, so their advertised stock may be about to go up.

 

Handy tip on the drill front.  Get ones with constant diameter shanks: then you're not constantly changing chuck sizes when you change drill sizes.

I mean ones that look like this.

[clive_t]

Thanks again Peter, very handy to know.

 

For my own part, I have made some progress this morning, starting with a bit of experimentation on the 'home-made' rivet front. I tried out various techniques on a small piece of scrap styrene sheet:

 

 

I started in each case with a small pilot hole in the plastic made with a sharp point. In one row I just continued with the sharp point, widening the hole by waggling it round in a rough circle. The other row was made with a 0.8mm drill, just deep enough to get a countersink depression in the plastic. I tried different sizes of bead from the pile, applying a small drop of liquid poly into the hole, and following it with the bead. I found that the best effect was with the partially-drilled holes, but on a couple of occasions my enthusiasm got the better of me and the depressions were slightly wider than the bead. But, all in all I was quite happy with the result:

 

 

I also got caught out a couple of times with applying a slightly different sized bead to the one I wanted. I think in hindsight I should have picked out a whole bunch at the same time, and ensured that they all looked the same size before going on to apply them to the hull. Anyway, I was able to do as much of the additional riveting as I think I needed using this method - once the base colour has been re-applied to the outside, it should look just fine:

 

 

There were a couple of places on the kit where the IPMS Perth site suggested rivets should be added, which I didn't bother with - e.g. where it talked about a whole line of rivets needed to number 35 (there are actually 33) - I couldn't see a way of doing it consistently other than removing the 'inner' 31 (ie leave the 2 at either end of the line) and then replace those 31 with 33 evenly spaced new rivets! Sorry, life's too short! Similarly, the two lines of 10 rivets at the back which would have been obscured by the stowage boxes, I am not going to bother with either. It's entirely feasible that I will be putting some extra bits and pieces on and around that area anyway, so making doubly sure that no soul would ever clap eyes on them.

 

I still have a few gaps to fill around the hull, but all in all I am pretty pleased with the result. Thanks for watching!

[Kingsman]

Happy to help, as the saying goes.

 

I did have a message back from EDM about their "alternative Grandt Line" products.  The proprietor has been ill, so now I feel guilty for pestering him.  At the moment he is only selling at model railway shows, so Clive might run across him.  He is hoping to implement an on-line ordering system but that is proving problematic.  The range is apparently larger than that currently listed on his out-of-date page.

 

Just looking at the workbench pics, I found that Ikea glass tealight holders are just the right size for many round bottles: certainly for the Humbrol liquid poly.  They do several shapes but choose heavy chunky ones.  Stops you knocking them over.  Mek is a bit slimmer, bit sits in deep enough to stop it falling over.  I may just be clumsy but I have up-ended bottles in the past, especially the taller Mek.  I bought a couple of custom holders for the square Tamiya cement bottles and Microscale bottles from a company in Glasgow called MAN Models.  They looked nice and neat in the photos, but what I got were just crude lumps of pour-moulded resin, badly cleaned-up.  They do the job but I was a little disappointed.

[Bullbasket]

19 hours ago, clive_t said:

There were a couple of places on the kit where the IPMS Perth site suggested rivets should be added, which I didn't bother with - e.g. where it talked about a whole line of rivets needed to number 35 (there are actually 33) - I couldn't see a way of doing it consistently other than removing the 'inner' 31 (ie leave the 2 at either end of the line) and then replace those 31 with 33 evenly spaced new rivets! Sorry, life's too short! Similarly, the two lines of 10 rivets at the back which would have been obscured by the stowage boxes, I am not going to bother with either. It's entirely feasible that I will be putting some extra bits and pieces on and around that area anyway, so making doubly sure that no soul would ever clap eyes on them.

I'm definitely with you on this one Clive. If it can't be seen, why waste time on altering it. There have been a couple of times when I have left the Cromwell engine deck as Tamiya supply it, simply because I intended to cover it with stowage. Anyway, nice going on the progress so far.

Take care with the MEK. I use it all the time, but it can be dodgy. I used to work at Shell's plant at Shell Haven in the 70's and Mobil's plant at Coryton in the 80's and 90's, and both used the material in processes. It can give you a really nasty headache if inhaled too much. And if knocked over on the work bench, it can reduce a model that has taken hours of work, to a load of gloop in seconds.

 

John. 

[Cromwell]

I'd go proper dotty with all them rivets

 

but it makes such a difference

[clive_t]

On 13/05/2017 at 1:13 AM, Das Abteilung said:

Happy to help, as the saying goes.

 

I did have a message back from EDM about their "alternative Grandt Line" products.  The proprietor has been ill, so now I feel guilty for pestering him.  At the moment he is only selling at model railway shows, so Clive might run across him.  He is hoping to implement an on-line ordering system but that is proving problematic.  The range is apparently larger than that currently listed on his out-of-date page.

 

Just looking at the workbench pics, I found that Ikea glass tealight holders are just the right size for many round bottles: certainly for the Humbrol liquid poly.  They do several shapes but choose heavy chunky ones.  Stops you knocking them over.  Mek is a bit slimmer, bit sits in deep enough to stop it falling over.  I may just be clumsy but I have up-ended bottles in the past, especially the taller Mek.  I bought a couple of custom holders for the square Tamiya cement bottles and Microscale bottles from a company in Glasgow called MAN Models.  They looked nice and neat in the photos, but what I got were just crude lumps of pour-moulded resin, badly cleaned-up.  They do the job but I was a little disappointed.

 

Ah well, at least we know. Sadly the show I attended on Saturday, whilst the exhibits were pretty good, the trade support was somewhat lacking, particularly in the area of tools and bits -n- bobs. Hey ho, it was an hour of not looking through a head-mounted magnifier! Sadly, although my bench is quite large, a good proportion of it is taken up with a large PC screen. I am waiting for that to go 'pop' (it is 10 years old this year) whereupon I will be 'down sizing' to reclaim that valuable bench space!

 

On 13/05/2017 at 9:19 AM, Bullbasket said:

I'm definitely with you on this one Clive. If it can't be seen, why waste time on altering it. There have been a couple of times when I have left the Cromwell engine deck as Tamiya supply it, simply because I intended to cover it with stowage. Anyway, nice going on the progress so far.

Take care with the MEK. I use it all the time, but it can be dodgy. I used to work at Shell's plant at Shell Haven in the 70's and Mobil's plant at Coryton in the 80's and 90's, and both used the material in processes. It can give you a really nasty headache if inhaled too much. And if knocked over on the work bench, it can reduce a model that has taken hours of work, to a load of gloop in seconds.

 

John. 

 

I hear you with the MEK John, some years ago my attempts to detail a railway coach interior and exterior came to a crashing halt when I did exactly that. A month's work and an entire coach consigned to the bin Needless to say I always screw the lid on good and tight now, and keep the bottle right out of the way unless needed.

 

On 15/05/2017 at 7:58 PM, Cromwell said:

I'd go proper dotty with all them rivets

 

but it makes such a difference

 

Thanks Mr Cromwell, I have rather surprised myself with how well the trick turned out for me, even allowing for the mess I made in a couple of places. I think a bit of filler and a re-spray, and it'll be good.

 

So, a bit more progress - I've been painting the interior of the upper hull, the rear bulkhead and the turret using the same method as I did for the floorplate and lower hull:

 

 

 

 

Yet another test fit, this time of the rear bulkhead in the lower hull, with the 37mm ammo cupboard and fire extinguishers:

 

 

As you can see, there's still the 75mm ammunition to be fitted to the racks, but in order to do that I must first paint the rounds. Notwithstanding the difficulty in being able to see them once everything is in place - even with access hatches all open - I am not convinced that Academy's suggested colour scheme ('gold' for the casing, 'silver' for the actual round) is right. I was under the impression that ammunition was colour coded to indicate whether a round was HE or AP, and with additional banding to indicate the chemical content where appropriate. At the moment I am not sure what a typical compliment of ammunition would be on a fully armed Grant, so some research will be needed. Unless anyone on here can share their knowledge on the matter?

 

Thanks for comments and for watching!

 

 

 

[Kris B]

Lots od work with this one. I builded one few years ago in Bovington painting scheme. Some parts wasn't stick together straight forward, but nice kit at all. 

Nice work up to now. 

[clive_t]

9 minutes ago, Kris B said:

Lots od work with this one. I builded one few years ago in Bovington painting scheme. Some parts wasn't stick together straight forward, but nice kit at all. 

Nice work up to now. 

 

Thanks Kris. I am enjoying the challenges the kit presents, at the moment the biggest is trying to make sense of how all the Eduard PE bits fit together!

[MikeR]

Nice work on the interior.

 

Mike.

[Cromwell]

Looking good.

 

a quick general question.....the return rollers are they metal or rubber?

[clive_t]

34 minutes ago, MikeR said:

Nice work on the interior.

 

Mike.

 

Thanks Mike

 

2 minutes ago, Cromwell said:

Looking good.

 

a quick general question.....the return rollers are they metal or rubber?

 

Thanks, from all the pics I've seen as well as the YouTube clips, they look metal to me.

[Kingsman]

Cartridge cases would be dull brass rather than gold.

 

This is the artwork from the AFV Club 75mm ammo set.  Looks a nice little set, shell markings and all.

In this pic the 5 rounds on the right are US 75mm.  From the right: Smoke, canister, HE, APC M61, AP M72.  I believe the HE shell body would have been green.

 

In this pic, nos 5-7 from the left are 75's.  Note that the M61 APC in this pic (7th) has tracer and the case is marked as Supercharge.  Later than Grant period.

 

US and British 75mm ammunition was interchangeable in both US and British guns as the British OQF 75mm was designed to use the US ammunition.  But at the time of North Africa we were a long way away from our own gun and ammunition.

 

The main AP round Early in the desert was the M72: the short stubby black one, with a yellow band in the top photo.  The M61 APC wasn't available until later: don't know when.  For Gazala the converted "Composite" round with the German shell was issued to overcome the lack of penetration of the M72, which could not penetrate Pz III or IV above 500 yds.  That shell looked very much like the M61 but was a little shorter and blunter: we converted 15,000.  In 1/35 you won't notice.  It is the middle one in the picture below. We did also adapt some 2,000 of the German HE shell, on the left below.  Many of the US HE rounds arrived in dangerous condition and with variable propellant loading and ineffective fusing.  There were accidents and lack of target effect.

Edited May 16, 2017 by Das Abteilung
Correction

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Rivets.....Who's counting? 

 

Cracking work, love the grubby interior. 

[clive_t]

6 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Rivets.....Who's counting? 

 

Cracking work, love the grubby interior. 

Thanks Sarge

 

Thanks too, Peter @Das Abteilung for the superbly detailed reply to my plea for info about the ammunition - greatly appreciated.