TeaWeasel

Glue, then use the tape to just hold it together while the glue sets.

Decided to give tank modelling a go after a friend introduced me to Night Shift and his series of incredibly detailed, interesting videos. With that in mind I decided to just take the plunge and bought my first armour kit, a drunken impulse 1/48 Challenger 2 from Tamiya. At the time I just assumed 1/48 is the norm for tank models given 1/48 is pretty big when it comes to aircraft, didn't realise until afterwards that 1/35 is much more common and has much more in the way of aftermarket parts. The 1/48 Challenger 2 is pretty threadbare in terms of third-party parts. I'll begin by saying I know very little about tank design and infrastructure compared to aviation. When it says "desertised", the only thing I'll be able to tell you is that it has the yellow-brown camo and probably some filters to prevent sand getting into the interior works, that's it. Hopefully I'll learn a few things along the way. Despite being considerably smaller the quality is still pretty top-notch. One thing I do know however that while I'm eager to try some of Night Shift's techniques, I'll have to limit myself here. I imagine the Challengers in Iraq would be in somewhat better nick than the old Soviet/German stuff he tends to work on, so achieving that balance will be a bit tricky, if anyone knows any resources, that'd be appreciated. So first stage was the lower chassis which was pretty easy. One thing that really surprised me was the inclusion of the weight to give the model a bit more heft. Those little details are why I love Tamiya kits. I've given it a good go over with the CA so hopefully it'll never budge or dislodge. Then I moved to the wheels. Nothing too special here, just nicked the rubber rims a little to simulate wear and tear. Half done, half still to go. Plan is to dry-fit the wheels then attach the tracks. Hopefully this'll give one solid subassembly I can remove for painting, but given most of the running gear will be covered by the skirts, I'm not sure it'll be necessary. Thanks all, any comments on my first leap into armour modelling will be appreciated. Joe

Great work! What did you use to get the mottled effect? Have wanted to give it a go but not sure where to begin.

Looks good so far, looking forward to seeing the digital camo.

Morning all, The bomb bay is finally complete: I applied a coat of black primer then a heavy-ish drybrush of Vallejo medium grey. It's not great, but it's completely invisible once the final parts are attached. The cowling went on next followed by the Upkeep spin mechanism. Some filing was needed to get it to sit right but overall there were no major issues there. The joins need a bit of sanding but nothing too major. I gave it a quick go over with the wet 'n' dry earlier and that's taken care of most of it already. Now we get to two cockups I've made so far in the build: In my haste to get the engine nacelles fitted, I attached the top plate too early, not realising that the undercarriage legs are supposed to be fed in from the top. That's on me and my eagerness. Luckily I've discovered that they can still be prised into place from underneath with a bit of encouragement, so no problems overall. I was ready to attach the canopy and mask it off for priming, and decided to dust it off. The cloth I was using must have had some sort of chemical on it because it's just ruined the plastic. I initially thought it was that clear coat that's just melted, so tried a bit of Biostrip to get rid of the rest, no help there. So it's off to Airfix for a spare. I've had great success with them before; they were able to send out multiple spares for the 1/48 Lightning they haven't made in years, so I'm confident they'll be able to help now. While I wait for that I suppose the next steps will be the undercarriage and turrets. Once the new canopy arrives I can get it masked and start painting this beast. Thanks all, Joe

Another week gone by, some progress made. I've got 3 of the nacelles smoothed out to a satisfactory level, the fourth is proving to still be a thorn in my side. The number 2 engine looks a bit better in person, I think maybe one more layer of primer will help. In the meantime I completed the tailplane and elevators. Those little prongs by the rudders were a little fiddly, although they were better than a small fin I was about to attach to a 1/72 Hawk, ended up swallowing it by accident... I was kinda dreading the Upkeep attachments mainly because I forgot to drill the holes in the fuselage for the arms. Luckily I was able to use a bright light to find the thinner areas of the plastic. I'll prime it black and give it a light drybrushing of grey; it'll be mostly covered with some sort of cowl so I won't go nuts on something that'll barely be visible (he says after fitting the whole Eduard upgrade). And lastly I added the brass barrels to the rear turret. This was trickier than the nose turret as the location of the barrels gave little room for error. It's not 100% spot on, but I doubt you'd notice if it wasn't pointed out. Thanks all, comments would be welcome. Joe

Thanks for the comments everyone. Took a bit of a break from this over Christmas, the kit was starting to be a bit of a bugger. The wings went on seemingly fine, no problems with them or the tailplane. I've run out of space to photo this thing so having to use the box topper from my next project. You can see I've applied a primer coat to some areas already which I'll explain in a bit. The engine nacelles have been the buggery part. They were a bit warped on the sprue anyway, and while I've tried to correct it they've left some rather ugly seams. Maybe the wings just weren't lined up correctly, maybe this is standard for this kit, who knows? Either way, that's where most of my effort has been over the last couple of weeks. I've applied MiG putty in several areas to clean up the seams but it has the habit of sanding away from where you want it, while the areas you don't want it remain. Failing that I used GW Green Stuff. Overall it was much easier to smooth out and did the job a lot better but it's still not perfect. I think the best course of action from here would be to just apply another coat or two of the primer just to help hide that gap a bit more. There's little detail on the nacelle tops anyway so seems like a low-risk option. The undersides of the nacelles still need doing, but I think they'll be a lot easier now I have a plan worked out. Thanks, Joe

Thanks for the tip. I think some touch-ups with a brush might be necessary but that seems the most straightforwards approach. Despite my ramblings about PE last time I did have another crack on some smaller pieces. The 5" turrets were suitably enhanced with ladders and hatches. You can see the turret on the right has received some upgrades. Unfortunately the larger ladder for the other side of the turret was lost to the carpet monster, so that particular one will have to go on the starboard rear mount, won't be visible there anyway. I also had another go on the staircases, removed the existing plastic one, used a bit of Ammo putty to smooth out any damage and replaced it with the larger stairs you see there between the rafts. Pretty happy with how that one turned out. Assembled more of the superstructure and added some more PE. The staircase in the upper centre was actually suppose to link the lower deck to the 20mm mount deck, was far too short despite Eduard's instructions so placed it there instead. And while all that was drying I did a batch of the 20mm Oerlikons, she definitely looks a little fiercer with those. I think from now on my strategy will have to be to focus on the superstructure, get that ready for painting. Once that's done I can add bits here and there after painting them separately. The masts and radar arrays look far too delicate to leave on while painting. Thanks all, any comments appreciated. Joe

Bloody hell this is coming along nicely. Just found this thread and there's some very helpful info here. I have the 1/200 Nelson with KV upgrades at home, been collecting dust for a good while but will have to refer back to this when I find the time/space to start again.

All I can say is good luck with the Eduard PE. I've only today just got back into my KGV, shelved it for over a year as the PE was just becoming too much of a headache.

Thanks for the kind words, once you get past that mentality it becomes much more enjoyable.

A very long time has passed since I took a look at this kit, for a few reasons: I was getting pretty sick of the somewhat ridiculous Eduard bits. Since the last update I've become a dad and we've moved flat so it was boxed up on a shelf for a while. I've decided to finally try to get this finished in 2023. With that in mind I've decided to just leave off a significant portion of the Eduard stuff, mostly for my own sanity. Things like the 20mm gun shields for example; once it's painted you will probably never know it's a PE upgrade over the real thing. Any PE I've already applied I'll do so on the other side to maintain symmetry, and the railings around the deck edge I'll also use, anything else will be left off by default unless I decide it's worth the effort. I suspect there'll be some who will scoff at this approach, but oh well. So the main superstructure is fully glued now. As expected with Tamiya the fit was excellent. The structures supporting the 5" guns was next, again no issues there. The boat deck still needs filling out, I may paint the rest of them separately and attack afterwards. You can see some of the railing work on the left, that I'll duplicate where necessary, but even that was a headache. Towards the stern, I've added the remaining ports(?) for the 20mm Oerlikons, overall not much else has happened here. Here's a progress shot so far. It's definitely nice to see some progress amongst the mess that is my workstation. I'm still unsure about the best way to paint it however, not the colours, moreso the order in which to do it. I gather it's best to do the hull first obviously, but how to follow from there? Paint the deck and mask it off when it comes to the superstructure? Sounds the easier option but the delicate parts may be damaged by masking Paint the superstructure first then mask it off for the deck? Same issue really. I have a 1/200 Nelson at home gathering dust for the same reason. Any better shipwrights able to advise? Cheers, Joe

Happy Monday everyone. Latest update and the interior is pretty much finished. The last coloured Eduard parts went on nicely thanks to Ultra Glue, so much easier to work with than superglue. There's some runoff of the brown wash but that's not visible once the cockpit floor is attached. I also finished off the navigator table. I know the purists will insist the maps wouldn't be on display in an empty aircraft but oh well... Since then I've painted over the odd stray bit of glue, then I can begin the exciting task of putting the fuselage together. Thanks all, comments appreciated. Joe

I've heard good things about it, I was just quoting the guy at Hannants.

Ah there doesn't seem to be that much difference between the Humbrol and Tamiya, not enough to make me want to change it at least. Amongst all the photoetch I thought I'd have a look at the replacement barrels for the .303's. Some additional paints arrived from MiG yesterday and they also included the same 8x barrels, which was a nice surprise. Will use them on the Italeri Stirling I'm currently waiting on. Replacing the barrels was actually a lot smoother than I anticipated. I just snipped off the plastic ones, filed the surface ever so slightly just to get a nice flat surface for drilling, then a quick go with the 0.8mm bit and they fit like a glove. Was actually expecting them to be a real headache, but after that and a little bit of photoetch, the nose turret is starting to take shape. Also tried out a new thing I bought at a show in Guildford a couple of weeks ago. Have heard many many posts talk about treating clear parts with Johnson's Klear, I was "helpfully informed" by the staff at Hannants that "it's just f***ing floor polish", so saw this stuff on sale and thought I'd give it a go: Instructions seem a bit suspiciously simple, just "dip it and leave to dry for a few hours", tried it on one of the canopies: The right one has been treated, the left one is just straight out of the box. Not sure what it should look like, so might not bother with the rest. Thanks all, all comments welcome. Joe