1/35 Tamiya Chieftain MK5

[keefr22]

If you can get some George, the flow improver is worth using even with distilled water. We have really soft tap water, but just 1 or 2 drops of flow improver still makes a difference.

Keith

[slifer44]

UPDATE!!

I've finally managed to give the Chieftain its first coat of black paint. After a rather bad week I thought I would try and crack on with the Chieftain. The first go at applying the paint went the usual way, with the airbrush clogging so I went to clean it, and in the process of cleaning the airbrush the 0.4mm nozzle at the front of the airbrush vanished and I can only assume it went down the drain, sigh , so i'll have to get a replacement eventually. So I equipped the 0.2mm and swapped the Humbrol acrylic for Tamiya NATO Black and thinned it with water, and low and behold it worked. So here are the pictures of the tank with its first coat of Black.

George

Edited November 22, 2014 by slifer44

[Landi_uk]

Hi George

Looking good on the air brushing front. Glad you got the clogging sorted out to your satisfaction. I left the advice to others more experienced with air brushing, as I've only just started my foray into that. I use the tamiya acrylic thinners (x20a) with tamiya paints, but after seeing some good reports I've bought some Ultimate Airbrush Thinner as I have tamiya, vallejo model colour and vallejo model air paints and the reports have been positive that it works on all.

I've been away from the modelling too, just seems so much to do at moment. I am trying to get back to it, to get the black camouflage coat on, but can't find any decent references for the overall pattern.

Anyway glad to see you're getting back to it an that you've sorted the airbrushing.

[MickE]

I use Revell enamel gloss and matt varnish as I find them easy to apply. The gloss can be a bit tricky to get right wrt thinning it.

[slifer44]

Update on the Chieftain!

I haven't been able to do anything model related for the past few weeks due to school work, but I'm finally able to do a bit. So I decided I would get the NATO green on the Chieftain. I decided I wouldn't paint the road wheels yet as i don't think the rubber is dark enough, so they'll be painted when I give my Challenger 2 it's first coats of paint, which hopefully will be next weekend. So here's where the Chieftain is at:

[mixup_1]

Great work George, really enjoying watching this come together. Just started my first piece of armour, Tamiya M26 Pershing, hopefully comes together as nicely as yours is

[slifer44]

Thanks for the kind words mixup. My first armour build was also Tamiya's M26 Pershing, it's a brilliant and fun kit. I'm sure it'll turn out great

George

[slifer44]

Update on the Chieftain, better late than never,

First thing I did was not related to the Chieftain but instead to my Challenger 2 (which has been on and off for around a year because I am determined to do as good a job on it as I can). I ended up building up and attaching in most cases parts that I had left off for painting but have decided need to be on. After about 30 minutes I got the airbrush out and tried my hand at pre-shading, didn't go very smoothly as the airbrush wasn't behaving (no surprise there). Now onto the Chieftain, having slightly thickened the paint used on the Chally 2, I started painting on the camo for the Chieftain. Must admit didn't know what I wanted to do with it, except to keep it as close to the real thing as possible, and I don't think it came out to bad, particularly happy with the hull . Any assistance with the airbrush spraying all over the place (as demonstrated in the Chally pics) is much appreciated (yes i'm on the smallest nozzle I have still haven't replaced the lost larger one).

George

[Dads203]

Chieftain is looking rather good fella, one tip that you might want to consider is to

prime the kits first, noticed this from the chally build you are undertaking. It makes a big difference

when it comes to painting. I use Halfords grey primer for larger areas and Tamiya or Mr Surfacer

for detailed parts and figures.

keep going buddy you are moving in the right direction.

Cheers

Dan

[slifer44]

Merry Christmas all!

Finally managed to make some progress on the Chieftain. First job was to remove the black camo on the skirt and re-apply some NATO Green. While that dried I painted the Wheels (by hand) and left them to dry.

I then re-applied the black camo matching up to the hull camo and I then tweaked and went over the camo already on the tank.

Then the tank was glossed and final assembly competed. Next up decaling and weathering. As it stands now:

(does show that I forgot to gloss under the gun crutch )

George

Edited December 27, 2015 by slifer44

[slifer44]

Small update today. Decals have been applied to the Chieftain. I went with the 'Al Capone' option but the decals for the name broke apart on both sides so the tank is with out Al Capone marked on the hull storage bins on the front. The rest of the decals went on without to much fuss. I decided I would add one of the Union flags to the Chieftain (like on the option for the tanks in West Germany). Out of curiosity does anyone here know what the red AF mark is on the back of the turret?

George