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French Army EBR 75 Tourelle FL 10 - completed


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And the final one in this motley collection. This is my second attempt at building this model, I had planned to build it in the 70’s NATO vs Warsaw (or maybe even in the 80’s one) but at the last moment I found out it was pretty much out of frontline service in France by the early 60’s!

 

Another resin beast for me as usual and one by a fairly obscure manufacturer. Plus and of course now available in modern plastic form......now where’s the fun in building one of those.

 

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It’s a pretty basic model but fairly nicely detailed and hardly any model issue.

 

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The instructions are just plain horrible, nearly impossible to read and in French.....now where's the wife?? :rofl2: 

 

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I the time between my first planned building of this I have found a replacement barrel for it which is nice as the original is not that nice and a wee bit wrong. 

 

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I plan to do a wee bit of detailing on her as well, suspension being one. Nothing major, just to tidy it up a bit.

 

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Again this should be a nice straightforward build with some minor detail corrections.  

 

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Well after the horrors of yesterday, today’s building was awesome!! I thought this model would be a little bit painful to build but it’s turning out to be a dream to build. Not everything fits right and there are a few minor issues but it’s still going together so smoothly.

 

First up the suspension. As you can see it’s not really well casted and doesn’t look that great...this is the best of the 4. 

 

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I had planned all along to replace or rebuild it. So the plan is to cut off the “springs” and build a new shock absorber body and spring. The shock absorbers are made from aluminium tube and the spring is plastic coated copper wire.

 

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First off I added a new plastic strut, this was cut to the required length to get the wheel hub some additional strength. There are a couple of thin plastic collars on it to help keep the aluminium tube centred.

 

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Next the tubing is fitted, only the inner section was glued to the wheel hub for now.

 

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The springs were made and cut to length.

 

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There’s a big difference.

 

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They were then fitted to each corner, the outer aluminium shelve was glued to the top of the suspension mount.

 

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Next the rest of the main wheels were fitted, the steering hub was also drilled through to the main hub and a plastic pin was fitted to give it strength.

 

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The “centre” wheels can either be set raised or lowered, I’ll fit these raised. The mounts for these are quite poor so I’ll probably just drill them out and pin them in place other than using the supplied hubs.

 

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Next up was the turret and gun barrel. The kit barrel is being replaced with a DEF Model aluminium one as the one supplied isn’t actually correct for this model, it’s more correct for the EBR-11. The length is wrong, the canvas cover isn’t right and the muzzle brake is wrong.

 

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To get the length right I actually needed to drill back into the turret. I have also started to bevel the section the barrel slides into, it’s square here but needs to be bevelled.

 

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The rest of the turret was straight forward, though I did have to make all the handles on it.

 

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The hull to was straight forward, not a lot to add here, they only hard bit is the covers for the drivers, they’re in 3 bits and don’t really fit. I’ll need to add bracing to fit these.

 

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And that’s it, a full day’s work and she looks great! Quite a bit of tiding up was required but it pretty much fell together. 

 

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I don’t have too much more to go before I’ll primer her. There won’t be much cleaning up to do so painting should occur shortly thereafter. With luck she’ll be completed next weekend. 

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Top work Rich. Those extra details you're adding make a huge difference to the overall look of this one. At this rate you'll be first in the gallery!

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thanks. With resin models you really never know quite how they're going to go until you start the build. I had been a wee bit worried about this one and the resin is nice to work with.

 

I may do some today if I can.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven’t done as much as I had hoped to this build since the last update, just a couple of little things before painting.

 

The wheels have been given an undercoat as well as a touch of pre-shading in the form of panel line ink. Opps forgot photo!

 

The turret and body have been undercoated in light grey before they too were pre-shaded with some panel ink. Because there is only one colour involved in the main coat I want to break it up a bit. All the shadow areas were given a light coat of dark grey, this’ll darken up the green. For the uppermost surfaces which are exposed to the sun I gave a light coat of yellow. Yellow works much better than plant white, it lightens and fades quite nicely without changing the colour too much.

 

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I’m going to thin the green right back, with luck I’ll get the effect I’m after. I’m doing the same thing with the ZSU-57.

 

I hope to have the painting finished this weekend.......maybe.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well I didn’t quite get around to painting her when I planned, but I finally got the right paint last week, so I painted her on Tuesday.

 

Gee she does look good with a coat of paint on! (she’s just sitting on some balsawood at the moment, the wheels aren’t on yet. 

 

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I have to redo the wheels, I painted hen green then went to mask for the black/rubber and found the masks didn’t want to sit right. So will re-mask the black this time and do the green again, the masks should sit right then.

 

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I’ll try and make a push to finish her this weekend if I can, but am going to checkout the IPMS NSW branch on Saturday to see what they’re like so may not get too much done.

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thanks John, it's going to take some careful masking, I think Olive Drab will be the right colour. There is a bit of texture to that section so hopefully some dry-brushing after should give it some life. I may try and do some more today, but I've just got the fuselage and wings on the 86 so that's getting the attention at the moment.

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This is only a quick update as I didn’t end up doing much on her, instead spent all the time on the ZSU.....guess that’s what you get trying to do 3 builds at once!

 

I’ve finished off all the main painting on her now, I ending up hand painting the fabric cover on the turret, much simpler to do that then mask and airbrush.

 

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She’ll have a coat of clear then I can start the hard/messy part of weathering her.

 

I ended up doing the same with the wheels and hand touching up them as well.

 

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Hmmm I think these may need a bath in hot water!!!

 

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I think I’m in the home stretch with her, will try and work on her in the afternoons/night this week to see if I can complete her.

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

ok this with luck will be my last update....

 

Another build that hasn’t quite gone to plan but she’s almost there.

 

Everything is pretty much on her apart from a few minor pieces.

 

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I still have to make the support bracket for the gun barrel.

 

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Again I have had some fun dirtying her up and generally making a mess. I have a bit to do to tone it down a bit. But again I hope to have her done by the end of the weekend.

 

 

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  • 2 months later...

Well it took a bit longer to complete her….too many distractions, but she’s done! :yahoo:

 

Really all I had left to was to make up the barrel support and tidy up a few bits and pieces. Plus I made up and fitted some aerials and mirrors and that’s about it. I also tried out this new film to replicate the vision blocks, it doesn’t look that bad.

 

I’m actually really happy with how she come out, the new springs for the front (and other front), even if they’re not that noticeable look great and much more realistic then the original solid ones.

 

So here she is the final of my 3 builds for this GB.

 

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This GB was lots of fun, especially the AFV’s. 

 

Now for the 50’s NATO vs WP GB, got a German M42A1 for that….hmmm I wonder if I can find a WP SPG as well! :hmmm:

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