AT-T artillery tractor 1:35 Trumpeter

[flashlight]

Hi all,

 

I finished the cargo bay and startet with the assembly of the bonnet. The slats of the front grill need to be covered from the inside, otherwise you look straight through to the motor. Trumpeter forgot about the radiator! On the real thing it looks like there are sort of fins right behind the grill so I glued strips of sheet styrene onto the backside of the grill. Now it's impossible to peek inside.

 

 

Now it slowly begins to look like an AT-T. Crew cabin, front grill and the bonnet part are only dryfit. Cargo bay is finished.

 

 

Thanks for looking. Critiques and suggestions are welcome.

 

Have a nice day!

Nick

[Johnny_Sokko]

Looking great so far.

[flashlight]

@Johnny_Sokko Hi Johnny, thank you very much!

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[flashlight]

Hi everybody,

 

after a short time at hospital for a small surgery and some time to recover I'm back now and had some progress with the tractor.

 

Finished the bonnet, made masks frome Tamiya Tape, attached the windows except those of the side doors, and fixed all to the plate where the cargo bay already is attached to.

 

Then I went to the paint shop. I wanted to experiment with pre-shading to give the tractor a used look. So I primed everything with a light green, did the shading with black green and sprayed some white to areas wich would be most exposed to sunlight. I also primed the wheels and sprockets and sprayed the wheel rims with a mixture of anthracite and dark gray. I forgot to take pics of the wheels.

 

We'll see if this all will work out the way I want it to.

 

This is the result and the current status:

 

 

Thanks for looking, critiques and suggestions are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[Hamden]

 

Coming together really well now, looking forward to the next stage

 

  Roger

[flashlight]

@Hamden Hi Roger,

 

thank you very much for the nice comment. The next stage is already done, the main color is applied. It will need a second session in the paint shop, the paint needs some touch ups here and there, but all in all I am quite pleased with the outcome. The next time I will do such a pre shading I won't take the black green again, but a green with a lighter tone. The next session will be done tomorrow.

 

Here is the result:

 

 

And now with the wheels and sprockets stuck to the suspensions

 

 

The color is MRP-273 Soviet Protective Green.

 

Thanks for looking, suggestions and critiques are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[Hamden]

 

Looks good to me

 

 Roger

[flashlight]

Thanks Roger! I think that the shade is a bit too dark, so let's see what the second session will bring.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[robw_uk]

nice work... really like the pre-shading showing through

[Hamden]

 

As all vehicles weather differently they all are slightly different colours even if painted with paint from the same paint batch at the same time.

This weathering depends on the where the vehicle is operated and under what conditions, this being the case don't worry to much about the actual shades that you have on your model. Having said that it's your model so needs to be finished how you want NOT how anyone else wants!

Great work on this so far you are doing a great job on this

 

     Roger 

[flashlight]

@robw_uk Hi Rob, thank you very much for your comment. I am also quite pleased with the result.

 

@Hamden Hi Roger, these were exactly my thoughts when I started this experiment. I am quite pleased with the result, but still I think it's a bit too dark. Lesson learned, next time I will not take the black green again!

 

Anyway, today I only did some necessary touch ups here and there, where I did a sloppy job with the airbrush yesterday. I didn't try to change the dark shade anymore, I can live with it. Instead I started the weathering of the lower hull and the undersides, this is how far I got:

 

 

The wheels got some dust too:

 

 

Thanks for looking, suggestions and critiques are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[flashlight]

Hi all,

 

not much to show as the weather is too fine now to spend the time at the workbench. Little by little I painted and attached the small parts to the upper hull, like hooks, fire extinguishers, tools, headlight guards etc. Now there are not many parts left - lights, steel ropes and hooks. Now the washing and weathering of the upper hull can start. Don't want to think about the tracks - 180 parts for the two tracks...

 

 

Thanks for looking. Critiques and suggestions are welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[Hewy]

Looking good, nice paint job, I like the kit

[flashlight]

@Hewy Hi Hewy, thank you very much for your nice comment. I like it too, it's an easy and straightforward build.

 

Hi everybody,

 

still the weather is too good to spend the days at the workbench, so only a little building in the evenings. Very slow progress now, but still there is progress. Almost all parts are attached now, only front and rear mudguards, the windscreen wipers and two towing cables are left. Started the weathering of the upper hull, did some panel line washings, pin washes, put some mud and dust here and there. This is the result so far, the weathering is not finished yet. Also started to assemble the tracks, but haven't got too far, I'll show it in the next update maybe. Next step will be the matte coat and some filter.

 

 

Thanks for looking! Suggestions and critiques are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

 

[Bullbasket]

That's looking excellent. It'll be a stunner when it's finished.

 

John.

[robgizlu]

Looking really good

Rob

[flashlight]

@Bullbasket and @robgizlu Hi John and Rob,

 

thank you so much for your very nice comments. I hope that it will turn out fine when finished, but the finish line is still not quite near and much can happen till I reach it.

 

Hi everybody,

 

in today's update you don't see so much difference to the last update. I only did some additional weathering, in my point of view this is finished now and the filter and the matte coat can be applied.

 

 

Don't worry about the road wheels, they are only pushed on and not fixed yet. They will be nicely in line and on the ground in the end. I also worked on the tracks, this is how far I have come. 64 parts out of 90 for one track.

 

 

To avoid a bore-out while working on the tracks I started a parallel project - Tiger Model Panhard VBL, another funny looking vehicle and much smaller than the AT-T. It fits onto the cargo bay of the tractor. I will open another WiP-thread soon.

 

 

Thanks for looking, critiques and suggestion are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

 

[flashlight]

Hi everybody,

 

I am happy to be able to show you some progress at last.

 

Now the road wheels are fixed, the matte coat is applied, masks are off and the transparent parts of the cabin doors are also attached, I always knock off the search light, so it will stay off until the end, this will be the very last part that I will attach.

 

 

Finally I reached a big milestone - the first track is on!

 

 

Not so bad for my first try with an individual link track, not perfect, but ok for me. The second track is still in work.

 

Thanks for looking! Suggestions and critiques are alway welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[flashlight]

Hi everybody,

 

slowly crawling progress now, not very much to show. The second track is growing slowly but steadily. I also did the weathering of the front and rear mudguards. That's all.

 

 

Thanks for looking.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

Edited June 25, 2019 by flashlight

[vaoinas]

Hi, 

 

Looking very good. 

 

Sorry to come this late with this information, but Trumpeter got a bit wrong with the track in the box. Actual tracks had links without the horn between regular links Trumpeter has. At first they had every other link without a horn and from 1962 they had every sixth link without a horn. Hornless links were needed to attach the ice cleats stored on the side of the cargo bed.

[Silenoz]

Looking really good. Don't forget about bare metal where the tracks touch the return roller and drive sprocket....

[flashlight]

@vaoinas Hi Kristjan,

 

thank you very much for the useful information. I didn't notice that, I should have paid more attention looking at the walkaround pics and the WIP thread of your Estonian colleague, I just didn't realize it. Well, it's too late now, I will not deconstruct the track anymore, so I guess I will have to live with the shame. 😉  If ever I build this kit again, I will bear this in mind! (Hmm... I think somewhere deep down in my stash there should be an AT-T kit in braille scale...)

 

@Silenoz Hi Silenoz,

 

thank you very much for the kind advice.

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[Silenoz]

Can't you clip the horn off, bit of standing and 10minutes later...

[flashlight]

The one track is already fixed, I think it would be a mess to rip it off again. A short moment I also thought of clipping the teeth off, but I think this would produce a big hole in the link. It seems that the horns are hollow at their bottoms. So then I would have to treat all of these links without tooth, because they look slightly different as I have noticed. They should only have small holes on inner and outer side. To make it fully correct I'd really have to deconstruct the whole track, filling, sanding, drilling...well - I'm afraid not just ten minutes... 😄

 

Thank you anyway to try to motivate me to lift the model up to a higher level!

 

Have a nice day

Nick

[flashlight]

Hi everybody,

 

today was a good day and a bad day also. I had significant progress, but everything what could have gone wrong did actually go wrong - Murphy's law at it's best!

 

First I finished the second track at last. After painting and weathering I tried to attach it. The left track had a perfect fit with 90 links, but the right one was a tad too short! Whatever I tried, it didn't work. I attached the 91st link only to see that the track was a tad too long now! But what can you do - with 90 links it just didn't go together so I decided to attach it with 91 links. It looks a bit odd now and it doesn't sit tight around the idler wheel but it's nearly not visible.

 

 

Next step was the long awaited marriage of the upper and lower hulls, which was done without big problems. Of course I knocked off a small PE part and of course it vanished into Nirvana - yes, I have a carpet monster without having a carpet! Ok I could replace the part with a similar plastic part, so everything was fine again. Then the mudguards were attached with minor fit problems, but it worked out fine in the end.

 

 

Next step was the attaching of the two towing cables, which proved to be very tricky. Before that I had to scratch build the strong hook in the middle of the lower front, which holds the two towing cables. Trumpeter provides a PE part which doesn't look very accurate. Once I had this part attached, I tried to attach the cables and it was a long fight to get them where I wanted them! After much cursing and sweating they finally bent the way I wanted them, and I could fix them to the front, also only after several tries because the super glue often does not deserve it's name. Maybe it would have been better to make the cables shorter than the recommended 110 mm, I think they are too long.

 

Then I realized that I have knocked off the door handle of the left cabin door. What do you guess? Right - gone with the wind - my carpetless carpet monster had it's share again. Nothing in the spares box, so I had to scratch it from a small plastic rod. Quite clunky, but okay for me.

 

Next were the windscreen wipers, very delicate parts. Both of them - what else - broke in two while I carefully sawed them off the sprue. Fortunately it was quite easy to glue them together again. After painting I could attach them without problems.

 

This is the current status - the finish line is coming closer now. What is left to do now is to attach one spare track link on either side of the cargo bay, two small protective plates above the windscreen wipers and the searchlight.

 

 

Thanks for looking! Suggestions and critiques are always welcome.

 

Have a nice day

Nick