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Carro Armato M13/40


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Although I've got a few aircraft that would be suitable for this build, Martlet, Swordfish, Seafire, Sea Hurricane, Maryland, Albacore, Fulmar, I've already built a few of them in the past few months, apart from the Maryland and Albacore. The Maryland is a taxing build and my Albacore is a Magna Models resin kit that will need loads of work. So I've had a look at my AFV stash and found a fair few of different kits, especially some Italeri Italian armour. So here is a first one. 

 

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There's two sand coloured sprues and the tracks which are grey soft plastic. The main sprues are nicely moulded and the fit should be OK, hopefully. 

 

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Italeri give three options with colour on the box and fuller B/W pictures in the instructions. 

 

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The instruction sheet is straightforward and there's a nice sheet of transfers. 

 

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10 hours ago, Ozzy said:

Nice choice 825, a target for the Grants being built.

It was a fairly small and nimble tank so may be a bit of a challenge for a Grant to catch. Mind you the Grant's 75mm gun would probably be quite damaging. 

 

11 hours ago, TEMPESTMK5 said:

Hi 825

Welcome aboard and have fun

Best Regards

Patrice

Thanks Patrice, work is progressing apace as can be seen below. And it's been fun so far. 

 

The lower body plan assembled and the bogies made up. It's a lng time since I've built anything by Italeri and I've found the plastic odd. It's really crisp and cleanly moulded and there's very little flash. But it's both hard and soft at the same time; it doesn't cut well, and you need to be really careful sanding the remainder of the sprue gates off, the ragged bits need some firm attention but if not careful it's easy to oversand once got to the actual part. Takes glue well though. 

 

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Lower body and running gear complete (apart from tracks) and ready for some more panels. 

 

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And now the turret assembled, the turret base and the remainder of the superstructure. 

 

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Coming along quite well and apart from care needed when sanding no problems so far. 

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This kit is a great example of what ESCI were capable of. When they got it right, they hit it right out of the park. The suspension on this kit looks really good for 1970s 1/72 scale armor. 

I'm surprised by the two pluses inside. Were these little things battery operated, originally? 

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On 9/17/2020 at 2:03 PM, SoftScience said:

This kit is a great example of what ESCI were capable of. When they got it right, they hit it right out of the park. The suspension on this kit looks really good for 1970s 1/72 scale armor. 

I'm surprised by the two pluses inside. Were these little things battery operated, originally? 

I checked scalemates and the original Esci kit dates from 1972, although this Italeri boxing is more recent. The quality of the moulds and the sharpness of detail, along with a relative lack of seams, moulding pips, etc. is remarkable. There isn't any sign that the kit could ever be designed to be motorised. The chassis and lower body is the same (as in real life) for a Semovente self propelled gun which according to reviews has a full interior,so perhaps it's locations for some of the inner parts. Looks in a reasonable place for a gun mount location, perhaps?  

 

Anyway here we are with the body more more or less complete and a couple of coats of paint on. There's a few seams needing. A little bit of filler, mainly down to things I've done or not done, has been put on and once sanded smooth, I'll add some more paint and kick on. 

 

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A little more work done, turret hatch on and the tyres painted with Humbrol Hu53 Gunmetal. 

 

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Tracks and track guards on. I will dry brush the tracks with some sand colour a little later but life is too short not to use the old fashioned vinyl tracks. 

 

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And now with most most of the bits added. It needs a coat of paint to cover up the scratches, filler and sanding done along the way before adding the tools and turret top machine gun on. 

 

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Pretty well finished now, apart from the tools, transfers and some weathering. 

 

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Transfers on. I couldn't resist the Aussie option. Shortage of armour in the Western Desert meant that captured tanks were frequently put to use. 

 

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I'll let them dry, clean off the solvent and then add some matt varnish to dull down the Kleer I put on to enable the transfers to bed down. 

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All finished and waiting for some better weather to give decent light for a photo session for the gallery and disaster has struck. One of the tracks has snapped!

 

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Initially I thought it was the join but the plastic has just sheared. There's no way this can be glued together so I'll have to do a bit of thinking before remedial work. 

 

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7 hours ago, John Masters said:

Hide it beneath the fender and use epoxy to fix the rest.

 

I am happy you chose the Aussie version.  Can't resist a kangaroo myself.

I did that John, although I used Gator Grip rather than epoxy. And it broke again at another point! It looks like it might have to be finished as a disabled tank. 

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