British FV107 Scimitar - AFV Club 1/35

[Scargsy]

I'm going to park this thread here for the start of the GB.

Here's the kit I'll be building:

I was planning to just do a straight OOB build, though seems the kit is missing the tracks, so gah I'll need to find some replacements!

Seems like a nice little kit, not an insane amount of bits and comes with a metal barrel for the cannon (handy as plastic that thin would be bound to break), a small PE fret, all the sprues being individually packed (apart from the duplicate sprues for the wheels)...

Instructions seem - erm interesting, I was scratching my head over this one on the bottom left, involving a screwdriver and some needle nose pliers - I think though after some thought its about bending some PE...

I'm sure it'll make sense when I get around to building it.

Looks like the kit is a modification of AFV Club's Scorpion kit - which makes sense since in real-life the vehicles share the same chassis.

Obviously planning to do it in the Gulf War scheme as depicted on the box art.

[DAG058]

Let me have a look in my spares box for tracks, I'm sure I used an AM set on mine. 

[Scargsy]

Thanks @DAG058, though I've ordered some Accurate Armour resin ones today so hopefully won't need them. I've no idea how well the AA ones will fit/go together, images are of them being sectional and it says 'semi flexible resin' - not sure if they are link and length with individual links for the curved sections, we will see.

 

I only realized I was missing the tracks when posting the box contents shot!

[badger]

Nice - I have the Revell (AFV Club) scorpion in the stash and nearly entered it for this GB but figured as I'm also committed to the Panzer III GB I'd never manage a 1/35 kit in time.

 

 

I'll be following along with interest though.

 

Ben

[Scargsy]

So I'd been planning to finish my Lightning first but got bored after a couple of hours of doing decals and decided to start the Scimitar, I much prefer building stuff!

 

I'd ordered some aftermarket Accurate Armour resin tracks which had arrived...

They are just sub-lengths (all the same size) I guess they need to be heated to conform them to shape? No instructions provided - also I'm hopeful that they are exact size when put together and don't need to be trimmed to size.

Anyhow I was opening up the parts packets and look what I spied - hiding inside the lower hull piece... the tracks I thought were missing!

In preparation of the build I'd also done a colour check - taking possible paints and blobbing a bit on some paper, just to see what colour they dry (some acrylics can slightly change when dry), don't worry I'm not planning on using all of these - well not on this build. I was seeing what the Tornado pink dried and also some colours for my M41 Walker Bulldog build and also a few others for 'reference' as my phone camera can try to colour correct, plus your eyes/brain go a little mad staring at 50 yellow/brown shades! Photo taken outdoors in natural (though overcast) light...

How many shades of brown does one man need? It struck me the other day that I haven't painted a green AFV for some years, even though that's the colour that first springs to mind, might need to do one soon!

I got a couple of Xtracrylic paints to see what they're like, they seem to be alcohol based - the Gulf War Pink for the Tornado and their Gulf War Light Stone for the Scimitar. I think that's the shade I like the best, though I may go with the Vallejo as I've got a lot more colours I can use for modulation/mixing - oddly the Vallejo is supposed to be the same BS standard colour, used since WWII but looks more yellow? The new Tamiya lacquer light sand isn't a bad colour but again not sure what I could modulate it with but it looks more light brown than dark yellow. I hate that thing where you fall into a hole of micro-analyzing different shades of the same colour and even then why am I getting so obsessive about it - I don't exactly have the real thing parked outside to compare it to anyhow, before we get into weathering / lighting / scale effects!!!

Anyhow - quite a way of paint yet, so I'll worry about that later.

I made a start on the lower hull, and straight away noticed it had some sink marks - I did fill them but only later realized I didn't need to, since the upper hull only just covers them!

I attached the front and end pieces first - I wanted to ensure a good fit before getting all the suspension and smaller components attached.

Annoyingly they were somewhat wider - I sanded them down somewhat and added filler to the seams. The front section was still a little wider so after attaching the drive axles there, so I added a little filler there too.

I gave the base a bit of a rough scuffing up with the sand paper, I imagine they get pretty dirty and battered IRL.

One thing I noticed is the instruction numbering (or rather lettering) seems off - the 2 identical wheel sprues are labelled C but the instructions refer to them as D, luckily I noticed before attaching a shovel instead of the drive axle!

The kit has a choice of drive and idler wheels (early or late versions) obviously for this build I'm using the late ones. The late drive wheels are made of 4 parts - annoyingly the outer gear/teeth parts had some rather nasty attachment points to the sprue (3 large points connected at the low points between the teeth and one on the outside of them. Luckily I managed to get them off and cleaned up without chipping off any teeth!

The 3 main turret pieces (and gun elevation mounting) fitted together well, no need for filler.

I built up the idlers and road wheels and that's where progress has finished for the day, I need to decide whether or not to prime / paint the underside before attaching the wheels, it might be easier to get the paint in that way.

I mounted the upper hull on, a pretty good fit too (just a tiny bit of filler needed on the back, but that might have later been covered with one of the stowage boxes. Hopefully attaching the upper hull now won't cause any issues with trying to get the engine cover and drivers hatch in (the hole for the turret is large enough to stick my finger in to fish them out / hold for gluing if needed)!

This is a pretty tiny AFV, it's 1/35 and here's the hull compared to a 1/72 Challenger 1 (actually the last green tank I made, several years back)...

 

[desert falcon]

I know what you mean when it comes to literally spending days experimenting with getting the shade of a colour just right, just to discover post varnish/weathering that it doesn't look like your reference photo anyway. But as long as it looks right to you on your finished model, that's what counts isn't it. 

 

Which reminds me that I have no further excuses for not starting my own Mirage 2000, which will also be in a desert scheme. 

 

Good work so far 👍 

[Jabba]

Good spot with the instruction, they can sometimes throw you off when you are not sure what they are saying and what you actually require.

[Col.]

Nice work on the baby tanklet   As for getting the exact shade of pink - the sun must have faded them heavily so it depends which day you want to portray your model  

[Scargsy]

So progress has been in fast bursts but somewhat spaced out - I've been procrastinating and meaning to finish the Lightning for the Interceptor GB, which I didn't get round to finishing!

There's lots of stowage boxes on this thing...

By the time I'd finished building them and adding all the detail parts I'm sure they make up more than 1/2 the weight of the kit.

Getting the viewports and detail parts on was a bit fiddly but I managed without losing any parts to the carpet monster!

I have to say there's a tiny bit of PE on the top of the turret with an even tinier bit of plastic on it - I think it's a stop for the hatch (with the tiny bit being the rubber stopper!) - now that was a pain to get on with super-glue!

I chopped the rear-view mirrors off the stalks, from what images I could find they would have been removed in combat (don't really need a mirror giving away your position in combat and you're probably not going to be parallel parking in the desert!)

I gave it a coat of Alclad brown primer (it's kind of khaki colour) then attached the road wheels, I was trying to get some of the brownish primer coverage into the hard to reach points first.

I'll attach the idler and sprocket wheels later as it might make the tracks easier to get on that way.

I painted the exhaust steel before attaching the PE cover (not sure how visible it will be or how silver it will look once the tank if fully painted).

Then on with the first paint coat - first time I've used Xtracrylix (XA1813 - British Gulf Armour Light Stone), it claims to be water based but their thinners I bought with it is isopropyl alcohol based (judging by the smell). Pretty thick out of the bottle, I thinned it a little too much I think (paint started to split in places into constituent colours) - it's a bit more like water based stuff (Vallejo) in terms of constituency when spraying than say Tamiya (which I think is pure alcohol thinners) - dries slower, etc. I had a few runs but blew them dry (and the aforementioned splits - where red/brown spots appeared). 

I'm going to give it a bit of touch-up by brush, I wasn't overly happy with coverage but with it dried I think I might just do some brush touch-up as I feel doing another going over with the airbrush might just leave it a flat single colour and lose some of the colour modulation.

 

 

[Jabba]

Looking very good now that is altogether and with paint on.

[PeterB]

Hi,

 

The Xtracrylic can be thinned with water according to the bottle, but I do normally use their own brand thinners which as you say contains alcohol. Odd, but then I believe Mr Colour acrylics are exactly the same - water based paint and thinner with alcohol, and ditto Humbrol,  whilst the Tamiya acrylic have the alcohol in the paint and perhaps the thinners as well!

 

Pete

[Scargsy]

So in the end I decided to give it a 'highlight' coat with some Vallejo (a mix of their version of British Light Stone and Sand) after attaching the wheels - I kept the idler and sprockets off to aid getting the tracks on.

Detail painting and then attempted to get the tracks on, unfortunately this caused them to split at the join point (even though I'd epoxy and superglued them), seems they're about one link length too short for a natural look! Still I have the resin tracks so hopefully I can splice a length of that on the underside, the rubber tracks kind of have their own shape (I'm not sure how easy it would be to heat them to bend them as needed without melting), I kind of worked with that as best I could to use the natural dip to make the top sag and applied some superglue and epoxy to hold/shape them near the idler and sprocket.

I masked and painted the metal barrel (it has a silver section in the centre I'm leaving bare metal) but when inserting it into the end it stripped the black paint off, I might mask the top of the barrel housing, push it in and then paint it in-situ.

The base I made up from a little MDF plaque (got a lot of 10 cheaply on an internet auction site), added some 'beach sand' texture then darkened with an acrylic wash. The tank colour is maybe a bit too light now, I think I might try a very thin oil wash/filter, then add some weathering powders to tie the base/tank together a bit better.

 

 

 

 

[Jabba]

Looking good with the tracks on and sat on the base. I must admit that I used the metal tracks when I built mine.

[Scargsy]

So I've managed to finish it - I must say I'm chuffed with my results, far from perfect but definately my best so far.

Chopped out a bit of the rubber tracks and added some short lengths of the resin tracks to hide the join - these things are brittle, luckily I wasn't doing the whole thing in resin as I lost a few of the edge bits separating from the sprue.

I gave it a thin oil filter wash with some light brown / sienna colour then applied some desert wash (Vallejo acrylic) to the tracks and weathering powder - wiping off the rubber pads to try get it more into the recessed bits.

Added lots of the wash and weathering powders to the base and some to the tank - hopefully helps to marry the two together tonally.

The headlights I'm not too happy with - I tried using some still water resin stuff to build up lenses (with the tank propped on end whilst it dried) but I should have really used more as it shrunk back quite a bit when dry.

Anyhow another build finished!

[CliffB]

I can see why you're pleased with it 

[Jabba]

Very nice indeed, well done with the finish and the base.

[exdraken]

Wow, what a great little tanky!

[desert falcon]

Looking fantastic 👍