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Sardaukar's tank, AFV and wheelie thing factory


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Have been putting more work into my Hobby Den/PST Tiran 4.

 

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A few things going on above.

 

I have replaced the PST barrel with a spare trumpeter one. I'm saving my stash of metal barrels for now. I did read on another board that RB models are now out of business which is a shame as they were good value. The mantlet needed changing too and was made from epoxy putty (green stuff/milliput blend)

 

The two jerry cans above the front fenders came from the italeri T-55 kit where they are going spare until italeri come up with a Tiran kit based on their T-55.

 

The headlight cage is from offset models shop on facebook, I've tried and given up several times to scratch build my own t-55 headlight cage. The offset cage is printed resin and is very fine and slightly challenging to remove from the resin supports in one piece. However it does look great.

 

I've cloned some of the fender storage from the black dog Tiran kit using oyamaru one piece moulds and the above epoxy putty, this has turned out better than expected and I will make a few more copies for future projects.

 

I've tried to simulate the Tiran fender mudguards by scraping off the original detail, thinning the lower halves and adding the join line from stretched sprue, hopefully it will look the part once painted.

 

Possibly the worst part of the PST kits are the wheels so I decided to replace, however the way the arms protruding from the hull are designed it causes some challenges. I discovered after cleaning up a whole set of modelminiature resin wheels that they interfere with the arms. The axels are too short, this was the same problem with the trumpeter wheels. Going through my stash I have found that the Modelltrans wheels seem to have been designed to work with the PST kit, however they are a tight fit, I still need to do a fair bit of sanding and dry fitting.

 

Spending all this time on the road wheels I didnt really think about the idler and drive wheels, in this particular kit the moulds have bled and flooded some of the spokes in the idler wheel, we arent talking a bit of flash here but full on destruction of spoke detail. I have another T-55 PST kit in green plastic which seems a lot better so it will donate the needed parts.

 

More to come I'm considering building up the engine deck with some brass mesh I got. Also the turret is likely to get a browning machine gun or two, Israelis seem to love machine guns on a tank even more than the Americans do.

 

I'm quite enjoying this build, the turret wasnt expensive and neither is a PST kit, so I find there isnt the same self imposed pressure not to mess up a more expensive kit. 

 

Oh and I got debonder on my new cutting mat 😩 vicious stuff.

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To add to the above I forgot to add I went the route of reaming out the turret ring with a metal reaming tool to accept the plug of the tiran turret, this was a case of keeping it slow and test fitting the turret every few turns of the tool and it worked well, however I did have to reposition the turret ring extensions on the PST kit. They were interfering with the fender storage in the designed positions, I'm also not sure why they are tear shaped. Possibly because the PST turret is also tear shaped.

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Almost done with construction and ready for painting.

 

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Progress since yesterday.

 

I've built up the engine deck with some mesh I bought off eBay, based on the engine deck of a miniart tiran 4sh I have in the stash. The mesh was surprisingly easy to cut to size as long as you follow the weave of the mesh.

 

Tow cable is from the a variety pack of scale ropes from Eureka, 0.6mm.

 

The stretcher on the front is from the blackdog kit which came with a spare.

 

I thought about replacing some of the turret detail like the jerry cans however it looks good enough. The 30cal came left over from a Trumpeter sherman. The antenna came from my washing up brush.

 

I'll paint the hull, wheels and track separately then assemble. I think I will go with the PST tracks on this. Annoyingly the kit has no axels for the idler wheels so I'll add using paperclip wire.

 

For painting, I'll probably follow the miniart painting guide, as for decals no idea yet, I'll see what might be going 'spare' in my Merkava/Magach kits, there does seem to be some IDF decal sets in 1/72.

 

Cheers

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Looking great and fantastic progress. The mesh has worked very well.

 

I really enjoy kitbashing / cross kitting and you've done an excellent job of this one.

 

Looking forward to seeing the paint go on.

 

As for decals Bison did some generic Israeli sets. They are out of print but can still be found on ebay and the like. Star decals might offer something similar.

 

All the best

Ben

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13 hours ago, badger said:

Looking great and fantastic progress. The mesh has worked very well.

 

I really enjoy kitbashing / cross kitting and you've done an excellent job of this one.

 

Looking forward to seeing the paint go on.

 

As for decals Bison did some generic Israeli sets. They are out of print but can still be found on ebay and the like. Star decals might offer something similar.

 

All the best

Ben

 

Thanks Ben

 

T-55s and Tirans in particular seem to be an excellent subject for kit bashing and Israeli tanks in general.

 

I've discovered that the ace Tiran 6 has a 'Tiran' sprue which was common to all the ace tiran kits. I was able to acquire a couple of the ace tiran 6 kits, so I think I'll use one of the tiran sprues combined with revell/trumpeter to build the ultimate tiran 5 in 1/72 😆, the ace kit will become a T-62.

 

For the decals I've ordered a couple of what looked like the most generic sheets from peddinghaus. I haven seen any decal sheets specific for Tirans possibly because of the lack of plastic tiran kits.

 

Cheers

 

Calum

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1 hour ago, Bullbasket said:

Nice work. Between you and Ben, I think that you've got all T-54/55 variants covered.

 

John.

Thanks John

 

You do have me wondering about the 105mm gun, I know this is a version of the British L7 gun, but are they close enough that an L7 could be used instead?

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23 minutes ago, sardaukar said:

Thanks John

 

You do have me wondering about the 105mm gun, I know this is a version of the British L7 gun, but are they close enough that an L7 could be used instead?

I plan on using a dymok72 105mm centurion barrel on mine when I eventually get some time to get back to them if that helps?

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52 minutes ago, badger said:

Thanks John - the main difference is that @sardaukar is building his!!

 

I haven't painted it yet 🤔. Motivation comes in bursts will try and make the most of it.

 

50 minutes ago, badger said:

I plan on using a dymok72 105mm centurion barrel on mine when I eventually get some time to get back to them if that helps?

Dymok appear to have 4 different L7 guns, not often you're spoiled for choice in 1/72. Edit, sorry and a centurion barrel.

 

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13 hours ago, sardaukar said:

Thanks John

 

You do have me wondering about the 105mm gun, I know this is a version of the British L7 gun, but are they close enough that an L7 could be used instead?

A far as I know (I could be wrong, and often am) nobody does a 105mm in 1/48th scale. I would be very pleased to be proved wrong.

 

John.

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I cant comment on 1/48, if I was desperate I might buy one of the aoshima kits with the 105 barrel which you can get if lucky for about £20.

 

However I was raking through my after market stash and I have a Zedval L7 barrel in 1/72, I do tend to throw in extras I may use at some point with orders... , more to come once I can take some pics, I'll have about 6 1/72 Tirans at this rate once I've done all my aftermarket kits . But next up is the less common (in the modelling world at least Tiran 5 in as much plastic as possible).

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30 minutes ago, Bodmin said:

It's looking really good with all the extras you're adding. Also impressed with the collection of 1/72. Looking to get hold of a few of them myself.

 

Thanks, that collection is all in progress stuff or the shelf of doom as some call it, I really need to get some of the British armour finished so it can move to the display shelf. Too many projects at once, the British ww2 armour project, the Japanese armour project and now the T-54/55 project which has a healthy Tiran subproject now too. 

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Hi folks

 

I received in the post today Tiran Tanks in IDF Service vol1 Tiran 4 & 4 Shrir from SabingaMartin, I had had my eye on a few books  by this house for a while but at 30plus quid for an 80page book I had been reluctant to buy it. But I got it as a payday treat.

 

I should not have worried, this book is amazing and perfect for the modeller from the scale plans to the close up photographs of all the specific feature of this tank, it so obviously has the modeller in mind. Now I want vol 2, Tiran 5 etc, but they havent released it yet. However I did go and buy their Tiran 4, 5 & 6 wrecks book to tide me over.

 

The peddinghuas decals arrived from Germany in 2 days I was well impressed The tIran 4 has been primed now I need to work out which Israeli sand colour it should be and the book above has some great profiles to help with that.

 

Someone I'm not sure who recommended on another thread Slaters Plastikard from who I picked up some assorted microstrip and rodding, I'm pretty useless with decimal 1000s of an inch sizes being born in the 70s, but this stuff is very fine, I do have a idea to try and scratch build some engine deck details or at least build a frame for my mesh additions, if it goes well you may get to see it. :ner:

 

Cheers

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Happy Friday

 

Minor progress to show tonight on the Tiran 4

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All primed in black and ready for the basecoat.

 

And the new Tiran 5(sh?)

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Early days, that's a revell hull that has had my new turret ring enlargement process applied to fit the trumpeter turret nicely left over from the Blackdog engima project which is on hold for now.

 

Ive been planning on using the ACE Tiran sprue and that's its part fitted as the rear hull basket, this actually took a fair bit of trimming to get it to sit right, and to be honest I'm not that happy with it. At that thickness the walls of it would be 10cm+ thick in real life, how hard would it to be to scratch build.....

 

Ive been starting to eye the engine deck for some conversion but not made a plan yet and if I'm going to butcher one I may use a PST engine deck. The turret will need some fairly major work.

 

Pictured is the Zedval L7 barrel, it looks like it has a defect on the extractor but its actually smooth to the touch so no worries there.

 

more soon.

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Hello

 

I got some more paint on the Tiran 4, now basecoated. Ive now also attached the modeltrans wheels with the pst tracks which took a couple of hours of wrestling.

 

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Some clean up to go before various washes etc. However a few bits to touch up first I think. Maybe some additional work to the mantle.

 

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An update

 

The Tiran 4 is still sitting in the painting booth waiting for more paint (I need to be in the right mood to paint) however I have progressed the Tiran 5, I do find building models therapeutic, painting less so :smile:.

 

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The present state of affairs. Those OMSh tracks are from an Ammo kit and will match the Tiran 5 better than the Revell RMSh tracks, I just hope they fit. (The ammo kit will get Gas Hans tracks when i get round to building it as an early T-54) I have altered the sprocket wheel to fit the OMSh tracks.

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The trumpeter turret, still a lot more to do here, I trimmed off the existing loaders hatch which opened forward the IDF seem to have replaced them with rear opening hatches, quite a few examples I've seen have the flat hatch so I went with that, the hatch came from the PST kit.

The turret 'hammock' is from the ACE Tiran sprue, to be honest you could probably scratch build it, Ive found modifying it to sit right on the trumpeter turret a massive pain so it has come in for some filling to make it sit properly.

I'm not sure about the gun mantlet yet or how far the L7 gun should be recessed into the mantlet, it does seem the L7 gun was a bit shorter than the original 100mm guns. The L7 gun doesn't come with a mounting pin either.

Lots more turret furniture to come.

 

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Ive gone for base painting and assembling the lower hull, running gear and tracks before fitting the upper hull mainly because I'm mixing up the revell hull and wheels with the ammo tracks, which may require some modification because the revell running gear does look slightly shorter than the ammo kit which I have built before.

The rear hull basket and first aid kit come from the ACE Tiran sprue.

 

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Above is where a lot of the work has gone. I didnt do fuel lines on the Tiran 4 but decided to do it here, I could maybe have got a better pic. I used 0.3mm tin solder this time for the fuel lines and actually drilled holes in the plastic to fit them.

The green water jerry can is from the Italeri T-55 kit (you get 4 per kit which is pretty good).

The IDF additions to the fender storage were cloned from my black dog Tiran 4 kit again using the same one piece moulds as the parts on the Tiran 4, however this time I used 2 part resin instead of epoxy putty.

 

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I have attempted the same modification of the front fenders that I did on the Tiran 4, the lower part will be painted in rubber, I've been thinking about adding some ribbing to the lower part of the front fender to simulate the rubber using very fine plastic rod however I'm not convinced I can get it properly spaced, there are 8 ribs on the real thing.

 

Cheers all,

 

more soon I hope.

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  • sardaukar changed the title to Sardaukar's tank factory in 1/72 - Tiran-tastic

Looking good!!

 

I've been a bit out of the game recently with one thing and another and have just caught up with this.

 

Be interested on how you fit the 105mm as I have the same to do on an Indian variant I'm currently planning.

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2 hours ago, badger said:

Looking good!!

 

I've been a bit out of the game recently with one thing and another and have just caught up with this.

 

Be interested on how you fit the 105mm as I have the same to do on an Indian variant I'm currently planning.

 

Welcome back and thanks.

 

Ive been playing around with the mantlet from the PST kit, I dont like the angle of the Revell mantlet (too steep).

 

I ended up buying a Tamiya Tiran 5 for slightly less than they go for usually on ebay, this has become my main guide for modelling the Tiran 5 above. There isnt a huge number of options for a Tiran 5 even in 1/35th. I did have my eye on a Trumpeter Ti-67 in 1/35 which goes cheap, maybe for a good reason?

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1 minute ago, sardaukar said:

 

Welcome back and thanks.

 

Ive been playing around with the mantlet from the PST kit, I dont like the angle of the Revell mantlet (too steep).

 

I ended up buying a Tamiya Tiran 5 for slightly less than they go for usually on ebay, this has become my main guide for modelling the Tiran 5 above. There isnt a huge number of options for a Tiran 5 even in 1/35th. I did have my eye on a Trumpeter Ti-67 in 1/35 which goes cheap, maybe for a good reason?

Thanks- I've been rather tied up at work the last few weeks with the start of a new term, then a surprise ofsted inspection and to cap it all I'm currently recovering from Covid so it's been a busy few weeks!!

 

I'm not overly fond of the Revell mantlet either and the couple of times I've used it I've trimmed a fair bit off the rear of it. I've cast a few copies of the blackdog one to try that instead. It'll need trimming a bit as Blackdog moulded it onto the turret rather than as a seperate part, but it should work.

 

The Tamiya Tiran looks a nice kit. I printed the instructions a couple of months ago when I picked up the blackdog conversion as, at the time, I was undecided whether to go for a Tiran 4 or a 5. In the end I've settled for a 4 but might consider a 5 in the future.

 

All the best

Ben

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15 minutes ago, badger said:

to cap it all I'm currently recovering from Covid so it's been a busy few weeks!!

 

Take care man, I work with some guys in their 40s who even double jabbed were wiped out for 2-3 weeks. And even worse you're that ill that you wont be sitting in bed building models on a tray.

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16 minutes ago, sardaukar said:

Take care man, I work with some guys in their 40s who even double jabbed were wiped out for 2-3 weeks. And even worse you're that ill that you wont be sitting in bed building models on a tray.

Cheers - I've been totally wiped out this last week but am slowly beginning to feel a little better (and I'm double jabbed and in my 40s :giggle:).

 

I still have to isolate for another week so hopefully can get some building done if things continue to improve :fingerscrossed:.

 

I'll stop derailing your thread now.

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