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Heller 1/35 Hotchkiss H 35 "Fabriqué en France" - FINISHED


Ned

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3 hours ago, Wez said:

A big old Heller tank, don't keep us waiting too long...

Yessir!

First we have some rather dull boxart (livened up by my stripey socks!)

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3 sprues, and they all say 'Hotchkiss H35' which is promising. There are two crew figures, so I think I'll have a go, at least with the driver lurking in the shadows.

It all looks OK considering it's essentially a 1978 kit.

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Rubber tracks, a length of chain, decals for a pre-war and wartime vehicle, some little pots of paint, a brush and a tube of glue (that I already stole) are included.

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I haven't thought about paint options yet, but as I'll be wanting something that fought against 1.Panzer Division, I guess it'll be something like this. Slightly worried about the black outlining, tbh! If it goes wrong it'll end up as a grey Beutepanzer ;)

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I'll get started in a bit. I've got a Panther to finish first, but I'm not planning on spending much more time on it.

 

Quite excited, I think that it will be the first French thing I've built since an Airfix Dassault Mirage in the last century. Certainly the first Heller kit for me.

 

Oh, forgot to say, I've got some AM tracks from Modelkasten to spice it up.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 07/08/2021 at 11:13, JOCKNEY said:

That camouflage looks really distinctive.

I wonder if you could use a small marker pen to do outline of the different colours ?

Best of luck.

 

Cheers Pat 

Hi Pat.

Yes, that might be the best way to do it. I'll be starting it next week as I'll finally be getting some time off work.

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On 7/14/2021 at 9:45 PM, Ned said:

Slightly worried about the black outlining, tbh! If it goes wrong it'll end up as a grey Beutepanzer ;)

 

A great choice with the H35, Ned.

 

I used a 'permanent' fine Sharpie to do the black lines on this 1/72 Vickers E and found it worked pretty well.

 

P1120519.JPG

 

I painted the colours first and then did the black lines.  Inevitably there were a few wobbles (especially over rivets and other surface features), so I then did some final tidying up using the colours again and a fine brush.  I'm not sure if it will be easier or harder in 1/35 :winkgrin:?

 

Good luck and enjoy your build.

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On 12/08/2021 at 06:25, CliffB said:

 

A great choice with the H35, Ned.

 

I used a 'permanent' fine Sharpie to do the black lines on this 1/72 Vickers E and found it worked pretty well.

 

P1120519.JPG

 

I painted the colours first and then did the black lines.  Inevitably there were a few wobbles (especially over rivets and other surface features), so I then did some final tidying up using the colours again and a fine brush.  I'm not sure if it will be easier or harder in 1/35 :winkgrin:?

 

Good luck and enjoy your build.

Cheers Cliff, that looks great. I had a rummage around and found a black marker pen but it's a M so will probably be too thick. I'll have a shop around. I'll need some white tac as well for masking. The rivet-free cast hull and turret will hopefully make it easier to work on, but the wheel bogies are going to be awkward. I just stuck a gloss coat on my Panther this morning, so should have it out of the way soon so that I can get started.

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  • 4 weeks later...

We're off!

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Started with the Modelkasten working tracks because I'm a glutton for punishment. The links are teeny-tiny and the bag of them is very large :S

I'll do a few blocks of 10 links every now and then and be done in no time!

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I've just had a better look at the kit and it seems to also include the parts to build a H39, the just-before-the-war redesign. There a more boxy rear hull, different exhaust, long barrel 37mm gun, different idlers and hatches. That would completely get me off the hook with regards to the complicated camouflage scheme, as H39s look to have been olive drab.

I shall resist! The boxy rear looks a lot less French than the streamlined original, and if I wanted olive drab I'd build Shermans,

 

Track build going reasonably well. 90 links down so I'm nearly halfway there. The hull is a complicated affair with too many parts and a few ejector marks to deal with. The hull sides have marks on the outside and a lovely smooth inner just to be annoying.

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Victoire!

2 x 116 track links assembled. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it has been enjoyable, but it hasn't been the worst way to spend a few hours. The big bag of sprues (2 links plus pins per sprue) was a bit daunting at first, but I got through them 20 at a time. Just two failures that had to be drilled out and re-pinned. Only 8 spares though, which seems a bit tight!

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Hi Ned. Hope you are well. Very impressive choice of build for this GB and it looks like you are off to a good start. Always nice when the tracks are completed.

Kind regards,

Stix

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  • 2 weeks later...

Morning.

I've struggled to get on with this, work has just been leaving me flat by the end of each day. Doing IT for a company where most support has been outsourced has turned my working day into a Kafka novel.

Base colour is on:

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The challenge now is to turn it into this:

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I was planning on masking it using white-tac, and was all set to go with my elefantsnot from a Danish shop in York.

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But I think that the pattern is too small and intricate for that, so I'll have a go at marking it out with pencil and painting it by hand. Maybe I'll use elefantsnot on the bogies, just because you would, wouldn't you!

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One thing I've tried before for aircraft is printing out the scheme at the same scale as the model, then cutting out each patch, tracing around it onto a piece of masking tape (you can overlap a couple of pieces for larger areas) then cutting that out with a knife and moving the masking tape onto the model. Might be more appropriate for models with larger, complex shapes on rather flat planes (bit of a guess getting them to wrap around curves).

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On 07/10/2021 at 18:57, Alex Gordon said:

Looking good so far old fruit.

Quick question,where can I acquire Elefantsnot and do they do mail order?For some odd reason I feel a need to get hold of some.

I have found it for you!

The store was called 'Flying Tiger', it sells all sorts of Danish tat. Your nearest looks to be in Lincoln.

In their webshop it's called "Mounting putty", which just doesn't sound half as good as Elefantsnot.

https://eu.flyingtiger.com/products/mounting-putty-3006415

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well, here's my first (and last) attempt at French 'black outline' camouflage. The tan base was sprayed, the green painted by hand, and the black outlines with a Sharpie pen and a wobbly hand. A quick test on the hull sides shows that Sharpie ink gets on OK with W&N varnish, so no worries there for the rest of it.

Usually I'm getting towards the end at this point, because I do the whole assembly before painting, but a quick look at the sprues shows that I've still got a fair way to go. I'm also going to add a commander figure on his little perch on the turret hatch, so there'll be more horror to follow :)

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12 hours ago, Old Man said:

Shaping up nicely, Ned.

 

Glad the marker held true.

Yes, I took your advice and tested it out first. If it had gone wrong then the dunkelgrau would've made an appearance :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just came along to check that today is the last day, and now I see that it isn't! Never mind, I just need to get a matt coat on today and call it done :)

I've been a bit lax at keeping up with the GB, but I'm looking forward to seeing the gallery at the end. I love the French bombers that look like something flown by Dick Dastardly and the Vulture Squadron.

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Here he is, ready for some better photographs tomorrow.

We've had a few arguments along the way:

I like to get them fully built before painting, so it's like two separate stages, but that wouldn't work with the camouflage, so I felt a bit flat when I painted it and then saw that the sprues still had all of the tools and lifting/towing eyes and shackles to get through.

The AM tracks were a real struggle to fit, not enough clearance under the guards, and the front sprockets are connected on an axle, so I had wiggle them through a bit on each side and a few links came apart.

The decals! Just awful. The decal film was about as thick as sellotape, and just refused to confirm with anything but the slightest curve.

And finally I chose paint that was too green.

Fun though. I like it's quirkiness.  I've already added a Tamiya Somua to the stash.

I like to build AFVs associated with 1.PzDiv, and this one fits in nicely as it is depicted as one lost in May 1940 not far from Dunkirk, along the path taken by 1.PzDiv during "Fall Gelb". My 3 GBs this year have followed the same theme - a Panzer III Ausf.A (STGB) and a Polish 7TP (under a tenner) from "Fall Weiss", and now this. I've even got the chronology right. But I think I'll stay with Poland and France for a while before heading off towards Russia...

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  • Ned changed the title to Heller 1/35 Hotchkiss H 35 "Fabriqué en France" - FINISHED

Forgot to mark it as 'finished' the other day, but it's now sat proudly on display. The chances of me painting Albert the commander and sitting him on his folded-down turret hatch are rather slim as I'm already working on something new. Pauvre Albert!

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