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How are the mighty fallen! - British Mk. V Tank - FINISHED, COMPLETED AND DONE!


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1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

I was given a beautifully preserved bayonet in scabbard by an old Tommy when I was a kid. I blush to recall that as a teenager I sold it for petrol money or something equally ephemeral. 

I had loads of assorted militaria in the past, likewise pretty much all flogged off, much to my regret now :(

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2 hours ago, simmerit said:

 

Nice but the wrong year.  He wants to try one of these

 

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No1, Mk1 dated 1906.

 

I also had one of these ( 1917 dated) but was a de-ac so did nothing but go "click" !

I have fired the WW2 period  No 4 mk1's on occasion in the distant past, so fairly similar shooting no doubt, I much prefer the sights of the old SMLE though, and the older rifle would be my choice out of the two.

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There's been a little tinkering since last time, nothing particularly noteworthy, but I thought I'd keep you informed.

 

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This is how the rear end with the fuel tanks will probably be configured. That rear hatch complete with gun will be hanging from one hinge, having been blown violently outwards I may mangle the right hand tank access door a little more. Not sure yet.

 

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This is where the fan housing will be. I've done some preliminary painting but there's more needed.

 

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I started building the port sponson and gun. I need to know how it goes together so that I can dismember the starboard side effectively. I was amused by the rifling which may be just a tad overscale. I see this as a gimmick like those awful moving control surfaces on an aeroplane kit, and will most likely drill it out. 

 

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The gun is a sweet little thing and should look fine under a little paint. I think that circular indentation is not an ejection mark. I'm finding a lot of them in visible positions but then the pieces are meant to be viewed from all around so what else could the designers do? All is understood, accepted and forgiven, Mr Meng.

 

 

 

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The sponsons are built almost entirely from flat plates, exactly as the real thing was.

 

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This was the only way for Meng to incorporate crisp detail on both sides of the pieces.

 

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I found the best way to build it was to go slowly, so the glue would set a little, but not so slowly that the joints set completely. This allowed me to make adjustments as I went along.

 

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I was puzzled by the rivets inside this closed box (it will be closed when this end goes on)

 

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Aha! That's what the rivets are for. It's still pretty much invisible unless some fool incorporates battle damage.

 

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Looking good.

 

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I left it to set completely, resting in the location on the side plate as a kind of jig to ensure good alignment.

 

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This is the roof of the sponson, not attached yet. That line of incomplete rivets is one of the very rare examples of errors on this kit. As there's only half a dozen of them, I might make some dome shapes from stretched sprue later.

 

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I'm absolutely loving the way the interior is getting busier day by day. There's still a ton of details and lots of painting to add even more interest. This is my first full interior kit and won't be my last. It's very good value for money, when you divide the cost by the potential hors spent. I say potential because I have noticed that I'm now starting to build larger sub assemblies before painting. I could spend even more time if I had stuck to the original plan of painting almost every piece individually. I wonder why I'm slipping back into my old ways? It's partly my customary impatience, partly the dawning realisation that a lot of this detail will not be seen. Consider those fuel tanks, for example, you can hardly see them now and when the other side is attached, they will be even less obvious. 

 

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Aye up Bertie,

 

This is a real stunner of a build with a great attention to detail 👍

 

Really enjoying watching this come together.

 

Regards,

 

Steve

Edited by fatfingers
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  • Bertie McBoatface changed the title to How are the mighty fallen! - British Mk. V Tank - Full Interior, Battle Damage and Diorama - Currently Working: Port Sponson

 

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I fixed those short rivets with small pieces of plastic strip, well glued down with a strong cement which will have rounded them a little. A couple of layers pf primer and then paint will I think make them a close enough match with the others. I'd decided that plastic sprue, stretched and then mushroomed with heat a dozen times would be little better as I'd never get the right diameter anyway. I had no stock in hand - perhaps I should make a batch one night.

 

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I almost wasted my time doing the other side but then I remembered what's going  to happen to the sponson on the right. (Spoilers!)

 

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Afterwards, out of idle curiosity I stretched the first sprue section that came to hand. It was perfect. And parallel. A poop upon it!

 

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This will do. If not I'll do what armour moddellers have been doing for decades - smother it in mud.

 

That was as much as I managed last night. I looked at the sponson and the gun for a while pondering why I hadn't painted the sights before fitting them as I had planned. The sub assembly had suddenly grown too big for efficient painting - fail! Why did I do that?

 

Because I don't like spraying primer. Why not? Due to the cleaning up operations and the need to spend a couple of minutes switching to my larger nozzle/needle set. That lazy distaste for the priming process leads me to batch items for priming which in turn makes me over assemble. I'm not going to airbrush prime one or two parts. I'm much too lazy for that. And it would be hopelessly inefficient.

 

I'm trying to find the most efficient way for me to organise my work flow for the best painting in the shortest time, you see. These full interior kits are more complex than anything else I've ever done and have let to me questioning all my ole habits. Already, I've tried simply not priming and have to admit that I've been dissatisfied with the standard of the finish so that's out. What can I try next?

 

I remembered, as a kid, painting the parts before removing them from the sprue. It didn't work well then so I stopped doing it. I found I spent twice as long removing paint from mating surfaces as painting them in the first place. If I didn't remove the paint, nothing stayed glued. And I couldn't clean up mould parting lines. But that was then, and that was Humbrol enamels with a paintbrush. It's worth revisiting the idea, as they say.

 

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This time I've sprayed two thin coats of acrylic primer on everything. It was a fast process. By the time I'd finished the mist coating on the last sprue, I was ready to begin applying the full coat on the first one. There was no hassle about putting them down free of the surface and they were wonderfully easy to handle. Most of the larger parts join at the edges which is where the parting lines are so I'll be removing the plastic and the primer at the same time, saving time.

 

Acrylic primer comes off a lot easier than enamels. Where there is clean up needed on small, typically round parts, I think there will still be sufficient primer left either side for the paint to stick and bridge the gap. (If there isn't I'll try primer touch-ups with a brush and hairdryer; dry in seconds flat.) This will also apply to joints between panels where either I have removed the primer deliberately or the glue has burnt it away. Unlike enamels, if I want to I can glue straight through acrylic primers and paints with just a bit of a clean up needed.

 

This process should allow me more freedom to brush paint small parts before assembly and to airbrush smaller sub assemblies before joining them together in larger ones. I wish I'd tried it right from the start because a lot of pieces have already been used up, but then again, this is an experiment and the work I've done so far can be thought of as the control. 

 

This morning I also sprayed primer onto the inside of the tank where I tried not using primer. Later tonight perhaps I'll spray a proper coat of my Tamiya special white over it. It's a step backwards but it will look better and will match the rest of the pieces. I can also paint the gun tonight and the insides of the sponson and may even spray the white onto the remaining hull and sponson panels while they are still on their sprues, extending the primer principle as described. It's all very interesting to me and I hope not too boring for you. :yawn:

 

Maybe tonight, maybe tomorrow but you can be sure I'll let you know what happens, good or bad.

 

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1 hour ago, Bertie Psmith said:

This will do. If not I'll do what armour moddellers have been doing for decades - smother it in mud.

 

Adding rivets and bolt heads is another task armour modellers have been doing for seemingly ever. I have done so many times using a method similar to what you have shown but times change and new ways reveal themselves.

 

I started using a technique to what Paul Budzik shows in this video:

 

 

except that, instead of brass I primarily use plastic rod ( i.e. Evergreen, Plastruct, or stretched sprue ). I found that marking out and drilling the small holes although tedious resulted in a better aligned, more uniform, and spaced row of rivets. Being plastic I could also more easily cut of the protruding bits on the back side if they might show or be in the way during further assembly.

 

Also, for forming the dome heads I have found the use of jewelers  cup burrs can do a neat job of rounding over the ends.

 

https://www.hswalsh.com/product/busch-411-cup-burr-tf411

 

Smallest is 0.9mm diameter and good for rounding over rod down to about 0.5mm diameter.  This young lady gives a quick description and demo on their use:

 

 

Fabulous build, most enjoyable to follow.

 

cheers, Graham

 

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24 minutes ago, ColonelKrypton said:

Fabulous build, most enjoyable to follow.

 

Thanks Colonel.

 

And with regard to your tips and links, may I say fabulous, most interesting to follow. I know Paul Budzik's videos from old but haven't seen this one and I'd never heard of a cup burr until now. Thanks for the gen.

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Hi, Bertie

It is very interesting to watch your build. All looks great!
I want to share an idea about rivets, nuts, and bolts. I used to try to make rivets and bots myself, but now I use Meng sets. It is very convenient and saves a lot of time. These sets have bolt heads on one side of the plate and nuts with a protruding short screw tip on the other. Rivet sets have spherical rivets on one side and spiked on the other. The bolts in each set come in several different sizes.  
Simply cut the bolts or nuts or rivets from a plate with a sharp knife, place them in the right position on a model, and glue them with plastic glue. It's super-easy and super-fast. And looks really good. 
Link to Meng produktion site: http://www.meng-model.com/en/channels/81_3.html
I bought the sets at a local model shop.

 

Vytautas

P.S. Before ordering, observe sets on the internet (in a Meng site is not enough info) and pay attention to the types and sizes of bolts.

 

 

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Just now, vytautas said:

Hi, Bertie

It is very interesting to watch your build. All looks great!
I want to share an idea about rivets, nuts, and bolts. I used to try to make rivets and bots myself, but now I use Meng sets. It is very convenient and saves a lot of time. These sets have bolt heads on one side of the plate and nuts with a protruding short screw tip on the other. Rivet sets have spherical rivets on one side and spiked on the other. The bolts in each set come in several different sizes.  
Simply cut the bolts or nuts or rivets from a plate with a sharp knife, place them in the right position on a model, and glue them with plastic glue. It's super-easy and super-fast. And looks really good. 
Link to Meng produktion site: http://www.meng-model.com/en/channels/81_3.html
I bought the sets at a local model shop.

 

Vytautas

P.S. Before ordering, observe sets on the internet (in a Meng site is not enough info) and pay attention to the types and sizes of bolts.

 

 

 

I know that Takom always include a dozen of the bolts on the sprues somewhere, which I have saved very carefully, but I didn't know you could buy them. Thank you  for that gem of information.

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I've used the Meng nuts and bolts a couple of times, they're a good idea but I found them difficult ( impossible) to cut from the backing sheet cleanly and squarely, no doubt my sausage fingers and failing eyesight though... I preferred the bolts and rivets from Historex, (made by a Russian firm who's name escapes me) that are "proper" bolts or rivets on a long shank that you drill a hole for and insert like the real thing.

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7 minutes ago, Pig of the Week said:

I've used the Meng nuts and bolts a couple of times, they're a good idea but I found them difficult ( impossible) to cut from the backing sheet cleanly and squarely, no doubt my sausage fingers and failing eyesight though... I preferred the bolts and rivets from Historex, (made by a Russian firm who's name escapes me) that are "proper" bolts or rivets on a long shank that you drill a hole for and insert like the real thing.

Thanks. It's good that we have all these options although to be honest, I'm fairly satisfied with my own methods and will probably only adopt the pre-drilling Budzic technique for long runs of bolts. 

 

I believe there are also 3D decals of rivets etc for those big jobs.

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8 hours ago, Bertie Psmith said:

 

Wrong tank but there are many similarities. The trick is to know which things to copy across.

Yep, knew it was a different mk. but nice to get a flavour of these in general, and as you say there's got to be lots of overlap..

The Indy Neidell great war series, (and indeed his current WW2 series ongoing) are very well done and well worth a watch if anyone's not come across them before...

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9 hours ago, Maginot said:

Nice work, here.

 

Jeeps! There's a lot of gubbins in there. No room for blokes.

 

You must have been orf somewhere making model aeroplanes. Can't keep up with your construction rate.

 

Thanks Švejk, 

 

There certainly is a lot of gubbins! There's so much that there's barely room for the gubbins, never mind the blokes. It must have been hell in there in combat.

 

Construction rate? Easy. All you have to do is get old, retire, live alone, have not much of a (normal?) life. You'll be surprised what you can achieve in those circumstances. :rofl:(That's all true btw but I'm not after sympathy - I love my life!)

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I didn't update yesterday, despite spending a long time at the desk. I didn't seem to be achieving much. The port sponson went together with no problems. I painted the gun in a somewhat unsatisfactory way. Oh, I did paint all of the inside surfaces 'white' and that seems to be generally a good thing. I'll have a ton of touch ups to do with trad paintbrushes as I assemble but that's better for me than getting out the airbrush at several stages of the assembly process. I didn't take many pictures through these rather unphotogenic little jobs and the ones I did take were generally poor quality. Just one of those days. Meh!

 

Last thing last night and this morning though, I got back to business.

 

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I started doing some serious damage to my model kit. This is the commander's cab, the rearmost hump on the camel's back. The plating is thin up there and the internal explosions have, I decided, burst open the stbd side hatch. The hatches were on either side and allowed the crew to attach the unditching beam to the tracks without going outside and climbing on the roof in the middle of a battle - a significant improvement to their conditions of service, compared to the Mk IV, I'd say!

 

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Having stuck the rest of the cab together, I burst it apart again. I thinned the edges.

 

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And drilled out the rivets. Look at all that gorgeously random chipping. If I could paint random like that I'd be a very Happy Hector.

 

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From the inside, a little while later. You will notice the buckling of the roof panel caused by the relatively low explosive detonations, of the tank's own ammo perhaps?

 

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I liked the buckling effects so I extended them to suitable areas of the main roof panel. I experimented with a soldering iron and a foam cutter but found that a cigarette lighter was most efficient, if a little bit tricky to control. I made the bulges in the hot plastic with my fingertips which hurt a bit.

 

I also continued to scrape and grind the roof thin enough for some fragmentation damage and shattering effects. I think I'll have to airbrush this lot again.

 

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And outside again. Amazingly, the roof still fits.

 

That will do for the roof damage I think. Most of the dramatic impact (geddit?) will be on the starboard side and the nose and now I've had a bash at the roof, I'm more confident about tackling these areas. I'm still working up to it slowly though.

 

And then I went to bed. Without tidying up - horrors!

 

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This morning's session started on the stbd side.

 

This front part is an area I want to burst open mainly because it's easy. An explosion has happened on the edge of the sponson hole so it makes sense to have damage here and I thought it was a good place to learn more about splitting the plating. Incidentally, I rejected my earlier idea of replacing the kit plating with thin plasticard on the grounds of me not being a tidy enough worker. It would have been embarrassing. 🤷‍♂️

 

I first cut through the panel line, to limit the distortion to one panel.

 

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Then I thinned the inside with a mini grinder, and then with a big scraper when I became impatient.

 

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Then I wounded the panel to try to control the fragmentation. 

 

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I drilled out the burst rivets. I see that my cutting and scraping has wandered a little bit into the other line of rivets, darn it!

 

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BOOM! That's a hole big enough to see through so I'll need something to look at.

 

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That oval thingie behind the yellow plate is an inspection hole with a tiny bit of structure visible from the inside of the tank. I just extemporised on that a little with some Plastruct girders and that plate from the spares box. I'll paint it all blackened and chipped before I close the lid.

 

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See what I mean about growing confidence? The area behind the sponson is where the epicyclic gearbox and brake unit lurks in the dark and I want that to be revealed. I completely cut out a large plate some 5 foot by 8 (?) to give myself room to work my brutality without busting the now quite fragile front end.

 

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From the inside it looks brilliant. I managed to cut underneath that reinforcing strap on the left, leaving it in place with all of its moulded detail. What a pity that it will be completely out of view!

 

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It will be useful to have the outer surface of the strap to glue the panels back into the hull though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Good training too.

 

I split the panel into two, made some internal structure, and then bent the plates in interesting ways. It looks pretty rough right now and will all stand or fall on the quality of my painting I think.

 

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So that's where we are at cease work this morning. It took 20 minutes to tidy the desktop after two glorious hack and bash sessions like that. So tell me what you think of it so far, ODD enough for you? 😜

 

 

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