Mike N's 1/35 Amusing Hobby Conqueror Mk II

[PeterB]

13 hours ago, Mike N said:

 

 

And here is the running gear. Whenever there are small, loose, or delicate parts I pop them in a container like that shown below to keep everything together and safe.

 

Hi Mike,

 

When in the past I have decided to strip down and refurbish a kit, I too have put the parts in a container. Unfortunately I ended up with a dozen or so unlabelled boxes, bags and jars which over time have been used to store other bits and pieces and now years later it is the Devil's own job working out which bits belong to which kit - I really must get better organised🙄!  I recently spent ages trying to find the bits for my old Airfix Dornier 17 E/F ready for that GB - found nearly all of them in the end.

 

The Conqueror built looks like it may be fun - good luck with it.

 

Pete

Edited March 13, 2022 by PeterB

[Mike N]

On 3/13/2022 at 6:12 AM, CliffB said:

It's interesting that you're given the option of working suspension, Mike.  Will the track be flexible enough to accommodate movement?

 

On 3/13/2022 at 6:27 AM, Mig Eater said:

The kit comes with "workable" individual tracks that click together & should be quite flexible. 

 

I gave the tracks a test tonight. Here's the bag containing the links. I had hoped they might be ready to assemble but alas not. Still, there are only 2 sprue attachments per link and they don't need any cleaning up beyond that. There are a couple of very minor ejector pin marks deep in the tread and there is no way I am going to fill ~400 of them! That's what mud is for

 

 

Anyway, I assembled a few to see how durable they are, and they do feel like they'll survive some manipulation, should I decide to pose it on an uneven surface.

 

 

 

Mike

 

 

[Mike N]

On 3/13/2022 at 12:03 PM, PeterB said:

Hi Mike,

 

When in the past I have decided to strip down and refurbish a kit, I too have put the parts in a container. Unfortunately I ended up with a dozen or so unlabelled boxes, bags and jars which over time have been used to store other bits and pieces and now years later it is the Devil's own job working out which bits belong to which kit - I really must get better organised🙄!  I recently spent ages trying to find the bits for my old Airfix Dornier 17 E/F ready for that GB - found nearly all of them in the end.

 

The Conqueror built looks like it may be fun - good luck with it.

 

Pete

Hi Pete,

 

The containers are a great way of organising small parts, etc, but as you say you can then get so many of them it becomes a problem in itself. Thankfully, they usually fit inside the kit box.

 

The kit is a bit of a slow burner, I'm devoting most of my time to the Nimrod, but I am making some progress. It's generally enjoyable, but some of the parts need a lot of cleaning up and the fit is vague in places. Still, hopefully it will look OK in the end!

 

Mike 

[Mike N]

A bit more progress to report. One of the surprises this kit has is how much cleaning up is required. The upper hull part has some huge protrusions under the fenders that have to be removed or the tracks won't fit!

 

 

 

Being otherwise obscured, I didn't try too hard to blend the resulting scar in, so not the end of the world, just a bit annoying.

 

The fit of quite a few parts is very much down to guesswork without good references. Below is an example, where a bracket for the headlight is fitted on the left in the photo - as can be seen on the other side there is no positioning feature, other than the rib coming down to it. There are quite a few areas like this. I also think Amusing Hobby have got the glacis plate a bit wrong. The horizontal rib is moulded half way down, when it appears it should be quite a bit lower. I had thought about removing it and replacing with plastic strip, but I didn't have the right size stock so will live with it - for now at least. It's a shame as this part is already specific to the Mk II so it's a mystery how they got it wrong.

 

 

Progress has been a bit slow and is not helped by a few fiddly assemblies such as the stowage boxes, each made of 5 parts. Still, it's coming together.

 

 

I'm leaving off a few of the finer details until later to avoid breaking and losing them. There are some very delicate items that get called up early in the instructions that would definitely not survive long!

 

Mike 

 

[PeterB]

Hi Mike,

 

Getting detail info on British tanks can be a problem. Way back, I was frustrated by the lack of kits of the early British Cruisers in 1/76 scale so I was looking at converting Valentines into A9 and A10 and a Crusader into an A13. With this in mind I bought plans from the Tank Museum library, though in the end I discovered the Millicast resin kits and built them instead. I don't know if they do plans of the Conqueror.

 

Just a thought and probably not worth the expense as far as your build is concerned.

 

Pete

[Mike N]

21 hours ago, PeterB said:

I bought plans from the Tank Museum library [...] Just a thought and probably not worth the expense as far as your build is concerned.

Hi Pete,

 

Agreed. I'm not aiming to discover all the inaccuracies that undoubtedly exist with the kit, so I'll just go off photos, etc. Something that looks near enough will do for me this time

 

Mike 

[Mike N]

A small amount of progress, hopefully I'll get some more done while the Nimrod is waiting for its primer coat.

 

The lower hull I think is pretty much there. I will attach the suspension units prior to painting as most of it should be accessible.

 

 

The upper hull still needs a few of the boxes and smaller bits adding, but is almost done too. The accurate placement of many parts is complete guesswork, so I may find some later bits aren't right...

 

 

I've also started on the turret. My plan is to leave the hatches loose so I can later add figures to give a sense of scale. Finding 1960s British tank crew is proving difficult though

 

 

The most recent work has been on the barrel. The bulk of it comes in two pieces, assembled thus:

 

 

The shortness of the stub on part A6 means there is a challenge in aligning the two parts, with the risk of a kink half way along! While it was setting, I had a brain wave and slotted a brass rod down the end to allow me to better gauge straightness:

 

 

Not perfect, but much better than just by rack of eye! If I'd thought about it before joining them, I would've put some plastic tube inside at the joint location and at the rear to act as bushes to make it even easier to get straight.

 

Thanks for looking!

[JeroenS]

Good idea. Seems completely unnecessary to have multiple barrel parts. 

[Mike N]

1 hour ago, JeroenS said:

Good idea. Seems completely unnecessary to have multiple barrel parts. 

I like that they have not split the barrel in half lengthways, and the flash line was very minor for clean up. I can only assume they've split it like they have due to limitations in injection moulding, unless a different variant had a different front or rear barrel. It could definitely have done with better alignment aids, either in the parts themselves or by providing a jig.

[JeroenS]

17 minutes ago, Mike N said:

I like that they have not split the barrel in half lengthways,

True!

 

17 minutes ago, Mike N said:

I can only assume they've split it like they have due to limitations in injection moulding, unless a different variant had a different front or rear barrel. 

Right, must be something like that. 

[PeterB]

Yes, I suppose we sometimes forget that moulding technology has improved a great deal but not all of the smaller manufacturers have the latest tools for whatever reason. A few years back I bought a kit of the big US M-103 tank - sort of an equivalent to the Conqueror, and the "blurb" was raving on about the new "slide mould" tools or whatever they are called that allows for an undercut to give proper "3D" realism. Perhaps surprisingly the US Marines used more of that 62.5 ton tank than the US Army though it must have been a bit heavy for their landing craft! Must dig out the photos I took of the one in the Tank Museum about 20 years ago shortly after it arrived, and get that kit built soon.

 

Pete

Edited April 5, 2022 by PeterB

[Mike N]

With the Nimrod finished, I'm going to try to get this one done in time too. Given I'd done almost nothing on it for 2 months, I had to remind myself where I was up to!

 

Turns out I had only a few parts left to attach prior to getting some paint thrown on it. Included in those was some of the photo etch, the framework around the headlights, which was surprisingly easy for this novice in the world of etch. Here's the upper hull ready for paint:

 

 

It was then out with the Xtracolor X814 Deep Bronze Green enamel. After a marathon airbrushing session, getting paint into all the nooks and crannies, here's the current state of affairs:

 

 

 

I couldn't believe how much paint I used! Although obviously a big tank, I used almost the full tin from new. I guess it was all the surface area of the various features, especially the running gear. I ran out of paint in the airbrush before I could do all the surfaces and I didn't want to suck up the dregs at the bottom of the tin. The result is that some of the odds and sods have only the outer surfaces airbrushed, hopefully there is enough paint to brush the remainder.

 

 

Something I haven't any experience with is fabricating the canvas cover on the mantlet. There is no part provided in the kit, the instructions suggest Tamiya tape:

 

 

The photo etch parts coded Z are, I think, retaining strips for the cover, so should go over it. I'll look at how others have replicated these covers, but if anyone has a simple way for me to tackle this I'm open to suggestions!

 

Mike 

[PeterB]

19 minutes ago, Mike N said:

 

 

I

 

 

 

 

I

 

 

 

Something I haven't any experience with is fabricating the canvas cover on the mantlet. There is no part provided in the kit, the instructions suggest Tamiya tape:

 

 

The photo etch parts coded Z are, I think, retaining strips for the cover, so should go over it. I'll look at how others have replicated these covers, but if anyone has a simple way for me to tackle this I'm open to suggestions!

 

Mike 

Hi Mike,

 

I use toilet paper soaked in a pva(white glue)/water solution on 1/72 kits - not so sure about this beast though. The weave on a piece of cloth will probably too coarse.

 

Pete

[Mike N]

Unfortunately I am not going to finish this in time, even with the extension already granted. I am not too far off but don't want to rush it as I'm enjoying the new techniques I'm learning from stepping out of my comfort zone and into the world of armour modelling.

 

Here is where I've got to. The main components are painted in the overall colour, with a couple of gloss coats, and decals on:

 

 

I used Xtracolor's X814 Deep Bronze Green, which is matt from the tin. At first I was worried I would have to re-paint it as it was not the colour I saw in reference photos, but as those show a semi-gloss finish (on in-service vehicles at least, some museum ones are dead flat and faded) I decided to persevere and laid on a coat of Alclad Klear Kote Gloss - the resulting colour was much better (to my eyes anyway). I'll probably tone down the shine a little before adding some light weathering.

 

The difference in tone between the colour airbrushed 'out of the tin' under the hull and the glossed front can be seen in this photo, and it's even starker in reality.

 

 

Painting the tracks left me scratching my head for a while, but after a bit of research I went with an airbrushed base coat of dark grey. This was followed with a dirt wash, as per the photo below. Next up will be some metallic drybrushing of the guide horns, the areas where the wheels run and the outer surfaces,

 

 

I'll aim to get it finished in the coming weeks and post it in RFI.

 

Thanks to @Adam Poultney and @Enzo Matrix for facilitating the GB, it's been a blast! There are some superb builds in the gallery and I'll look forward to participating in another one in the near future.

 

Mike 

 

[Mike N]

Finally finished and posted in RFI...

 

 

Mike

Edited January 1, 2023 by Mike N