Dragon 1/72 Firefly Vc

[Angus Tura]

Hello.

 

I'm a bit late to this party. I had hoped to do a British Mark 2 at Alamein by converting the Dragon 1/72 with bits from the Mirage Grant/M3 but the build for the Bombardment GB has taken/is taking a lot longer than I'd hoped. I was going to give this a miss until the Jubilee GB appeared. I had planned to do the Ace Model FV4005 for the Big and British GB but that can go in the Jubilee GB being completed in 1952. So I thought I would try to get this done/finished:

 

 

I have in fact started it a lot of years ago as you'll be able to tell from the Modelzone price tag. I hope you'll think it doesn't break the 25% rule:

 

 

I've assembled the hull and the road wheels. I think I stopped because I got completely bogged down with the counterweight boxes on the back of the turret. There are alternatives to these bottom right from the MR Modellbau equipment set which I'll probably use. I think I'll probably use the kit sprockets and tracks but the DS tracks don't get a good name, to put it mildly. I've got the MR Modellbau ones if the kit ones are as bad as some say.

 

The subject is a bit done to death but I thought I'd build "Carole" as she appeared a week after D-Day: Carole-Scan-1.jpg (995×578) (ww2in172.com)

 

Alan

 

 

 

 

[Angus Tura]

I should have said too that I was inspired by this:

 

 

Fantastic!

 

Alan

[Corsairfoxfouruncle]

I would say ok myself, but its ultimately up to @PlaStix for a final yea or nay. 

[PlaStix]

1 hour ago, Corsairfoxfouruncle said:

I would say ok myself, but its ultimately up to @PlaStix for a final yea or nay. 

And I would agree with you Dennis!

 

Alan, @Angus Tura you are good to go!! Welcome to the GB. I hope you manage to get it done before then end of the GB, but have fun, even if you don’t!

Kind regards,

Stix

[Angus Tura]

Cheers my dears.

[Angus Tura]

So I thought about the DS tracks, and read a bit about them again, and thought I'd use the Modelltrans ones. The kit sprockets are a bit too wide but thankfully they came apart with a bit of help:

 

 

Then the tracks went on pretty well with heat from a soldering iron to persuade them round the sprockets and idlers. I didn't get the sprockets quite narrow enough and there are some gaps at the sides.

 

 

I wanted to use the stowage for the glacis from the Black Dog set but its molded to fit the one piece front plate and not the rivetted one that "Carole" had. Here it is stuck on to the hull and then grooves for the rivetted seams carved out,

 

 

and then a sausage of Magic-Sculp on the stowage and some clingfilm on the lower hull; mashed together and allowed to set and hey presto:

 

 

There was also a space between the stowage and the glacis which I filled and only then realised that there should be some spare track-links in that gap. So I chipped out the putty and put the links in:

 

 

The little putty sausages in front of the track-links is to make the edge of the tarpaulin there. Its a lot easier to sculpt after they are set and "fix" the edges. Here it is finished:

 

 

The bar across the glacis was incompletely molded in the Black Dog set I had so there's a new one here from a strip of, I think, 20 thou. Its a bit bowed to fit, I'm afraid.

 

I mentioned previously that I previously stalled in this kit because of the poor fit of the radio/counterweight boxes behind the turret-bustle. The problem with them is that the rearmost of them has no front wall and the radio box itself, the front box, isn't big enough to fill the hole. I didn't know then what I know now. Namely that bits of scrap plastic are a good filler. Here is the back box with the hole in its front made smaller. I also previously fretted about trying to keep the molded detail on the sides of the radio box. A visit to the "prime portal" Firefly walkaround let me know that the sides are completely featureless.

 

 

I wanted to use this figure from Milicast, who, I think, is using his throat mike:

 

 

The few pictures I've seen of the commander of "Carole" show him always in a helmet. So, that's been taken from one of these separate milicast heads and put on the full figure.

 

 

The additional stowage is from Magic-Sculp and hasn't had it's straps put on at this point.

 

After that it was just a matter of getting all the separately molded, and etched, details on....

There are a fair few, and they're tiny, and without the walkaround pictures I wouldn't have gathered how some of them went on. However, after several evenings slog, I got them all on apart from the guard on the base of the aerial.  That ended up as a badly mangled albeit tiny, brass thing. I made a new one out of stretched sprue, which was also something of a trial:

 

 

So here it is ready to paint:

 

 

The stowage is based on the photo of the tank with link above. The three crates are by Black Dog and the straps on the stowage are from tomato puree tube. I was going just to use the kit 17 pounder barrel which is very nicely slide molded, but I managed to stick it on twisted. It's been replaced with this Aber barrel.

 

I have massively enjoyed this so far. The kit is brilliant. Now some paint.

 

Alan 

[PlaStix]

Fantastic progress Alan. I am very impressed with the work you are doing on this, especially as it's 1/72! It's looking fantastic! Hopefully you'll be able to get it completed by next Sunday evening.

Kind regards,

Stix