241 replies to this topic

[Immel_man]

Vantablack12, on 29 November 2020 - 10:05 AM, said:

I see you modified the nozzle on the Testors black bottle. What did you do?

No modification. What are you seeing?

[Vantablack12]

Immel_man, on 29 November 2020 - 02:25 PM, said:

No modification. What are you seeing?

In the last picture. My bottle doesn't have a needle like applicator.

I'll try and post a photo of mine.

Edited by Vantablack12, 30 November 2020 - 06:39 AM.

[CatFromMars11]

Cool models man. I have built some models, but I haven’t painted or done anything like that.

[Vantablack12]

This is what my bottle looks like

Edited by Vantablack12, 01 December 2020 - 07:52 AM.

[Immel_man]

Vantablack12, on 30 November 2020 - 02:08 PM, said:

This is what my bottle looks like

(Picture didn’t work)

Is the label on the black bottle an orange label or black?

[Vantablack12]

Immel_man, on 30 November 2020 - 11:21 PM, said:

Is the label on the black bottle an orange label or black?

Oh mine is orange. I didn't notice.

Edited by Vantablack12, 01 December 2020 - 07:53 AM.

[Immel_man]

That’s kinda weird. In the two dozen years I’ve been using this type of glue I’ve never noticed that testors bottle was different than the model masters bottle.
Model masters is a brand owned by testors. I always figured it was the same offering with a different label.

[BorisBaddenov]

I'm going to start today -   From what I remember from my past, step one is a gentle washing of the parts tree to remove the mold release.   I'll start with that, I dont think it can hurt as long as I am really careful.

 

Question - at what point do we paint?   I need to order the paint still and I want to make sure I have it

 

 

Peace-

Boris

[Vantablack12]

BorisBaddenov, on 01 December 2020 - 07:50 AM, said:

I'm going to start today -   From what I remember from my past, step one is a gentle washing of the parts tree to remove the mold release.   I'll start with that, I dont think it can hurt as long as I am really careful.

 

Question - at what point do we paint?   I need to order the paint still and I want to make sure I have it

 

 

Peace-

Boris

Do not paint each individual piece. The model shoud be more or less complete, but I would leave the tracks removable for easy painting. If we were painting a german tank then we would have to worry about painting the road wheels separately. Maybe immel has other advice.

[BorisBaddenov]

Vantablack12, on 30 November 2020 - 03:08 PM, said:

This is what my bottle looks like

 

I have the same bottle.

 

 

Peace-

Boris

[Immel_man]

BorisBaddenov, on 01 December 2020 - 07:50 AM, said:

I'm going to start today -   From what I remember from my past, step one is a gentle washing of the parts tree to remove the mold release.   I'll start with that, I dont think it can hurt as long as I am really careful.

 

Question - at what point do we paint?   I need to order the paint still and I want to make sure I have it

 

 

Peace-

Boris

I try and assemble as much as possible before painting. Most nation army’s felt the same way. You’ve got time to order up your paint, but don’t dither also. 
 

  I haven’t washed sprues in quite some time. It’s certainly not going to hurt anything if you do though. 

[Immel_man]

December 1 and I'm off to the races. cutting and glueing plastic. I am going to try and get a little done every night, not sure how frequently ill be able to post, but I am going to do my best to keep up on it. anyways here we go:

 

Not sure if everyone noticed these or not when skimming the instructions but they're metal weights to give the model some scale heft to it. The first 50 or so models in the 48 scale line that tamiya put out had diecaet metal hulls for the weighted feel, but complaints about lack of detail pushed tamiya to start including these weights instead. They are in no way structural, purely aesthetic, and since they're not plastic, you'll need to affix them with super glue, otherwise skip this step:

 

 

My preferred tool for applying superglue is a pinvice with a sewing needle chucked in it. I break the eyelet end off so what's left is a set of prongs that work great for holding a small drop of glue in between the prongs and then I touch where glue is needed and the glue wicks away. Much easier than the applicator that the super glue comes in that's always plugging up with dry super glue.

 

One of the tips section I wanted to get to (that I didn't) before we started was talking a bit about tamiya putty. It is a solvent based putty, meaning when applied it will etch or melt slightly in to the plastic. my preferred method for using it is to thin it with lacquer thinner and brush it on. The exhaust deflector had a big seam down it so I mixed up some putty and brushed it on. 

 

 

 

the deflector in the back ground. later in the build ill make a thinner version of this and dab it on the turret. its a great method for representing cast or rough metal. 

 

 

upper and lower hulls. As you can see I've skipped the tracks and road wheel assemblies. I'll discuss the different ways to tackle assembly and painting in a later post. Suffice it to say there's no perfect way or right way to do it. 

[BorisBaddenov]

I am on step 3 - Real Panel.

 

The instructions show painting some of the smaller parts before assembly.  

 

Do I need to paint them at all?   If so, should I wait until I have the paint, or can I paint them after?

 

I'm in a holding pattern until I know better.

 

 

Peace-

Boris

[Immel_man]

It’s builders choice. If you paint before assembly that requires you remove paint down to the plastic so the glue has something to react with. If you assemble first and paint on the model it requires a steady hand and good brush.

 

I’ll say that I try and assemble as much as possible before painting. 

Edited by Immel_man, 02 December 2020 - 07:20 PM.

[Vantablack12]

^^^ 

What he said

[Immel_man]

To further the discussion Borris, my typical plan of attack is to build the whole model, paint the camo, then start brush painting detail parts like tools and machine guns, exhausts etc.
tracks and road wheels are a bit tricky to hand paint in the sense that it’s hard to get in all the nooks and crannies of the track without disturbing the camouflage of the vehicle. What I try and do is a assemble everything in four parts, turret and upper hull, lower hull, road wheels, and tracks.
With everything on the upper hull complete, and the lower hull complete, I’ll assemble the running gears but not affix them (permanently) to the lower hull. Often I’ll “tack” the running gears and road wheels in place with elmers white glue and start assembling the tracks as two half sections so as I can pull them off the model and paint them off of the model. With the two track halves complete, I then remove the tracks and running gears paint the camouflage and tracks and reassemble everything when airbrushing is complete.

Hope that makes sense. I’ll post pictures and my thoughts when I get there.

Edited by Immel_man, 03 December 2020 - 12:10 AM.

[BorisBaddenov]

Immel_man, on 02 December 2020 - 05:08 PM, said:

To further the discussion Borris, my typical plan of attack is to build the whole model, paint the camo, then start brush painting detail parts like tools and machine guns, exhausts etc.
tracks and road wheels are a bit tricky to hand paint in the sense that it’s hard to get in all the nooks and crannies of the track without disturbing the camouflage of the vehicle. What I try and do is a assemble everything in four parts, turret and upper hull, lower hull, road wheels, and tracks.
With everything on the upper hull complete, and the lower hull complete, I’ll assemble the running gears but not affix them (permanently) to the lower hull. Often I’ll “tack” the running gears and road wheels in place with elmers white glue and start assembling the tracks as two half sections so as I can pull them off the model and paint them off of the model. With the two track halves complete, I then remove the tracks and running gears paint the camouflage and tracks and reassemble everything when airbrushing is complete.

Hope that makes sense. I’ll post pictures and my thoughts when I get there.

Yeah - that was really helpful thanks.

 

I think it's been close to 30 years since I last did a model.  I used to be almost as good as you are.   I grew up in the Hobby Shop my parents owned, so I had lots of practice - mostly with 1/87th scale (HO Trains)

 

 

Peace-

Boris

[Vantablack12]

BorisBaddenov, on 02 December 2020 - 04:29 PM, said:

Yeah - that was really helpful thanks.

 

I think it's been close to 30 years since I last did a model.  I used to be almost as good as you are.   I grew up in the Hobby Shop my parents owned, so I had lots of practice - mostly with 1/87th scale (HO Trains)

 

 

Peace-

Boris

I think you'll pick up the hobby again quite quickly. You have had quite a lot of experience. I am still complete beginner to this hobby. Once you've built a few more, I'll be the one asking questions and you'll be giving answers! Not the other way around.

[Immel_man]

Progress! I like to build bulk sub assemblies first then start adding fiddly bits after the fact.

 

here's my tip of the day, like the adage "measure twice, cut once"  "test fit, test fit, test fit". check the alignments check the fit, take note how the joints come together and what areas could be problematic when glueing. 

 

 

 

for those of you participating in the build you can see the turret parts and how they come together. too much glue on these seams and youre going to have a mess on your hands, that require filler, sanding and then... loss of that nice cast detail tamiya has engineered. I'm going to go ahead and botch these seams to show you how to fix it, because I'm a team player.

 

 

 

[Immel_man]

having finished the structure of the turret, I'm a little surprised at the breakdown tamiya chose to engineer said turret. I understand molding those compound curves don't really give you a nice line to put a natural part break but well there's seams, so lets talk about it. 

 

Here:

 

 

pretty unsightly if you ask me. Normally one would fill and sand seams like this but any sanding effort will erase the cast texture of the turret. Ive decided to fill and sand like normal.

 

 

sanded:

 

 

sanded seams and lost detail, a bit of a shame as I think tamiyas effort at replicating cast texture was top notch. to fix

 the lost detail I thinned out some more tamiya grey putty with lacquer thinner and with a short stippling brush applied my mixture in an attempt to blend the sanded areas.