Well I was expecting a stampede of posts here over the week end. Maybe not.
I came home from work Friday and got stuck into the PhZ 2000. Things I least like with tanks are the wheels and belts so being me I attacked them first! The tracks where a long drawn affair 96 links each side, three parts to a link, thats errr, emmmm loads of links! just took one sprue at a time, built them, coffee, smoke, on to the next. One thing that helped a lot was a new pair of sprue side cutters. If you don't have some get some.
Just be sure they are the kind that has the cut flat against the side so you can get right up to the edge of the part. The only clean up needed after that was a quick rub with a fine
sanding stick. Liquid poly on a very fine brush was used to glue all the bits together. ONLY TWO links got glued up all the others are fully mobile and I can highly recommend the Bronco link sets.
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The wheels where a simple enough thing and after assembling them they got a random attack from a scalpel to take out a few chuncks and nicks from the rubber on the road wheels.
We are well into Saturday now and my attentions are turned to the hull of the tank. The whole of the surface of the hull and turret is covered in moulded on detail. Including handles and lifting rings! Out with that scalpel again). likewise a large grill in the middle of the hull was nothing but a (badly) moulded square. That went to and I built a box to go under it and added a few bits which I believe are cooling radiators.
Finding a fine mesh to put over the hole was a bind. Then I had a cup of tea. Bonus. the "Liptons" new improved tea bag is mad of a VERY fine mesh. Problem solved. How ever I still have one problem. I forgot to paint the inner frame! here and now I am stumped as I can not see that box coming out in one part to paint the insides!
Spent an hour or two making handles and lifting rings out of brass wire.
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I was just in the process of glueing the top and bottom of the hull together, when I saw a problem. The Drive wheel and tracks would not be able to go on once the hull was together. Out with the paint! The wheels got a coat of Vallejo Yellow Olive as did the lower hull sides. Tyres got a go with black and pale greyblue (I think it was). The digs and cracks will get a dab of pure black later.
The tracks!!! OH DEER. I think these would have painted so mush better on the sprue. Live and learn! The inner surface got Alclad II Steel and was left over night. Today, Sunday (and raining like mad), the contact area between the rubber tyres and the steel tracks was masked off and the rest of the tracks sprayed with Manifold, then gunmetal then pale burned metal, all from Alclad II. The last two being randomly dusted hist and pist! They look better in real than in the pictures. The wonder of modern armour means that I also have a million rubber tread blocks on the tracks to paint. I think I might cheat and just paint the ones that will be seen.
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Spending much of today drilling out the holes in the cargo box on the turret. Photos of the real thing show that it is made from hole plate. The kit part just has pits in the surface. I might paint up but I will drill them out. Like wise there are two fold down steps are the rear of the hull. These in real life are made of open grates. I'm not to good at drilling square holes so I might have a go at scratch building those!
More later!!
Ian M
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