I decided to turn this kit into a 'what if' - I imagined a post-apocalyptic scenario where this tank got a bit too close to a nuclear blast that took off half the paint and collapsed part of the suspension.
I actually started with the tracks - best indy link styrene tracks I have ever come across! If they were all like this, I'd never spend money on Friuls/Masterclub/Spade Ace etc ever again! Took about 20 minutes per track run:
Just don't make my mistake of making four complete track runs (as the instructions tell you) as you cannot fit completed track runs to the inner two positions!
The instructions would have you add all the gubbins to the individual hull halves before glueing them together. As a lot of the parts are tiny and there being quite a bit of flex in the hull halves as well as needing to clamp them together while the glue sets I decided it best to put the hull together first and then attach all the little bits and pieces.
Here are some examples of how tiny the bits can be:
Because the kit was free, I decided I could afford to spend some money on an RB metal barrel:
One of the locating tabs of the external fuel tanks has to go as there is no equivalent slot on the hull:
The included PE is really rather nice:
Some of the detail is less nice - I've seen MG barrels like this in (for example) Eastern Express kits from the 90's:
After attaching all the tiny parts I felt ready to perform brain surgery on a fly. Operation was a full success, but the patient died
:
I know the headlight's a bit too big - but elf is much nicer than the kit offering:
The kit just provides the eyes for the tow-cables that are just supposed to get glued to the side of the hull. On reference photos only one cable was fitted, so I replicated the mounting (filling the holes in the hull where Amusing Hobby thinks they should go) and replaced the cable with one from Eureka:
Primer in hull red:
Used chipping fluid before giving it a coat of 4BO. I left some parts in red primer and given some a different camo pattern. The idea being that this is a combat veteran kept going with salvaged spares:
The other half of the tank got a coating of two component rust, where the nuclear blast burned off the paint:
For some stupid reason I then proceded to give the model a dark green wash that obliterated all that lovely chipping I spent hours on
Oh, the number '168' came about the same way HAL the computer in '2001' got its name
Hope you like what you just saw and all comments welcome.
