belugawhaleman

This is cool! I love these big scale tanks.

No, not stressful, just tedious and mindlessly repetitive. Actually, if You just pin the tracks together as is, they are tight and can posed as you need but don't expect the tank to roll. You really can't see any track sag as the molded -in side skirts prevent viewing of the upper part of the tracks. I've see photos of these tanks without the side skirts however.

I've been thinking about how I'm going to paint this thing. Years ago when I built my big Tamiya tanks I used a spray can. Now I don't know if I've even have enough paint to cover this thing! I like the big 1/16 tanks and I have a stash of them and will probably buy another this week. Because this tank has the side skirts molded in, I'll probably paint the Turret, upper, and lower hulls separately then assemble the three parts.

Very nice!

Thanks I've been using the same reference as the links you provided, unfortunately there are differences to the tank I'm modeling. This trumpeter kit seems to be an early "b" model before the reactive armor was added. The smoke dischargers are located On the left side of the turret and not the front among other things. I can't find any pics that show how the lamp on the commanders hatch is wired and the large infrared lamp Will need to have some hokey molded in wiring removed and some scratch building to correct Before I can wire it up. The headlamp frames/protectors are missing a cylindrical housing on the rear outside leg on each were the wires come out of. Anyway, these big kits really call out for adding extra details but I'm not sure I'm up to it. Well, I'll try my best. Thanks again for your input.

I'm adding some wiring to some of the lamps and machine gun trigger using lead wire.

A bit.....A small bit of progress. I was able to finish one side of tracks. As mentioned previously, A lot of sanding and fitting is needed to get these tracks working properly........... It took most of Saturday to complete one side; 95 links in all. I've already separated the rest of the track links from their Sprues and am planning on finishing the other side this week. Meanwhile, I've fitted the track to the model to test things........here's a picture.

I'm currently reading this......

Looks great Rob. I painted the eyes when I did the figure. I was wondering about the Archer eyes. I had seen them advertised on the archer website and thought about giving them a try. I still have a lot to learn about painting realistic faces on figures, but I do enjoy painting them. I still have the figure from the Takom Ft-17 to paint......the guy with the chain mail face covering, fortunately for me most of his face is covered. Anyway, your figure and tank look great.

I agree with Hubert on this one! Very impressive! Paul.

It's the trumpeter Hellcat that has the weird bulgy thing going on with rear fuselage not their wildcat.

Holy mackerel! That's scatchbuilt? It's wonderful, well done!

That photo-etch work looks impressive. Did that come with the kit? Anyway, I'm sure that many others on this forum,including myself, would like to see more of this build.

Looks great! I have in my stash a huge Trumpeter kit in 1/16 of the SU 100 that should be a terrific build with its 1100 parts. Can't wait to build that one

I'm glad someone is building one of the Trumpy 1/32 Wildcats. I have two of these kits in my stash and frankly, I've been afraid of making either of them because I've of what I hear of problems with these kits. Is the fit bad?Accuracy problems? Etc. I hope not, as the wildcat is one of my favorites. I'll be watching this build to see Your experiences with this kit. I'd like to see your feedback regarding your opinion On this Trumpeter kit. Thanks; Paul

I really find figure faces difficult to paint realistically. Could you possibly post Some of your techniques for for painting faces? A brief tutorial would be greatly appreciated. My figures end up looking like expressionless pink-faced albinos.

Nice work on your figures.

Your work looks great so far! I'll be watching for sure!.

Very cool. Reminds me of my many attempts at building balsa models in the 70's of which only one I completed; A Stirling models Boeing P 26 Peashooter . That was before laser cut balsa parts. I'd like to try one of the new kits but I bet butryate dope isn't politically correct these days. Anyway,..... I'm probably drifting from the point..I know yours is a full scale plane.... It must be the exposure to the model airplane dope when I was a kid. Did I tell you I made balsa models as a kid? Yes? Oh look! A badger!

I've been working on the tracks. I did a short section last night and with all the sanding and fitting needed it took a long time to get it working properly and flexible. The track doesn't fit the sprocket that well but I think it will work out fine. Finishing the tracks will be a big project before some painting begins.

Finished most of the assembly. The barrel seams have been taken care of and most of the turret done. I painted the NSVT machine gun.

Looks great Rob. I had fun with my build. I now want to try the Japanese version. With regards to the tracks; mine developed a split on one side after sitting on the shelf for months. I have been unable to fix the gap.

I was working on the barrel last night. It's plastic and made up of two halves requiring two long seams to be dealt with including some work with small files. I still need to finish that. Also I'm not sure how I'm going to include the tow cables as I already glued the tow hooks in place. The kit requires trapping the tow cables in the hooks as you glue them in place. I'm thinking of cutting the eyes of the cables with a razor saw and regluing at installation. Anyway, I missed out on some detailing chances as I was installing the various lamps on the tank. I have a resource the shows the wiring For each but I can't see how I could do it now with the lamps installed. Here is a link http://www.primeportal.net/tanks/azrael_raven/t-72_raac_museum/

Here are some pictures of my work on this big model so far. So far so easy.... Like a scaled up 1/35 model. Fit is good , the plastic is very heavy duty. This model was clearly designed as an RC model at one time. One thing that I look forward with with dread are the tracks; each link has about five sprue attachment points that need to be cut off and sanded.....A daunting task as there are about 180 of them I guess. Yikes! Anyway, it'll be a fun project I think.

Getting started on Trumpeter's huge 1/16 T-72 tank. Here are some pictures. Just to give you an idea how big this thing is it's sitting on a 18" × 24" cutting mat