Well I won't add the Jeep until after I have pretty well finished the ground work. Then I will see if it will be too much or if it needs it.

Ditto - I really like seeing progress and taking little mental notes to help me learn.

Happy New Year all

Stuart

Hi everybody. It's been a while but I'm back. Not much got done in the last month but that's the way it goes some times. Any way I've made some progress with the water but I'm still holding my breath as to how it turns out. I didn't take any pictures of the water yet so I'll have to do that.

So why all this time have I been determined to build a tank from the 4-64th? And to be more specific from "A" company. Well "A" company is known as the assassins. Those who serve with this unit must be proud of that fact as some M1's in OIF were photographed with a large jolly rogers flag flying from their tanks. Here is the best picture I have of that flag. Ya once again I couldn't resist.



My first set of antennas were made with stretched sprue but this was too flexible and would not support the weight of a flag. My second set of antennas were made of .020" copper wire. This wire is stronger then the sprue yet still has some flexibility to it. Just as long as I don't put a kink in it they should be fine. The wire was inserted into antenna bases from Pro Art because I lost the kit supplied ones. The ball thingy on the end of the two antennas were made by making two small balls of white Milliput epoxy putty. After these had almost completely hardened I drilled a small opening in each ball. This would allow them to be more securely attached to the antenna wire. Once the ball thingy was glued in place and completely hardened I added some more putty to finish the shape. A little sanding (as rolling them by hand does not yield a perfect sphere) and my ball thingy antenna ends were done. They probably aren't the right scale size but to my Mk.1 eyeball they look good enough to me.



Now on to the flag.

Part 1

Luckily I had some left over lead foil from a wine bottle that would be big enough for the flag. The size of the flag was calculated using the science of guess-timation. Once a rectangle of foil was cut out it was attached to one of the antennas by wrapping about 5mm of foil around the wire. This was secured with some Zap-A-Gap. The next step is where it gets interesting. Adding the folds and bringing it to life. I tried to use my one good flag picture as reference to get the overall shape right of the flag "in flight". Once the general shape was set I used my thumbnail and even the back of a scribing tool to make finer folds in the flag. Making the folds took a few attempts to get it looking right. One thing I should note is that although I smoothed out the foil as much as possible it still has a few lines in it I couldn't remove without damaging the foil. Once the foil was "sculpted" to shape the Milliput came out again. To make some of the more detailed folds and wrinkles I added some epoxy putty and shaped it with the back of an x-acto knife. To help stiffen up the flag a bit I dropped some Zap-A-Gap CA on the flag's surface and smeared it all over with my finger. Otherwise the putty would crack because the foil would flex too much.





To help blend everything together some Mr Dissolved Putty was slopped on and sanded once dry. A primer coat went on and got sanded as well.




I couldn't resist at this point so I test fitted my new antennas.





Holes were drilled in the antenna mounts so I could insert the extra wire into the tank.

Part 2 will include painting and marking the flag. And If anyone has a better shot of this particular flag I would love to see it. One thing I have noticed about flags is that one side is the "correct" side while the other side is a mirror image. This would mean that lettering would look correct on one side and backwards on the other. Is this true for all flags? I only have the one decent shot of this flag so I assume that this holds true for this flag as well. If someone can show me otherwise please do so. I'm not real thrilled about the idea of having one side the mirror image but if this is correct it's what I will do.

-Matt

Matt, that is off the hook!

I applaud your commitment to continuing this level of detail throughout this project, but man, my eyes hurt just thinking about items that small.

It makes me want to build a few Trumpy big T-34s so I can even things out. Now a flag in 1/16th...that I can handle.

-YL

great job, as always. your work is apsolutely amazing. I cant wait to see it finished!

-Mike

The flag is coming along nicely--I think the primer got rid of most, if not all, of the lines on the foil. I'm going to take a guess and say the flag was probably a "negative" image on the other side, as you've surmised, which will be tough to replicate. I'll check my reference image collection to see if I can find any pics of it to confirm.

I just wanted to say what a great job you've done so far! That is one beautiful Abrams. As for the "too green" duffles and tarps. I just went downstairs and had a good look at one of mine that has made the trip to Baghdad and back, if you leave the bag about the same shade of green and dust or fade the heck out of it, it should look just right.

Thanks for the advice Joe. I never turn down an opportunity to weather the heck out of something I'm working on. And sorry about your eyes Yoni. I recommend sunglasses. They will protect your eyes while keeping you looking cool when surfing the net

Flag Part 2

The flag has been painted white and glossed up in preparation for the decals. The artwork for the decals was drawn by hand (or is that by mouse?) on Photoshop, just like my helmet decals. The decals were printed off and given a coat of Polly S clear satin to protect the ink.

The "good" side


And the "mirror" side. This is easy to do with Photoshop.


I have a lot of this clear satin so I thought I would make some use of it. I tested it on a spare decal and it worked well at protecting the ink from the warm water. This was left to sit for about four hours. After the decals were cut to size and immersed in warm water. They came free of the backing paper and went on to the flag easily. Everything looked good but some decal softening solution was needed to help the decals snuggle down over the bumpy flag. Unfortunately the softening solution was more then my home made decals could take and parts of them became blurry. Here are a few shots of how the decals turned out.

The good side again.


You can see how the letters "o" and "r" in armor became blurry.

The mirror side again.


On this side the word "assassins" became blurry at the bottom. And yes I realize the decals do not completely cover the flag. My plan is to touch up any remaining white areas after with black paint.

The decals were removed from the flag and will be re-printed. Next time I will use an acrylic clear spray like Krylon. This is what I used to overcoat the helmet decals (and is much more durable) but I managed to run out of it so I thought I would try something else that was on hand. Oh well. I shouldn't have any trouble with my next set of flag decals. I just have to wait a couple days (darn job) and then buy another can.

Stay tuned for "Flag Part 3". The exciting flag/antenna conclusion.

I hope.

P.S. If anyone is wondering why the flag looks different in each picture it is because the angle is different to help with the glare.

-Matt

Gday Matt
Modern armour holds no interest for me, but curiosity finally got the better of me after seeing 'BOOMSTICK" poop up again in the latest posts which it has for ages! Had to have a peek.
I agree with others such as Guy in that this has opened my eyes beyond WWII armour as to the intricacies of modern armour...
Those dice to me were a no-no to begin with as they looked to be overpowering, but then with a wider shot the enormity of the tank turret dwarved the hatches! Being used to Shermans, there is a lot of area on these modern AFVs...
Love all the little touches. I thought it was hard work updating things on a Sherman, but it hs nothing on this!!
Great stuff
Brad

Matt--I looked all though my image library and reference books but came up dry. I'm afraid I won't be able to help you pin down the flag's details.

Matt,
As an old "19 Kilo" Army tanker I've got to say you've nailed it. While I was on M1A1's back in Germany we used to remove the #7 skirt, the curved one that covers the final drive. It's nothing more then a piece of sheet metal and that great German mud used to shred them and bend them all out of shape. Never got around to visiting the OIF, but I'm pretty sure they don't have the same problem!

I love the name you've chosen for the tank! And I wanted to pass along some tanker inside info. All of the tanks within a given company would pick a name that started with that company's letter- Alpha company's would be stuff like Attila, Anihilator, etc. I was in Charlie 2/37 AR and drove C-66 "Cobra". Other tanks in my company were Carnage, and crusher. It's an incredibly small detail, but you've shown you're a detailed oriented modeler, so I wanted to pass it along. Here's a quick synopsis on how to read an Army bumper number

The left plate for identifying the divisional or higher HQ and regiment or squadron. My tank was assigned to 3rd Infantry Division, 2nd Battalion, 37th Armored Regiment. The left bumper # read:
3I-2/37/ The / should be a triangle which designates "Armor"

The right plate is the company and specific vehicle designation. The Army uses the "wingman concept" in armor ops. There's a command tank and its wingman. An Armor company has four line platoons and a command section. There are 4 tanks to a platoon, 3 platoons and 2 command tanks in the company for a total of 14. The first digit of the right bumper plate identifies the platoon 1st, 2nd or 3rd, and the second number identifies which tank it is. The Command vehicles are designated with a 6. As I said earlier I was on C-66. Charlie Company, vehicle 66- the Company Commander. Each number is said separately and not combined so it's pronounced six-six and not sixty-six, or two-three and not twenty-three. So with all of this info you should be able to decipher most bumper numbers.

66- Company Commander
65- Executive Officer
67- First Sergeant- he had a HMMWV- they don't get tanks!
68- M113 APC (yep, they're still out there)
11- 1st Platoon Leader
12- Platoon Ldr's wingman
13- Platoon Sergeant's wingman
14- Platoon Sergeant

Same follows for 2nd & 3rd Platoons

Great job on the Abrams- it's a sweet ride and a whole lotta fun!

Black6

Well g'day Brad. I'm glad you decided to stop by and have a look around. Yeah it's been going on for a while now and still has a little ways to go. Course I mentioned that last November! Thanks for the positive comments on the dice. I wasn't sure if people would look at them and say "hey neat" or "what the heck are those?" And I still think it's amazing that someone as far away as Australia can look at what I'm building.

Hey Lucas. No worries. Thanks for looking though. But I am surprised that such a prominent flag is so hard to find.

And thanks Christian for the lesson in modern American armour. Or is that armor? Some great information in there. I know in WWII the Canadians also named their tanks according to what company they served in.

Well time for what you all came for.

Flag Part 3 - Success

On the weekend I bought a can of Krylon clear gloss acrylic spray. Great stuff that dries to the touch in under ten minutes. The decals were re printed and given a light dusting of gloss to get them ready for the next coats. Three more coats of gloss went on. The last two coats were fairly heavy as I wanted the decals to be well protected from the Micro-Sol this time. Everything went to plan. The Krylon went on perfectly. It had no adverse affect on the ink at all. After cutting the decals to size they were immersed in hot water and placed on the flag. Now I had a slight problem. Since I applied a fair amount of gloss the decals were thicker then I expected. They didn't conform to the flag very well. I hadn't thought about this when spraying the gloss. The flag as a lot of contours so I tried making small cuts in the decals to ease the process. Some Micro-Sol went on. This helped but not enough. More Micro-Sol went on and..... it happened again. In certain areas the decals went blurry. Darn! So close. I thought it was going to work this time but nope. I started to worry that this flag might not make it on the tank. And this great looking flag was the main reason I wanted to model a tank from Alpha company of the 64th. Okay. Try this once more.

The flag was stripped bare with oven cleaner. Primed and sprayed glossy white. Decals were re re printed. And The Krylon was sprayed on. Again. This time I sprayed two light coats and only one wet coat. Now the decals were much more flexible and thus didn't require cutting. And I used less then half the amount of Micro-Sol this time around. It worked. There were a couple of air bubbles but those were easy to fix. Another coat of gloss sealed everything in place. I mixed up some thin straight black paint and touched up the remaining white portions of the flag as well as painting the rest of the antenna. The tape (I think) that is shown in the picture above the flag was painted with Humbrol enamels and voila. One flag. Needs a little touch up but the flag is basically done.









The real thing.


And my version.














The antennas have not been glued in place as that will be left for the very end. But to make transport easier I might not ever glue them in place. The antennas could probably have been a little thinner but that's what I had to work with. Overall I'm glad with how they turned out. One more detail done. A little closer to that finish line.



-Matt

Well a big thanks to Torbjorn Strom. He gave me some helpful advice regarding how to use Eduard's razor wire. I had already mounted the two coils of razor wire but was never very happy with how they turned out. Also they looked a little too big. My LHS had a sheet of razor wire so with Torbjorn's help I was at it again. Because it wouldn't be me if I only did something once apparently.

Well here are the new coils and new mounts. The glue is still drying for the mounts so I will have to wait and hour or so till I can paint them. The coil mounts are strips of Evergreen styrene 1.5mm L angle. The bolts were made with a punch and die set. The razor coils will be painted silver. They look a little too dark right now.




I'm glad I got them right this time as they have been bugging me for a few months now.

-Matt

Matt

That flag in 1 word: AWESOME!!!!

It looks great. You are really putting a lot of time and effort in your model. I am just waiting to see it getting finished.

Cheers Roel

Thanks Roel. I love the flag too. I'm very relieved it turned out. Not perfect, but close enough. And I got around to painting the razor coils too. Here they are.



The coils were painted separately. White aluminium from Alclad II went on first. This by itself is too bright so Alclad II steel was sprayed on in a patchy fashion. This helps gives the illusion of subtle shadows. And for highlights Alclad II chrome was sprayed again in a patchy pattern. This gives the razor wire some bright spots just like the real thing when it catches the light. At least thats the idea.



The coil mounts were painted a few shades of green. Just whatever was on hand. Then some dark rust went on. This was followed by lighter shades of rust. The bolt heads were picked out with some Testors silver. A filter of dark greyish brown was brushed on to bring everything together. Finally a thin wash of light rust.



I think the back end looks much better now. The flag is finally in place and the coils look much neater. The previous ones were out of control and too dusty (and too big). The only major step left in this project is getting the greenery to look convincing.

After that it's just a matter of slapping everything on the base and touching up the base itself. And adding a few hundred littler details. And tow cables. And lights. And maybe a streak of rust or two. Not to mention some dust maybe? Ya that would make sense. What's the FS number for dust? Not forgetting a final coat of clear flat to tone down the shiny spots (minus the razor wire of course). I will finish it eventually.

-Matt

No big deal Matthew, it´s always nice to help a fellow modeller. I think your wire coils turned out great. I´m happy that I could help you with them.

Torbjörn

Matthew, well, I just spent the last couple of hours reading your thread from the begining. I must say that it was time well spent.

Hat's off to you and your build....

Rick Lawler

This is simply stunning. I don't go in for modern armour much, but seeing this astounding build almost makes me want to have a crack at an Abrams myself! Really inspiring quality here!

The flag came out looking great, Matt! I also like the paint job on the razor wire coils--the new ones do look better than your previous ones (which were already pretty good!!). Just one small suggestion--you may want to push the coil on the right side of the picture further to the right so that part of it is not directly in front of the tank's exhaust, or, conversely, weather the parts of the coil in front of the exhaust to look burnt (much like the exhaust itself). The M1's exhaust is hot enough to scorch paint, so I assume it would really heat up the razor wire to the point where the crew would have to let it cool off for a while before handling it.

Hi Matt,

I have been following your project for awhile now and I'm just amazed. You have alot of patience. What detail. I love all the little extra details. The flag is really cool. I can't wait to see the whole diorama put together. Keep up the great work.

Daniel

Thanks Daniel. Can't wait to see it finished myself.... so I can start my next one of course.

And Thanks Ian. Dragons newest generation Abrams is a wonderful kit. No major issues. Just some small things here and there that need some attention. And once you start looking real close at reference pictures you can find so many neat little details to bring it to life.

@ Rick Lawler. Is this THE Rick Lawler. The one who built Dragon's half-track with the most mind blowing etch set ever made? I must honestly say I was stunned when I first came across your v-blog. And just like yourself I read it start to nearly finished over at least a couple of hours. I enjoyed every minute. Still can't believe you managed to get everything lined up. There were just so many parts. Tough to find words to say how ga ga I was over that one. Not to mention your other works of art. Obviously I'm a big fan of yours and was thrilled to see you visit armorama for a change. My biggest hat certainly goes off to you as well. Keep 'em coming Rick

Well Lucas I went through my pictures and looked at a few razor coils. Most looked in perfect condition even though they were mounted near or right over the exhaust. But then I found two shots that I think describe exactly what you mentioned about the razor wire being affected by the heat. After all it certainly makes sense. It is a jet engine after all. I suppose it depends on how long those coils have been mounted.

The coils in this shot look a little darker because of the heat.


And in this one you can clearly see some rust forming. In both pictures the coils are right over the exhausts too.


I figured since my tank has been "in the sandbox" for a while now it would probably show some signs of being mounted right over a jet exhaust. I broke out the little bottles of Testors yellow and rust.



A mix of about 2/3 rust to 1/3 yellow was very lightly sprayed onto each coil. The two pictures of the real life razor coils were printed out and kept close by so I could refer to them while spraying.
Here are the results.





I figured since I'm using a digital camera I'd take advantage and show a real close up of each coil. Since the coil on the right is right over the exhaust it shows more rust than the one on the left.





If you want to see flaws in your builds, use a digital camera. You will see things you would otherwise miss. This allows you to build much nicer models. My kits used to only look good from a distance but I think they have improved now that I can really critique my own work. You can see what needs to be tweaked before it's too late.

Anyway as always, comments and tips are very welcome.

See you soon with more.

-Matt

Matt, Superb attention to detail.

Are those Carbon Fiber Antennas? Love the Flag good work.

The antennas are .020 bronze wire. I picked this material because it was strong enough to support the weight of the flag and still have some flexibility. I was planning on using carbon antennas for the first time and bought a set, but they weren't strong enough and kept bending over with a practice flag. I will use them on my next M1. And I know I already mentioned this on your thread Al, but the subtle weathering on your M1 turned out perfect.

-Matt

fantastic work!

Especially that flag. it was worth the pain you suffered for it in the end (and thanks for the "learned the hard way" tips on how to do a decal like that).

Okay another small detail goes on today. The battleboards seen on the extended bustle rack of almost all OIF Abrams were secured by two zip cuffs inserted through small holes. This morning I added the zip cuffs. You can see them as two thin vertical black lines in the photo below.



To make my zip cuffs I used some left over sprue that looked to be the right size.



They were painted black and left to dry. Next step was to prepare the battleboard. An old airbrush needle (a rather handy tool) was used to make small holes for the sprue to go in. This will make gluing the sprue into position much easier.





The excess sprue was cut off and the finished zip cuffs were inserted into the holes. These were secured with a tiny amount of CA superglue.





-Matt