I am a little behind in my progress as real life necessities have diverted my attention from the building. On top of that, what little time I have found has been devoted to another build for an upcoming build article. No, it's not a Type 95.

So I have managed to get a base coat on and after careful examination and research, it appears that the Type 97 on Saipan actually seems to have carried a four colour camouflage. Two greens, a red-brown and the little bit if yellow. Here are some pictures as things stand at this writing:









The tracks while appearing to be the correct length turned out to be a touch tight. I wanted to add a bit of slack so I tried stretching one. I guess that I wasn't delicate enough because it ended up breaking. It is quite true that you can use regular glue with the DS styrene but so far I have had no success in rejoining the broken area. The track is so thin and fine featured that there is hardly enough surface area for glue to hold onto between the two pieces. I'll continue on with the painting and worry about the problem later.

Cheers,
Jan

Hi Jan the build is looking good,Re the track have you tried using a paper staple on it I had this happen to me once so I stapled it together placed the joint on the bottom, little bit of mud and you couldnt see the join.

@Easy_Co - Thanks John, I am glad that you like the little beast. It is perhaps the easiest Dragon kit that I have encountered so far. As for paper staples, I have used them in the past, especially with Airfix kits. At this point I still want to find an alternative as these tracks are particularly delicate and thin. There is actually very little surface area for a staple to grab and the rather nice guide horns would also prove a problem. I had a couple of pictures of them in my Chi Ha Review but for some reason they didn't post them. If you are interested I can post them here.

Cheers,
Jan

Nice work guys keep it up, it is nice to see a real verity of builds going on here well done everyone.

I've never had much luck with staples, as I only have the large standard size stapler and staples. What works nicely is a small sewing needle and black thread. You just need to push the needle & thread though both links, then tie a simple knot. I use two such loops, one on each side of the track. Once painted, you can't see the thread.

ok as per regs, photo pre-primer.

Hi everyone

normal everyday 1:1 stuff has kept me from modelling. I have eventually got a start on my build and put most of the chassis together.

Below are 2 pics of where i am at presently. Ive found the instructions to be a bit confusing and vague at times. Anyone else had this problem with AFV kits?





Let me know what you think.

Hi gents,
Well im back from me hols now and ready to continue. At last i got on with a late war cam on my vehicle. The base colour is Revell Afrika braun .

I used a reverse masking with Blutac, and i put a coat over parts of the vehicle with Tamiya olive green.



Once that had dried, some more blutac was applied and the vehicle was sprayed with a full coating of Revell zeigel rot, which is a deep redbrown.



Once that had dried it was time to remove the bluetac. Note to self, the redbrown was slightly runny and bled in places. So when this dries, i can see me touching up with some gentle colours and a fine brush. The wheels, idlers and sprockets were done at the same time.

The barrel was left afrika braun.





At this stage, i feel the cam looks slightly off, but once the rest is done, it'll look good. (Positive thoughts)

Great work guys your builds are looking good.

never tried the blue tac for masking. Looks like it works really well for a hard line camo.

Hi all
started the weathering on the underside,

the fit of the parts is perfect,the only filler used was on the body to legs joint on Grommet

Heres the star of the show with bunny
.
its allmost complete I should finish it today
more pics later
Andy

Hi chums,
calling this one done




I really loved building this kit ,so simple yet so difficult to get it right,ie the finish on the figures and the battered look to the van.
I think I've got it near enought.
I will build another with extras !!!
Hope you like
Andy

hello,andy.
I love, great achievement, especially in terms of rust.
how did you do.
cordially steph

Andy, nicely done. It's nice to see some thing besides armor.

Finally started the M7 Priest.

It took 3 days of 6 hour work sessions just to put together the bogies, drive sprockets, and the transmission. Still need to do some puty work on the axles gear housings. Just couldn' t get the fit to be perfit.

thanks mates for your feedback
Stepth,,, the rust was done by a 1st layer of tamiya hull red,then rubbed over with a HB pencil,and finished with MIG Pigs std,and light rust.
The pics don't look great ,it really does look better in the flesh
Joel... I'm with you on the Sherman bogies,been there and done that well worth it in the end ,the transmission looks A1
Andy

Andy. Well done mate that looks fantastic its not something we see everyday on the forums a great subject and a great build, just remember to post your pics in the gallery,

Joel. great start looking forward to more.

Scott, nice work with the camo well done.

A lot of things are going on in this campaign. It seems that all are getting along quite good. Great!

Here's an update on my Quad:


I really want to replace his head, and even perhaps use a figure from MINIARTs set "British armoured car crew", and see if any of those might fit, but that would be AGAINST THE RULES of this campaign, so I just have to go with the driver provided in the kit . Enough said.
He's ok but I had some problems with his arms/hands to fit the wheel. Eventually it all worked out well.


He fits nicely into the seats though it seems to me that he is a bit out of scale.


I must admit, that I havn't suffered any problems (yet!!!) with this kit. Everthing fits nicely, and I havn't been doing alot of sanding. Perhaps I should have done more here and there, but untill now this is really a nice kit to work with.

Now the cab will be fitted, and then on to the 25pdr gun.

Cheers

Nice work Simon keep it going mate.

I'm seeing some truly great builds going on here .. to think that they are all stock standard with no mods or AM at all ,,brilliant work guys ..all of you me on the other hand is still working on this very large scratch built Beast i'm building for a mate ,,still afew weeks work left in this monster but hell it will look super nasty ..then its on to the Dana ..i am looking forward to building that after this thing

@ Torchy -
Excellent work on the Anti-Pesto Van! I am a big W&G fan, so the model was right up my alley. The rust and weathering on the vehicle is excellent and you finished the figures very nicely. Very refreshing to see an "out-of-the-box" OOB build - a change from all the planes and armor.

Cheers,
Stephen

Hi, guys!

Finish as i can )

Nice work Andrey, another one past the post well done.

Hello all I am back and there has been some great work done around here while I was gone. But its back to work on my Schlepper. The individual tracks were a b**ch, breaking while i tried to clean them up then they weren't fitting on the boogies cause they aren't straight so I remember that a fellow here suggested soaking the rubber 1's that came with the kit to shrink them so I tried it and wah la lookie here

They dont look so bad after all
ok hopefully more tomorrrow

Wow some awesome armour being done. My little 1/72 190 feels kind of lame when compared to all the really big and kick ass stuff being done lol

Did the underside colour today. Have to do the light grey upperside and then the dark grey hopefully tomorrow. Not to far off finishing it.