Your tracks look amazing. Are there any tips you could give me on how to achieve results like that. e.g.What ratio of the Mig Pigments were used for the wash?
Great Work, keep it up.
Thanks
Euan [/quote]

Hi Euan,

thanks for the really kind words man!

I just kind of eyeball it but ill give it a shot. for thicker pigment wash i would say close to 50/50 mix with mineral spirits. for a thin flowing wash of pigment to spirits would be about 70/30. you can adjust to suit yourself. if you get too much thinner, just let the pigment settle a bit and you can soak up extra thinner with paper towel or suck it out with a pippet. i hope that helps man.

Gary [/quote]

Thanks for the advice Gary!!
Also, what colours did you use for the chipping
Euan

Hello Euan,

Your welcome man! any time.

I used vallejo 70978-Dark Yellow and 70995-German Grey for most of the chipping. I also used 70950-Black in a few places. I still need to go back in a few places and aplly some 302-Dark Rust. I hope that helps man!

Gary

Hello fellow plastic warriors,

I have made some progress today on the fuel drums. I think im nearly done with the hull. here she is!




Hope you guys like it! im open to more suggestions.
Thanks,

Gary

Outstanding. Nothing to say about

Thanks Mauro! i appreciate it.

Gary

Keep in mind that the fuel drums wouldn't always be in the same position on the same tank, or even attached to the tank.

Might be interesting to put some streaking in the direction of the fuel drums sitting on the ground, or turned around on the tank, etc.

Outstanding work there Gary. Keep the pictures come man, I'm really loving this build. You could also make some stratch and darken paint on the drums were they were strapped down in a different postion and shifted.

looking good gary
dave

Very nice job on thoe drums Gary. It would be, indded, interesting to see some gravity change on those stains like Jesse suggest.
I would like a sbs on how you do the streaks if it is possible.
Thank you.

Phil

Yes, that's it, and that would be a great idea
On T-55 and T-62 tanks the extra fuel barrels were just carried. There weren't any internal or external pipes which refuelled the vehicle, they were adopted on T-72s. Crew had to refuel the external fuel cells or the main reservoir using an electric pump
Here a drawing taken from a Czech user manual



During the refulling operations I think it was quite probable to speel some fuel around

Nice job so far on the drums- I agree about possibly adding a few different gravity stains/chips and some spilt fuel.

Thanks alot. I'll probalbly buy those colours tonight.
Euan

Hi Gary,

Beautiful work so far. Don't forget to paint your markings on the lower hull before you go too far with the weathering it may not match what you've done to the rest. Markings of course are going to weather equally, sometimes more so. Syrian geometric symbols are the most common with individual tank ID number and arabic script "Al-Gaeesh".
Keep it up, looks super-fine
ED

Hello Gentlemen,

Thanks to everyone for the kind words.

I agree that the fuel drums need more attention. never even crossed my mind at the time that the drums would at some time be standing staight up on tha ground. BRAIN FART! I will adress that before moving on. thanks for the heads up guys. Suggestions, advise, and ideas are welcome any time.

Ed - dont know what markings you are refering to. can you be more specific please and maybe an example pic? I really appreciate your knoledge on this subject. thanks

Gary

Hi Gary,

I thought I'd gone into some detail on that earlier in this thread, but anyway here are some examples of Syr. T-62/ Lebanon war markings. These would also appear on the lower edge of the front glacis plate.




By The way, the turret numbers supplied in the Trump kit, quite frankly: SUCK.

I know you've jumped into this project without a whole lot of background homework. Your doing a great job though, but should not let poor kit supplied decals screw up your otherwise superlative effort. For instance, when I did my T-55, I cut a stencil and sprayed the numbers, see pic:

The syrians had a very distinct style (font?) to their turret numbers and possibly in this instance a Chinese person tried to copy Arabic, and things did not go well.
Look again at the littlefield T-62 numbers:


ED

Hi Ed,

you probably did give me this info already, just forgot or because it wasnt on the decal sheet. Id love to put the red/ white markings but its too late for that. as far as the white markings i could probably pull that off.
What does the writeing mean and would it replace the other red/white markings or would they have been together for identification? Sorry to keep hounding you but im very interested in this matter. Thanks Ed!

Gary

Gary there are also a few T-62 that had arabic numbers on the front and rear hulls. I know the pic is a T-55 , but the numbers would be the same for a 62. Not all there tanks had these marking so it's up to you if you want to add them.

@BBD468 – Gary,

I’ve been here lurking through your post and checking out your progress and reading through the posts, with some good remarks made to think about and some laughter included here and there.

I don’t know the first thing about doing maintenance on a tank, let alone know how often one would have to apply turtle wax to the finish or a fresh coating or Armoral to the tires! I can only go by the available photographs on my reference books or the Internet. And if I’m lucky enough to see a photograph of a vehicle in action during a particular period for a model that I’m trying to render, then I’m just taking my best guess at the amount of chipping to apply to the model and have it be convincing enough to the eye to look realistic and be satisfied with what I have in front of me when I’ve finished with that part of the weathering.

I remember a commentary on CNN during the first Desert Storm engagement where US troops had stumbled upon their first look at an Iraq tank in the desert. They were very surprised to see just how badly maintained the vehicle was. My guess is that most countries outside of being a world power do not have the funding to keep fresh coats of paint or maintain enough stocks of paint for their crews to do any touch up on the scrapes and chips from normal routine usage with perhaps none at all during combat usage?

That said, I think that you’ve done a very convincing first class job on the chipping part of the weathering. What I haven’t seen are the chips, scraps and oil stains on the running gear. WELL? Give it to us Mace!

~ Eddy

BBD468: Beautiful build, I've been watching this for a while as I'm also working on this kit but converting mine to a M. Also, do you know if the fuel lines for the M are in the same places as a normal 62? I noticed that the instructions for my conversion and where you put yours don't match up exactly. I was also wondering if you could send me a couple pics of your lines, once again, instructions don't really help and don't show where the end and such. Sorry for such a long post.

Hi Eddy,

HOLY CRAP! what would i do without you man! i have completly overlooked that issue. i put a pigment/spirits wash on it and went on about the rest of it. i guess we could say the syrians could afford the wheels and tires detail set from armoral! yes? no? probably not.
Thanks for the comments Eddy and for the heads up on my oversite.

Hey christopher,
My Texas brother!

Thanks for the info on markings. i havent decided what im going to do just yet but im leaning towards just let it ride and ill know better next time. well see!

Gary

Hi Seth,

Dont worry man you can post as much as you like and ask anyone here anything you like. I went into this build completely blind. i didnt know squat about this tank much less about any thing outside WWII era tanks. I petty much used all the info i learned in this thread. if you will back track through the thread you should be able to see what you need. if not post again and we will come up with something for you. Cool?

Gary

No problem Gary, I'm sitting here working on my T-62 and trying to get over this damn cold I've had the past few days. I just happen to notice the number marking on the hull after thumbing through my osprey book and the net. Seems that some have them and some don't, either way you would not be wrong.

Seth the fuel line for all T-55/62 have the exact same layout. Many time the lines would get bent by the crew and would look out of place. You don't have to be precise with the line, just as long as the line feed in and out in the correct spot. Here is what Gary has done and is spot on for the layout.

Hey Christopher,

Thanks for having my back! Hope you get to feeling better.

Gary

Gary and Christopher, thank you both so much for the help, my last question is where do the lines enter the tank, I was poking around and found many pics but none had a good shot of the hoses entering the tank itself.

Seth there is a small vent on the right hand side of the engine deck, just above that the fuel lines would feed into the hull. It's hard to see, but it's just along the edge of the hull. Hope this helps some