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T55 Enigma

Turret

After some filling of the various attachment points, careful positioning of the side and rear armor pieces, these were fixed in place. The large IR lamp at the side of the mantlet needs to be re-positioned higher up the turret to allow for the armor blocks. A new linkage is supplied with the resin set for this. More detailed cupolas from Blast models were used, these are far superior to the kit ones.

The armor cover over the lamp on the cupola is from the Verlinden etch set. The large tool box from the kitneeds to be used on the rear armor block bracket as the Cromwell one is the wrong type, plus mine was badly warped. A base needs to be made for the tool box, again Plasti-card. New brackets were also made for this using Pewter strips. On hind-sight I ought to have used the resin mantlet cover from the Blast set, as this is far superior to the kit one. The barrel was also replaced by the Aluminum one from Eduard.

Painting

After the model was washed in luke warm soapy water, it was left to dry overnight. I then applied a few coats of white acrylic primer, and again left to cure overnight. This was followed by Dark Green from Tamiya, taking care to avoid the resin parts as these would not have been painted Green originally!, immediately followed by the sand/gray color. I obtained this color by mixing together Buff/Deck Tan/ light sea Gray at the ratio of 50%/30%/20% respectively. All chips etc were done now using Tamiya dark Green. As acrylics were used I was able to proceed straight to the weathering.

The first thing I did was apply a few coats of “Johnsons Klear” to achieve a satin finish, which helps the filters flow. I mixed up a filter of Humbrol light gray, and applied a couple of these, allowing each one to dry sufficiently. then a filter of burnt umber to darken all the recesses etc. Finally Mig powders were used to depict the sand etc, these were applied dry to certain areas and touched with a brush soaked in Thinners [Humbrol was used]. That’s pretty much how I do it.