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Ardennes 1944 - Ridin High!

Finishing the tank went well. The wash process gave a very nice result. I wet the tank first with clean Turpentine and then with a 90% Turpentine/10% paint mix, I flooded all the nooks and crannies, and with a 80%/20% mixtures did the rest. The wear on the tank was done by rubbing the sharp edges with Humbrol 27003 (Metalcote Steel). Let this dry half an hour and then carefully buff it. A beautiful result!! I did the “chipping” with the same paint, but did not buff it. The tracks were treated with Humbrol Track Color (don’t know a number) and later treated them with the Metalcote. The result was good and convincing. But then problems came. I found out the tracks didn’t fit together very well at the attachment points and that they were too short!! How to solve this? After a night of sleep, as a solution, I hid the open ends of tracks under the fenders so this is out of sight. And so obtained a nice result.
Adapted the track tension tools and scratch-built the original holders. The track tighteners were made around the brackets according to the original photos. And then attached the few tools. I treated a lot of metal tools with the Metalcote, because I thought it gives a nice result.

Well the tank is ready, save the transfers. Now for a final wash....

But then I had a setback. I used the kit-transfers on the tank and thought that it looked nice. But meanwhile I had taken pictures of it and one could clearly see the excess decal film and that was a very ugly sight. On the advice of some TWENOT members, I removed these again and than went creative and made a stencil out of thick paper so that I could spray on the numbers. It cost me half a day of work but in the end the result obtained was optimal. But I only had the yellow part on the tank now. The blue inner parts of the numbers were done by hand. I couldn’t do any better on such short notice. But I was very pleased with it.

And now building the diorama (I thought)...