1⁄35Building the Tadpole
9
Comments
With the sides together and drying, I turned my attention to the side guns. The guns go together very well, and each is almost a kit on their own. The breeches for the 6pdrs are very well done; too bad they have to be closed inside. You could leave the side door open, but that would require a little surgery, as Takom has molded the stowage box below the door to the door. While the gun barrels that come with the kit are nice looking, I did opt to replace all the barrels with metal barrels from Lion Marc.
When building the side gun emplacements, I highly suggest using a razor saw to remove parts from the sprues. There is a lot of bevelled and stepped edges, and a traditional cutter may damage them, making the fit not the greatest. With that warning, the gun emplacements do go together rather well, good fit generally. It is disappointing that to leave the door open you would require some surgery to remove the molded stowage box from the bottom of the door, and then fill in the opening on the side armor plating.
I did find a bit of a fit issue when trying to add the 6pdr into place. From what I figured the pedestal was too far forward. Now that could have been my issue, I build the pedestal and mounted it out of order from the directions. This was not a major issue, I cut the mounting pin off and I was able to get the gun in place.
Now with the side gun emplacements drying, I moved onto the main hull. Starting one side I began to glue the top and bottom plates on. Then with all the plates in place, I just placed the other side on top, applied some glue, clamped, and it is now starting to look like a tank.
About the Author
FROM: ONTARIO, CANADA
I am an IT Consultant and father, with a passion for plastic models. I mostly prefer 1/35 Armor and 1/48 Aircraft. My main interests are anything Canadian, as well as WW2 German and British Armor and Aircraft. I have been building models since I was a young kid, got away from it for awhile, but r...
Comments
Excellent build! Can you post a close-up of the trapezoidal roof hatch? On the earlier Mk IV kits Takom screwed up the shape and detail of the hatch - I'm wondering if they fixed it in this version.
BTW, those boxes on the sponson doors don't need cutting if you want to display them open - they are armoured chutes for the gunners to dump out used brass! Sadly, opening the door just highlights the lack of rivets and other stuff on the inside...
JAN 28, 2015 - 03:17 AM
Great build and even greater kit but why did you replace 6 pounder barrels?
JAN 28, 2015 - 05:22 PM
The Lion Marc barrels look better, and include the rifling at the barrel end.
JAN 28, 2015 - 05:39 PM
Just looked at the PMMS review, and indeed it seems the Tadpole doesn't have metal barrels - Takom gives plastic ones instead. Pity, as the "Male" kit has nice metal ones!
And I see from Terry's review they kinda fixed the roof hatch, but still got it wrong! Oh, well...
JAN 28, 2015 - 05:47 PM
The Lion Marc barrels look better, and include the rifling at the barrel end.
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Oh, I see.
JAN 28, 2015 - 06:40 PM
What I don't get is why a company would include all that beautiful detail on the guns and then make it so difficult to open the doors to make them visible. Is there a rational explanation for this?
JAN 29, 2015 - 11:01 AM
Why would you expect ANY model company to do something rationally, when they can leave their problems for us modellers to solve..?
No, seriously- It's the current trend for some of the more progressive model manufacturers to include details that will probably never be seen unless the modeller chooses to open up EVERY window, door, hatch, gun port, etc on their model. There are quite a few modellers that like to display their models in this way. I dunno, probably because some of those guys will want to show off those details at shows or contests. I don't necessarily include myself in that group.
I build my models for my own enjoyment, so I tend to take it easy on my weathering, depicting my vehicles as new, but not "factory-fresh".
At most, I'll build a model, for instance, one of my M4A1s, with the Commander's and 2 Drivers' hatches open, occupied by the 3 corresponding crew members, so as to show off my figure-painting skills.
I also built one of my DRAGON #6511 M4 "Normandy" kits in such a way that I could "crack it open" in order to show off all the extra details that I jammed into it- In other words, fully-detailed drivers' and fighting compartments, including the turret interior, guns, turret basket, drive train details and a fully-detailed Wright R-975 Radial Engine and engine bay. I elected to assemble this particular model with all hatches open, but without any crew members being present, so as to display all of these details without them being obscured in any way. I generally don't do dioramas, except for a very few vignettes, simply because of the limited space that I have available for model display. A good number of my tanks are completely "buttoned-up", in which case I didn't bother with ANY interior details being included in the build. What would be the purpose in adding stuff that I, or anyone else for that matter, will never see? ALL of my 1/35 stuff has as much exterior detailing as possible. I LOVE PE and RESIN!!!
MAR 07, 2015 - 04:34 PM
Copyright ©2021 by Kevin Brant. Images and/or videos also by copyright holder unless otherwise noted. The views and opinions expressed herein are solely the views and opinions of the authors and/or contributors to this Web site and do not necessarily represent the views and/or opinions of Armorama, KitMaker Network, or Silver Star Enterrpises. All rights reserved. Originally published on: 2015-01-28 14:22:38. Unique Reads: 20522
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