Thanks for all of the feedback, I agree. I still need to add some dullcoat then come back and blend the chips in or fade them in better. My next build I will add the chips first before doing the weathering. Also as mention I do need to correct the clear hub parts. I still have some work to do. I just wanted to share with you all with what I had so far. Once again thanks for all of the feed back.

While you are on the wheels, I believe the center hubs of those you painted green would still be sand. Take a look at the spare roadwheel, only what you see on the spare would be green when mounted on the hub, which would remain the basic tank color.

Thomas is correct about the wheels. I found some pictures that might help illustrate his point.



A closer look at the spare wheel still mounted on the turret.


And the spare wheel in use on the same tank.


And a couple more shots of spare wheels on tanks.


If you want to be really accurate paint a ring of silver (where the bolts are) and then paint the hub sand. I think the picture below shows it best.


With my Abrams I tried to paint the silver ring but it was a really tricky area to get at. Especially with all those bolts, so I didn't bother. I just painted the sand part which is easy to do.

And here's a good shot of what the clear part looks like.

Note the rust in the very center of the wheel hub. It isn't all clear. Maybe paint the inside of the clear part with a really dark grey or Tamiya smoke with a drop of brown. Heck experiment and see what works.

I hope this helps. Keep going yufkey. She keeps getting better and better.

-Matt

Me again. Well you know how I typed that I had tried and failed at trying to paint the ring of silver. Well I figured I'd try one more time and I think it turned out ok. Good enough that it wasn't a disaster anyway. Here's my attempt. I used a 10/0 brush to paint the area in between the bolts.



It was tricky since the wheels are already attached to the model but it can be done. I practiced on a couple of wheels from my M1A2 kit first before potentially ruining my "good" wheels. Of course if I really screwed up I could've just repainted the whole wheel sand.

Anyway sorry for hijacking your blog. The stowage turned out quite good. Oh and if you want to help blend in the chips you could spray to whole model with a very thin coat of sand. Like the base colour. This would act like a filter. It's effects are very subtle. Not like a layer of dust. It should be basically a clear coat with only one or two drops of paint. Obviously I would recommend trying this out on a spare kit first.

I'm really looking forward to seeing yours all done. It's one of the nicest Abrams I've seen.

-Matt

Very nice work you've got there.

Hey Matt,
Thanks for the pictures of the road wheel hubs, I'm going to try and attemp to paint the green road wheels with the silver ring. I like the way your's came out. Also I cleaned up and blended some of the paint chips using brush clearner. It came out pretty good I think. My next step is to dullcoat the areas with the chips. Then go back over it with some MIG filters, the same ones I used to weather the Abrams. I was also able to take the plastic hub covers off. In the process of doing this I chipped some of the paint. After looking at some of the wheel hub pictures. I think the chips will look fine. So now I can repaint the plastic hubs black. Thanks for the kind words about my Abrams. Your Abrams is one of the nicest I have seen so far too.
Yufkey

Working on the wheel hubs. Dullcoat. MIG filters. That's what I'm doing today!

-Matt

Here are some pictures of my build; I recently received by mail some MIG Oil paints, which I used to weather the rear exhaust and other parts of the Abrams. I think it came out ok. I still have a little more work to. In addition, you can see I took some of your feedback and made some changes. Let me know what you all think

This is looking really nice. I have a DML M1A2 SEP in the stash and I'm tempted by your build to dig that out next...

Cheers,
Ian

I like it a lot, Yufkey! Great job!

This tempts me to do an Abrams...

Fantastic job on the weathering. It's easy to screw up (as I did the other night and now have to fix ) but yours looks spot on. The exhaust staining really caught my eye. The stowage looks super. And I think the chips look better now too.

Keep going Yufkey. Almost there!!

-Matt

Thanks everyone, I used the different colored rust oils from Mig to create the exhaust stain. Then I went back over it with some black pastel chalk

Awesome!!!

Nice job! Congrats!

I wonder if you could still make one small correction? There is one error in your model and I'm sorry to admit that it is my mistake, not yours... Well, actually it's a mistake of the DML person who prepared instructions, but I missed it (and several other errors...) when I was checking them, so I apologize for it! Anyway, the error is in placement of rear exhaust grilles - you attached them as indicated in instructions, but it is unfortunately wrong. The widest one should be on the left side of the tank and the slightly narrower one should be in the center. The one in the center should "fit" inside the exhaust deflector flange when you look at the tank from the rear, not stick to the sides as it does in your model. I don't know if it is possible to swap these two parts on the real tank - maybe it is, but standard position should be like I described, not like instructions show. It is relatively small error, but maybe you can still correct it?

Cheers,
Pawel

Hello,
Thanks for all of the attention to detail and positive feedback I have received. Is has been a great experience creating and communicating with you all on this blog or thread. I have leaned and shared with a lot of great modelers. I 'm almost finished with my build, but I still have a ways to go. Lately I have had sometime to continue with my build. I have come to understand that some like to be accurate as possible with their builds. For me, I enjoy the hobby and at the same time try to do both. I have been doing this off and on for about 20 years. Some times taking breaks for up to five years. After it’s all said and done I would like to share with you all my progress so far.


Here is a view of the rear hull. I added some oil stains. I hope I didn't over do it?


Here is a picture of the exhaust deflector shield. I used a combination of MIG Oils and pastel chalk to create the rust effect


Here is a view of the green road wheels with the Silver ring effect and center hub. All have been hand painted with a 10/0 brush.

Also Here is a update of the rear view



Some up close rust stains


View from the road side and curb side

The tope view. I still need some tie down cargo straps!!


Last some GP Pictures
I would ask all of you to please keep in mind that the lower hull has been dullcoated but not the upper hull yet??
&:)

The low angle shot "from the curb" is my favorite so far. You keep adding detail after detail. I thought you would have been done a while ago but you keep adding more. I'm sure you must be having as much fun with this model as I am. The replacement wheels are great too. The silver is a tough area to paint and it isn't easy getting it to look right but you nailed it.

-Matt

Way to go, Yufkey! It looks great! My favorite view so far is the top view, but the curbside view is a close second.

I really like the way the exhaust deflector came out. Very realistic.

Very nice job Lufkey. I really like your process and your photos are spectacular. Superbly done and, nice weathering job too.

Looks great!!!

Once again hello to all
I just recently added some more detail and items to my Abrams. The first is I finally added the 50 and 7.62 ammo rounds. Also I painted the rubber seal on the Tank Commanders Hatch Here are couple of pictures of that


After taking in some of you all feedback and making a few mistakes with the green road wheels. The Main one is forgetting that you can’t use MIG thinner on enamels. I repainted the center of the green road wheels using the color Buff from MIGs Oil. Then I weathered them again using some MIG filters. After that I added back on the center clear hubs. Here is what the results look like! I think it come out better then my first attempt??


And last here are just a few more GP pictures. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to take pictures

Damn that looks sweet Yufkey!

It looks like you have been having as much fun with the wheels as me. I did the same thing. Tried using a wash with enamels only to ruin the wheel and repaint it. They look perfect now. The clear hub caps look the part too.

So other then adding the two large antennas what do you have left to do? I can't wait to see it all done. Looks like we might finish our tanks at almost the same time. Long live the mighty Abrams.

-Matt

Not so large! Currently used antennas on M1s are in fact relatively short and thin.

Pawel

You're right Pawel. The correct length is 8 feet in real life and about 2 and 3/4 inches in 1/35 scale. At least that is what I have been told. That's the measurement I went with and it looks right to me.

-Matt