I have only built One 1/35 scale tank, now im starting another... Should I paint then assemble my tank or Vice versa???, Any help or links for newbies in tank building methiods would help. Its the tamiya t34/85.

TIA

I havent got that much experience yet but one good thing is to build most of the tank, but skip wheels and details as spades and other tools. The you airbrush or handpaint the body easy and paint wheels seperatly and assemble, most people I know do this and its effective. But you should listen to other more experienced tankbuilder here too, cus I have most experienced 1:72 tanks

I always assemble first...

I put the lower hull together and the turrent together.. but I paint them seperatly, and I always paint the sprokets and wheels and tools seperatly.

I

Personally I put together as much of the vehicle as possible before painting it.
Now things like road wheels, drive sprokets, idlers, turret, muffle/exhaust system, and such I paint separately and then assemble to it later. As tracks too. Tools are a matter of personal preference I think. I try to put on as many tools as I think I can comfortably paint differently once the basic paint job is on the vehicle.

I think that the biggest reason I try to glue on as much as I can before painting is that I find that the scraping off of paint on small parts and then gluing items on once the paint job has been applied is a real hassle, for me.

Best advice I can offer is to try it both ways and choose which is best for you to do, or maybe a combination of both, if you're so inclined.

What works well for one person may not work as good for somebody else. So through experimentation we all come up with different ways to do certain things ourselves while taking in all the advice we can from others in this hobby.


Take care and good luck, sgirty. :-)

For me it depends on the project at hand, some time I'll spray while everything is on the sprues and some time I paint everything all at once in subassemblies, and finally the rare exception happens and i paint the whole thing as one whole assembly. So it realy is up to you on when you paint one quick not is I leave the tools off till after I finish painting. makes life easier in that sense of building. stug (++)

I assemble to whole tank, with the exception of the road wheels, drive sprocket, idler wheels, and tracks. I paint the OVM on the tank because I always use brass brackets and extra detail. After some practice it is actually more efficient in my opinion.

One tip I got from a friend of mine was to assemble most of the kit, minus road wheels and such. Then attach the tools and other OVM to their attachment points with a dab of white glue. After painting, it is easy to remove the tools, paint the dtails on them, such as handles, etc. without having to worry about getting paint on the rest of the model. Then just reattach them with a small bit of CA. Work well for me, 'cause I'm not good enough to not get paint all over everything when trying to do the details!

Should I future coat my model?. I usually do for airplanes for decal preparation

Assuming that you have a airbrush, pre-paint everything while they are still on the sprues. Some peopel use black, I prefer the base color of waht you are aiming for, maybe a little darker if I have it in the bottle. Build with seperate parts as noted above, like roadwheels and turret fromthe hull etc.

Coat only the panels taht will recieve the decals if possible, otherwise the whole vehicle. Spots of future really show up under a flat coat. if they do not have some uniformity to them. And make sure the tank is FLAT when it is done...especially modern tanks. Only parade vehicles ever really had a sheen to them, becasue they were coated with diesel!

I usually build sub-assemblies and then paint them. I find it's easier to have a nice paint job this way. Usually when I build a tanks these are my usual sub assemblies:
- wheels (on sticks)
- tracks
- turret
- hull
- external MGs or movable/removable items
To touch as little as possible the bigger sub assemblies, I put them on supports fastened to a lazy susan high enough to allow painting them comfortably from all sides/angles.
Ciao