Hi all.

I have just build the lower hull on my tank (M60A1). I will try to take some pictures on it. I have a spraycan that I can spray the tank with. Now I wonder: When should I paint the tank? The tank has some interior detail, so do you think that I should paint the lower hull separated with the upper hull?

It's largely a matter of personal preference. Many people assembly the entire model, then paint.....not so good for spray cans though. Are you planning to leave hatches open? I would recommend painting the interior first (naturally, you won't be able to after attaching the upper hull) and then completing assembly except for the wheels and tracks. I've taken to painting them loose and installing after I've painted the base colors on the tank. Try this to paint the wheels......make longish loops of tape, maybe 10-12cm long, sticky side out, and stick them to a scrap of cardboard before you spraypaint them......otherwise they'll fly off everywhere and it's cleaner than holding them in your fingers.
And of course you'll want to stuff some tissue into the hatch openings before spraying the hull to keep the overspray out.

Hi, I agree, it's a matter or personal preference, which is what makes this hobby so interesting.

I try to put as much on the vehicle as I can before painting. Of course, this doesn't count road wheels, idlers, drive sprokets and tracks. And maybe some tooling, depending on how hard it would be to get to once the main coat of paint is on the vehicle.

Interiors pose more of a problem though. On the couple of models I have done with interiors or partial interiors (what a pain in the A-- they are too, ha!), I've had good luck with taking masking tape and putting this underneath any hatch opening or other areas that can be seen through. Then once the interior is painted, and these areas maksed off, I put the top on the vehicle and finish that. Once the paint has been applied I take something sharp and pick out this tape and pull it up through the opening. So far it's worked pretty good for me.

Of course, I also use this masking tape with the sticky side up, to hold parts to be painted separately, and this works pretty good as well.

I'm just beginning to find out that using spray cans to paint with is not all that good of a deal. Been working on a Dragon Nashorn and am seeing that by using sparay cans, you can't get into those small areas on the inside without the fear of getting lots of excess paint build-up on certain areas that you don't want it on. So then you have to use a brush and some touch up paint to get down into those areas later on.

Since I don't like airbrushes I usualy paint my models with a brush, using Polly S paints. First I put on a coat of auto primer and then do several paintings of what I call a real heavy dry-brushing technique till I finally get the vehicle covered with the paint I want to use. The main thing here is to be sure that you really spread out that paint out as thin as possible so you do not get any build up around the detail items. Of course, this technique doesn't work so well if you use lots of PE, which I don't, except for intake screens on German vehicles.

You just have to try different ways and see what works best for you.

Good luck and take care, sgirty

Thanks for answers.

I will paint the interior today, and then tape the hatches, when I am going to paint the entire model.