This time a little french tank made it on to my workbench. As some of you know I really like white painted UN-vehicles. So the choice of color is clear!

General information:
Since Sept 2006 French Leclerc battle tanks (T6 and T7) patrol and surveillance the "blue line" between Israel and Lebanon. Revelant experiences in the blakans and other theatres have shown that more "serious" power ist needed to fulfill critial UN missions. No doubt the Leclerc helps to do so in the Lebanon.

For more Information on UNIFIL visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unifil

The Kit:
The 1/35 scale Kit from Tamiya is a very good basis for this project. I would not recommend to use the Heller-Kit. Already out of the box the Tamiya wil build into a handsome model. See also the Armorama review from Pawel: http://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/1015

Aftermarket Parts:
Since the Kit is already a few years on the market a lot of aftermarket parts can be used. I have these parts but maybe not all well be used on this model.

- Bronco Leclerc MBT workable Track Link Set
- 35 073 Voyager PE set (because of the aluminum barrel)
- 35 844 Eduard PE set (because Edward just goes with ;-)
- Blast Models BL35138K, Update Set for Leclerc Series 2 (resin parts)
- Blast Models BL35079F, French Tank Crew Summer MBT Leclerc
- Blast Models BL35079F, French Tank Crew Summer MBT Leclerc
- Echelon Decals, UNIFIL Leclercs - Echelon Decals, UNIFIL Leclerc



Information and books:
AFV Modeller Magazine Issue 36 Model (The model I chose 642 UNIFIL has been documented in this issue with some original pictures.)

"Landing Zone Lebanon" by www.blue-steel.info

Website of Oliver Carneau with some great pictures: http://olivier.carneau.free.fr

Excellent building blog by Rodolphe Uguen-Laithier on Website Panzerdesign
http://panzerdesign.fr/montages/vehiclesbuilding.html

And do not forget the outstanding "Tweaklist" by Olivier Carneau & Rodolphe Uguen-Laithier. But if you have chosen a particular tank you need to be aware of some slight differences. So take note of your reference pictures.

We start with the rear:
The access hatches were replaces by brass wire and the four bracked rods were replaced by hollowed styrene rods. Don't worry about the adhesive edges from tamiya extra thin cement it will be not be seen after the basecoat ;-)



At the rear lights I have closed the hole from behind with evergreen sheet and cut the glasses to size. Later I can easily paint the glasses and put it into the mount.



Antislip Surface with Rough Coat (Games Workshop):
For modern armor modeller the antislip surface is always a challenge. For me the tamyas antislip surface looks quite undersized. So I used the Rough Coat Spray from Games Workshop to replicate a thicker structure. Before start spraying ther is a lot of work to mask the model to prevent overspray.



Then shake the bottle well before spraying and make sure you work in a well ventilated area. I sprayed from a distance of 30 cm. In varying distance you can easily influence the grain of the coat.



Of course - the overspray will sometimes creep unter the masking tape. To remove overspray of Roughcoat I used a brush moistened with Revell Airbrush Clean.



Here is a comparison shot of the Roughcoat surface and the Tamiya suface.



Then a few missing handles have been added and glued from the inner side before finishing the hull. I do so to prevent from unwanted blobs of cyanoacrylate. The little spare PE part works as a distance holder.



Hull assembly:
The top and the bottom of the hull will be glued together. To keep the parts together tightly I use a simple clamping tool made from rubber sleeves and plastic tubes you find as tip-protector for brushes.



Drivers Hatch:
Next the drivers hatch was detailed with some aftermarket parts (white = from blast set, gold = from voyager set, silver = from eduard set).



Hull Front:
The front plate was detailed with some rivets (I often use my punch and die set ;-), pe parts from Eduard and the frontlights from the blast update set.



Hull Rear:
Serveral missing bolts were added, also engine grills from eduard and voyager. Bolted metal plates were replicated by evergreen strips cut to size and also the 4 snorkel brackets were added.
The funny construction (third hand & brush) helps to push down a warped pe grill. For pe parts I use white glue instead of cyanoacrylate. If I use too much white glue or something went wrong I easily remove the white glue with a moistened brush from the model surface. In the past I had a lot of problems with the cyanoacrylate. The disatvantage of this method is the long curing time of white glue - therefore I use the funny construction.

Sorry for my messy workbench ;-)




My chosen real tank - the UNIFIL 642 - had some differences. First a covering box on the right side was not mounted so I had to replicate some connectors.



Second the fuel pipe connector (middle of the rear) is missing the two tubes on the original 642. Larger holes for the fuel lines have been drilled into the blast resin parts for the barrel mounts. For the cable/ fuel lines I used lead wire from plusmodel in different sizes.



Next time I hope to carry on with this turret.



Because of shortly received cancer diagnosis and ongoing chemotherapy side effects (e.g. sensory disturbances in the fingertips) it is hard for me to stay with my hobby. Let´s see if I will manage to remain somewhat modelling anyway.

Comments are appreciated.
Glad to see you next time.
Cheers
Walter

great start Walter. please know my best wishes are with you during these difficult times. cheers, mh.

Hi Walter,
excellent start with your Leclerc. It's the first time I see a modeler dealing with the rear light the way you did it. It seems to be an interesting idea.

Keep on the excellent job and give your cancer the proper treatment it deserves
All my best wishes for your full recovery
Olivier

Walter your my kind of modeler.

How did you make that Banjo fitting?

Ryan

Great start, Walter. I love the detail you're adding. Some fine work going on there.

My very best wishes to you also for a full and speedy recovery.

- Steve

It looks very good - and I will follow this thread with interest since I have a Leclerc in the stash as well.

And of course most of all good luck and I wich you a speedy recovery!

Harm

Walter
Great build outstanding attention to detail
i will follow your build.

Keep up the faith
Cheers
Seb

Walter: You look like a strong fellow, and no doubt shall pull through just fine.

I'm really enjoying your Leclerc build thus far. I have been going back and forth on trying to decide whether or not I want to add one to my collection as a future build. I have also been trying to figure out what is the most simple and effective way to replicate antislip texture on 1/35 modern armour, and I really like your approach. I think I will test it out on a OOB build of a Tamiya Challenger II.

Keep up the great work, you're doing outstanding for the side effects you have mentioned

Walter, great looking work so far. The anti-slip and general detailing are superb, especially around the fuel canisters at the rear. According to Mustafa Assad's book, Landing Zone Lebanon, none of the Leclerc's out there, in 2006 anyway, had their drums attached. I did the UNIFIL version a few years ago and added the drums before reading that!

Anyway, good luck.

@ all of you:
Thank you so much for your kind recovery wishes. I appreciate it very much and I promise to win the fight against cancer.

@ Oliver:
Thank you for your detaild tweak-list, it is a really great help during the builing process for any serious modeler. The rear light trick comes from a modelling friend of mine - it is a really useful trick ;-)

@ Ryan:
Sorry but I can not understand what you mean with Banjo Fitting (english is not my fist language - but I´m still learning). Can you discribe in ohter words what you mean so I can try to give you an propriate answer? Thanks.

@ Jeremy:
I recommend to build the tamiya leclerc if you are interested in modern armour. It is a good kit with lot of fun to build! Please make your OOB of the Tamiya Challenger II a building blog so we al can see if the antislip texture with roughcoat works on uk armor as well ;-)

@ Karl:
Yes, it is always easier to build a detailed model when you have good reference material in hands. For this reason I waited with my build until Mustafa Assad published his book.

Thanks a lot for all your kind comments.
cheers
Walter

OK, on it goes with the turret.
For the vision blocks I use the Blast Update Set. But because here the mirror can not be subsequently installed on the inside of the openings I paintet the mirrors before glueing into place. (Citadel Mithril Silver, diluted blue from Tamiya, and masking with fine MICRON Masking Tape)



The kits upper commander visor blocks must be cut of.



For further details my Punch & Die Set was again excessively used ;-). The smoke dischargers were detailed with wire. A grill of the Eduard PE-Set also found its way to the top of the turret.



The base for the sidewind-sensor comes from the Blast set. Surprisingly, the large opening on the right side (air conditioning), where later a PE grill will be installed, is completely open. I had fears that maybe later light shines through it, so I closed the opening with Evergreen sheet and painted it with dark color.



Also on the other turret side some improvements.



For the optics, the rear plate from the Eduard Set have been attached.



The optics I will make this time from the popular children's party confetti - a first attempt, but it looks promising. At least the colors match to some extent.



Storage Basket and snorkel

For detailing the Storage Basekt I used PE-Screws from Eduard and a grill from the Voyager set. The gluing of the grill into the basket was a bit tricky, because the mesh must be bent into the correct angles before glueing, otherwise it absorbs from the position permanently. The white-glue-method was going even nothing - solved the problem with use of thin superglue. I'm real proud of myself that I made the PE-glueing despite my shakiness hands halfway ... uff!

The larger part of the schnokel (why the heck, need te French in southern Lebanon a snorkel? a mystery to me) was sanded off the cast-on, chunky and unrealistic basket holder and replaced from spare PE-parts. Looks better now in my opinion. However, I have overlooked for sheer blinkered the ejector pins inside the storage basket and not sanded away - crap - but the component is as filigree and I'm afraid that there get something damaged when I try to sand it now ... perhaps I can hide it later ;-)



Barrel Fitting

The barrel comes from the Voyager Set - I'm not able to glue 2 barrel halves into one clean slurred peace, so I'm always looking for possible replacements. Unfortunately, the pipe does not fit neatly into the cuff. The barrel looks distorted and shaky. I have thickened it with Tamiya Tape and now it fits tight and clean.



When I thought I'm finished with the worst building I stumbled on the side skirts in the kit#s box ... ups. OK, lets go again. Left and right side skirt were shortened by one element, as well as on the right hand side, the rearmost rubber apron. Since it still had to be supplemented from mounting points made of Evergreen. I opened the gap betweed th aprons with a microsaw openings to make it look a little livelier.



After I now needed some variety of construction activities, I wanted to have fun with the decals. The decals from Echelon are clean and sharp printed. Unfortunately, however, they lack the UNIFIL license plates, which were not yet at the time of the creation of decals for Echelon to be mounted on the Leclerc. The licence plates came later on the real things. So I powered on my PC and with a vector-graphics program created the license plates myself.

It is always a problem is finding a suitable font for our hobby and it is as favorable as possible and of course legal. I have found a great font for these number plates where also the numbers fit perfectly. The font is made by Dave Hansen and is called "License Plate". It can be downloaded as freeware from free fontspace.com: [url =] http://www.fontspace.com/dave-hansen [/ url]




First I print out the decals on normal office paper and fix it with scotch tape into place to test whether a vote in scale and scope. Only when I'm satisfied I print images onto Decal Paper. I think it comes down to some extent.



In order to document my construction without color I've quickly adopted a so-called Softbox (ala Cheapo)to build. All the parts I were laying around in the office (A3-transparent paper and thin plastic sheets). I cut openings into the plastic sheets and transparent paper was glued into. To the rear edge the whole package is taped with a tape and can be folded completely flat. The lid fits on top is removable. The background is fixed with clips on to the table and at the back of the softbox with clothes pins - so I can quickly adjust various paper and pinch.



Softbox from the top:



Softbox folded and ready for storage:



And these are some pictures from the shell with the softbox. The wheels are still missing, the side panels, the rear storage box and the basket are attached only with blue tac:





I'm not completely satisfied with the lightcoverage and quality. Now I just have buy better lights and a better digicam ;-)

For the next update, we will push the little Frenchman into the paintboth. I've also increased my respiratory protection for the future!



I hope it was some interest there. If it is too much grammatical error, is too much chatter, or too much photos you should gladly give notice ;-)

Stay tuned
cheers
Walter

Hi Walter.

You are doing a fantastic job of the model and with your English. If you use as much energy to fight your disease you will have no trouble beating it. My Father had Prostate Cancer a few years ago and has recovered from it very well even though he is now in his seventies.

Keep up the great work!

Warren

Understand we are going to be holding you that promise mate

I think you've got me sold on the Tamiya Leclerc. I have it on my Christmas list, along with the Voyager PE and Bronco tracks. I'll have to think on the Blast Models accessories and determine what I really need.
I'll certainly post a build log of the Tamiya Chally II that I will apply your antislip technique to.

Looking forward to further updates on your health and build

Cheers

Jeremy

Excellent job Walter ! Your paint booth is simple and looks efficient as is your photo box.

Jeremy, Iwould advice you buy the Blast update set, it will spare time if you intend to extra detail your model otherwise, the Voyager set is quite good by itself.
Both sets are redundant in some areas but this is not a true problem.

On the other hand, I'd advise you to stay away from the Tamiya own PE set. First of all, I consider this is a petty commercial behavior from the brand to sell it apart, second the PE is quite stiff and harder to glue than the usual PE. I think Tamiya is using steel instead of brass or copper. Third, you'll get the minimum service as compared with other PE sets.

Enjoy your Leclerc !

PS: I think I should post my own WIP pictures.

Olivier

@Warren:
Thanks for your kind words. Glad to hear your dad has completely recovered that aspires me to do so.

@Jeremy:
Also looking forward you try out the antislip technique.

@Olivier:
The paint booth ist powered by 2 strong PC fans. I reccomend a complete clear box - my box is a kind of "icy" I often need a lot of additional light when spraying even near the window.
And definitively YES ... you really should post your own WIP pictures. There can never be enough modern tanks on this nice forum.

cheers
Walter

In the meantime the Leclerc became a coat of Tamiya Grey Primer. Then the basecoat Tamiya clear white with some drops brown or buff to tone it a bit down was applied.

DECALDESASTER
While the basecoat was drying I switched to the decals. The missing licence plates were printed to ACT decal paper with my HP colour inkjet. But what the heck ist THAT ...



Decals surface of black parts was totally shrinkeled with purple shining through. After a while I found the reason for this - a "non original replacement ink" caused this problem. In the past - with HP original ink - there was no problem. But no original ink inhouse, so I printed the black plates on laser decal paper with my laser printer. Ok this will go. BTW the blue UN flags look good on the ink-decalpaper?



So I gave the UN flag decal a chance, put it onto aluminium foil and gave it a weavy shape.



Then a little bit decal softer onto the flag (Mr. Mark Softer) and than happened THIS ... oh man, not my best "decal day".



After a little bit of #x§$% I tried another way to create a nice UN flag - this time the flag was printed on 80g officepaper. Then the flag was cut out, folded and glued together with UHU stic.




To give the flag some sort of motion I fixed it immediately after glueing between q-tips until the glue cured.



... yep, looks better now. Later we will do a little weathering on the flag ;-)



ANTENNAS
I usually make antennas from guitar strings. They are flexible but robust anyway. I drill up the antenna base and glue it in place.



My reference Leclercs antennas are camouflaged with some sort of white scotch tape. So I first painted it white, masked stripes with small Micron Masking Tape and finally painted it with Tamiya Nato Green.




In the meantime the basecoat was dry and the great Echelon Decals snuggeled onto the model without any problem. But again my homemade decals caused troubles. The laser decals had nearly no glue on the backside. They didn't hold on the surface. So I glued them in pace with thinned white pva glue! After the decals were dry all were sealed with Tamiay gloss. Thats how he looks after that steps.




At the moment I work on the model with oil colours. I tried to create reddish filters. The disatvantage is the longer drying time. The advantage is the longer processing time if ... maybe I need to rework some parts ;-)



Ok, thats it for the moment. See you again when the oils are dry and some detailpainting, chipping and weathering was done.

Thanks for watching and stay tuned
cheers
Walter

Truly outstanding Great piece of work Walter
You are really incredible of using some much amount of AM part.
But the beast is coming great.
Regarding the paint job, I found terrific, white vehicles are really hard to depict
Are you going to paint the one panel OD as seen on pics ??
Congrats
Cheers
Seb

Hi Seb,
thx a lot for your kind words.

Sorry, but I didn´t understand what you mean with "panel OD" can you please explain the abbreviation OD - thanks.




cheers
Walter

Walter,
I guess Seb means olive drab.

Olivier

@Olivier - thx for clarification

@Seb - yes the inner padding on the hatches are green and black. Here a pic from photoshelter.

http://ip3.photoshelter.com/image/I0000F1sXByd1LlA

cheers
Walter

Walter, wow! Great work! Looking forward to more progress!

Fantastic work- especially on the antenna's, I never did work out back then how I would do it so I just painted it, doesn't look half as good as what you've done.

Hi Walter,

Sorry for the delayed response, here is the shot of your Banjo fitting and the real one below it.





I like your jig for holding the hull while you are working on it, could you post without the tank sitting on it. I want to build one myself.

Ryan

Ryan, thx for explanation .. now I understand ;-)

There is no magic behind this. I glued the lead wire and the half of a shakle from the spare box together. The joint was covered with Tamiya tape and sealed with superglue.



Concerning single pics of the tank-jig it will take some time to upload one because the Leclerc sits on it for weathering purpose at the moment ;-)

cheers
Walter

Walter,

Your Leclarc is coming along quite well, and your build log is covering/providing numerous EXCELLENT techniques. I love the safety gear, tools, anti-slip application, wire grab handle replacement, decal making, scratch building, resin part installation, flag making, anti-laser coated periscope glass, etc., etc., etc.

And all of this while you are recovering from cancer treatments, too.

I salute you, Sir!