Hellllo

I am going to participate by building this T-54 in the markings of the
PAVN 202 armoured Regiment of the NVA



:D

Hi again,

Looking forward to your build’s gentlemen!!

@ Jack: All Vietnam dio’s I have seen include American armor, so I am very interested in your build!
@ Sal: Nice start, how’s the set? I am thinking of picking one up.
@ Zon: The tank is just slightly angled, because that’s the only way I could fit the scene on the base. I know I am supposed to pick a base to fit the scene but … thanks’ for the tip.

Here is my progress: I have painted a lot of small pieces and equipment that will be used on the diorama. I have bought two more boxes of Chiclets (but it was not enough ….) I have also given the top layer of sand bags and the sides some texture using a rag and a plastic knife.





Any advice or comment is welcomed!
Regards,

Yours is looking good too vlad
look forward to seeing the final result

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/180466#1515162

My progress is on here ^ ^ ^

Hi all,

all of that beginings look good, will see forward.

Here is my first "re-begining" step in this campaign with my french Sherman and its figures since i stopped it last year.
I recall that my dio will concern a french operation against viet min in the end of 1951 and begining of 1952. This operation called "HOA BINH" campaign which was french counter attacks after bigs viet strikes, around the "Black river".
So i began with a new paratroopers officer (to replace the one i modeled last year and which i dislike now):













comments are welcomed
cheers
nico

Wow and here I was being impressed with myself for adding a sleeve to one of my troops.

Excellent work Nico, can't wait to see how your Para comes up when finished.

Hi all,

@Jack: your tank is looking good!!
@Nicolas: Nice scratch work, what material is that?

I have finally finished building the sand bag bunker, after buying and using 5 packs of Chiclets. The pictures below are of the rough outline of my diorama. If there is anything odd, please point it out!





I just have two simple questions: I initially used actual sand to imitate the sand on the base, but I feel that it is too coarse. Does anyone have any tip’s for me?

Also I tried painting the sand bags, but they are turning out glossy. I think it might be because of the sugar in them, I unfortunately have no matt spray. Again any tip’s?

Regards,

Great diorama, Vladimir. It looks great and the sandbags are really convincing.

Looking forward to see more

Nicolas: very nice sculpting in deed!

Vlad: No tips on the sand, but for tha bags, do you have primer that you could air-brush on? Then hit it with the flat. Hopefully the primer would seal in whatever from the chiclets is coming through. Anyway, the dio looks awesome!!

Happy Modelliing, -zon

Hi all,

thanks a lot for the comments.

@ Vlad: this is Fimo on Milliput base. But, as i went in Paris last week, i found "super sculpey" (very hard to find elsewhere in France) so the next steps would be in this....
Your dio is looking very nice, i will look forward for the progress

cheers
nico

@Vlad I have used sawdust for sand before with good results, particularly when you can alter the coarseness of the dust depending on the grade of paper you use.

On the actual bunker itself, It probably doesn't really matter but good engineering practise is to lay every other layer of bags at 90 to the layer below. So what you'd see is one layer where you see the side of the bag, then the next layer where you see the end of the bag then the next layer you see the long edge again, etc. Having said all that I have seen plenty of photos with the bags all laid in the same direction.

Vladimir i know one thing which works very well for sand .... silica sand ,,its used to give smooth surfaces more grip when its painted ..its many times finer than beach sand and with alittle work it can look great and very real ,, mixes well with PVA glue too.
Heres a pic of a dio i'm building and ive used silica sand ..you can see how well its scaled with the M2A3


,,hope this will help you out abit

looking good so far!

i made a flat antennae using some thin solder, and rolled it flat. if its a bit wonky, you can use a ruler and a sharp knife to trim it. For the cord i use very thin wire from a small electric motor, and roll it tightly around a pin or needle, and then paint it. Then it can be bent to shape.

For the belt, try hot water or a hot air gun.

Can't wait to see more!

Hallo everybody!!!!
After a long time (summer vacations ) I returned to my workbench, and worked on the M-548 Quad:

I hollowed the barrels, and added what seems to me the wires for the electrical firing of the guns...
The pictures shows the Quad brown... it's pure OD!!!

Phill: Darn straight! And good choice on those AFV Club track Let me know how they work!

Axel: Great choice! Now worries, this campaign will be running for a while so do what you need too

Ron: Excellent! I've wanted to get my hands on one of those 1/32 Mig-21's myself, and you can't go wrong with the Ho Chi Minh Trail

Vladimir: You are making some nice progress, it's really starting to capture the feel of the era! I agree that you should put an angle in your diorama so that it doesn't come out too symmetrical. Let us know how your experiments on toning down the sandbags work out.

Sean: How is that LSSC going together for you? I'm still looking at making one myself, even if not for this campaign. I second your thought on those figures, that was my impression when I first looked at them.

Ayhan: Your work and phtotography is top notch as always! Great pictures detailing your work. Thanks for posting your finished photo in the official campaign gallery, make sure that you post a picture of your in progress work as well to meet the campaign requirements

Zon: That is one tiny build to be cramming an interior into, looking forward to your work!

Tim: That M113 is just cool!

Stefan: Thanking for your contribution to this campaign, I'm really looking forward to your conversions and hope that more will follow

Scott: I can't wait to see more Aussie contributions in this campaign, keep working on those figures

Sal: Great progress bud! How are you liking that Academy kit?

Jack: Awesome! We need more tanks of Soviet origin here, and I'm enjoying your build log

Nicolas: Excellent work and choice of subject matter, thanks for sharing your work with us here!

Orestis: That Quad is just a beautiful piece of hardware isn't it?

Keep up the great work everyone!

Don't forget that you need 1-in progress photo and 1-finished photo in the campaign gallery

Happy modelling!!

Thank you all for the good advice and the nice comments , so far I haven’t done much work! I have painted the sand bags, spraying a coat of primer on first, but it is still glossy. I am searching for a matt spray in hardware stores, but with no success! I might have to try and dull it with pastels (because from some of the research pictures, you can see that it is a semi gloss anyway).

@ Scott: The sand bag’s where placed like that because of two reasons: I. Research photos, II. My budget, but I completely agree that putting them perpendicular to each other would make the structure more solid and I actually did that on the roof of the shelter!

Also, thank you for the advice on the sawdust; unfortunately it is very hard to find saw dust here!

@ Phill: Nice looking dio, are they connected to each other (the Abrahams and the hummer)? Where would I find the silica sand? In a hardware store?

@ Orestis: Nice looking Quad you got there, I like the subtle weathering!

I have one more question if you don’t mind, I know that the sand in Vietnam (well in most movies and dioramas that I have seen) is a reddish color. What colors mixed together and with what ratio will give me the closest resemblance?!

Thanx again everyone for your kind comments and advice!

Regards,

Allo Vladimir mate ,, yup that dio is three pieces,,the biggest piece had four vehicles on it ..HUMVEE M114 ,,Hemtt fueler ,M1A2 Abrams with mine roller and a wrecked truck ..oh theres a building in there somewhere to now to the sand ,, silica sand is normally found where the paints are and yup a hardware store should have it as its the hardware store here that sell it ,,i was just thinking (ouch!!!) that if its annoying to find there is another way to get very fine sand ..your in Lebanon and i know theres plenty of dirt and sandy type soil around so heres what you do ,,and you other fellas listen too get yourself a pile of dry ( its got to be very dry ,,very very dry is best for this ) dirt or sandy soil and a fine mesh sift ,,then chuck a pile of dirt into the sift and shake ,,the fine dirt will fall out out and the big stuff remains ..the finer the mesh the better, i have a super fine meshed sift and i get dirt so fine its damn near powder .this stuff works great in dios and its easy to work with too

Yep fair enough plenty of times it was done like this and apart from anything else yours looks great.




Sawdust is crap compared to silica sand, gives a far better result.




My home is very similar to Vietnam so I think I can give you some tips.
The actual "sand" in Vietnam is silica sand that is found on the beaches.

As you move inland from the coast the sand is permeated with grey clay. When dry this clay gets pounded to power and makes things very dusty.

In lower land rainforest the bed tends to be a yellowish clay that also creates powder dust.

Further in country, particularly where there are hills you get the red volcanic soil.

This fellow here has aced it, as you would expect.

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/3441

I have an Osprey book that details the weathering of a Vietnam Centurion and the colours used in that model were Tamiya Enamel "This wash was
a mix of Tamiya enamel X-18 Semi Gloss Black and XF-64 Red Brown in equal parts, heavily thinned with mineral turpentine." They then used pastels to make the dust.

I thought this link might be of interest to most of the participants off this campaign:

http://picasaweb.google.com/107252237038792100207/MAUTHAN1968#

I particularly like the photo of the marines hiding behind street vendor trolleys! The picture on the 12th line, in the middle, is one of my reference photos. Although it is not a picture of American troops the sand bag used are the same types used by the American army, I know I might have picked the wrong color for my own sand bags. Is it possible that other sand bags were khaki?

@ Pill: First off I meant Bradley (instead of Abrahams), second that sounds like one heck of a project I wish you would start a build log, I would be very interested in it. Last I am actually currently living in the U.A.E and I have a lot of sand around me, I compared the sand that I have to some samples I took from the beach and it is slightly finer. I have yet to find the silica sand so that I can compare it to the desert sand I have. I really hope you will share with us your progress on those dioramas and thanx for the trick with the dirt; I am going to need that when I go back to Lebanon.

@ Scott: Thank you for the input, I tried out your suggestion of red brown and semi gloss black with a drop of flat earth (The picture bellow is just a test) I am not sure about the results. I have a few reference photos but I am still not that skilled and I don’t have a very large variety of paints so I am still unable to get the right tone. I have pastels and I was planning to use them to weather the sand bags, but I am also having no success with them. How are your troops coming along?

Here is my extremely slow progress, I sprayed the sand bags with a primer followed by two thin coats of Tamiya khaki (XF-49), I have also painted the barrel although I am extremely unhappy with the outcome. I am now facing a small dilemma facing the ground, should I pour a new layer of celluclay, so that I can press down the crates and give them weight?





Any help is welcomed!

Regards,

The colour looks really good Vlad, you could even go redder if you want. Try also putting some spots of dark grey through it to represent shale.

I am thinking here that your guys are emplaced on a hill top? If so the ground would be quite hard, that is why they have built the bunker up rather than dug it down. (In soft ground the top of the bunker would be ground level.) For that reason the crates would be very much on top of the ground rather than sinking into it. Think clay rather than sand.

This pic is a beauty, it shows the ground colour quite well and also the sandbags too.

http://www.mortarsinminiature.com/images/MarkBinning/6RAR_Nui_Dat_1969_A.jpg

This is a page I am using for my build which has some great "atmosphere" shots

http://centurion-mbt.synthasite.com/Page_10.php

and some tips from a museum builder

http://centurion-mbt.synthasite.com/Page_5.php

In WW2 sandbags were raw hessian so they were more of a tan colour. The Australian Army sandbag in Vietnam, and quite probably the US ones too, were treated with Arsenic to help stop them rotting and so brand new were a weird kinda lime green colour of course they got dirty fairly quickly.

As for my progress ....... frustratingly I am back at work at a remote place called Barrow Island of the WA coast so my build is on hold for a bit.

I like the Academy kit went together like a Tamiya kit but with more detail. Here is where I'm at primed and painted

Decals for the dash I like that

Its coming along

Vladimir i think i should have been a little more descriptive about this dio i'm building ..that Abrams is one part of the dio ..theres three parts in all ,,the Bradley ( with another Humvee ) is part two and part three is a Stryker ESV with slat armour ,,its built to make one big dio or three smaller ones and i have started abit of a build log in the Dioramas section ..the dios called Somewhere in Iraq ,,should be able to find it
The silica sand is many time finer than beach or dune sand mate ..its hard to hold in your hands because it is so fine ,,you should be able to find it in the U A E ,,heres hoping you do bud

Sal,,, I have that little beauty and god it is a little beauty ..the tires alone make it better than the Tamiya kit

Hi all,

here is my slow progress with my Sherma and figures.
The Tasca kit is very beautifull but a bit complicated, unless you can read japan.....i don't (instructions in english are very very at minimum rate).
Another colpication is that french Sherman in Indochina were often re-built in no-conventionals way, version mixed with another one....brains storms to find the good assembly !
So here is the Sherman in (slow) progress with some problems with the photo edges parts....i'll have to hide the breaked one with some stuffs













And here the starts for the co-pilot / front machine-gun servant (who the body is turning to the right as he is looking outside in that direction):

















Aren't the hands to bigs or the arms to longs ?

That's all for today.
Comments and critics are welcomed
Cheers,
nico

His hands are certainly big but not overly so. Just a bloke with big hands that's all

Hi all,

@ Scott: I am going to take your advice, the sand is now clay! Thanx for that picture, it is nice to see some sand bags that are of a similar color!
@ Sal: Looking good, can’t wait to see it finished!
@ Phill: I had a look at it, but it was under the name of “Somewhere in Afghanistan” it looks interesting. I really like the buildings what material did you use? I will continue looking for the silica sand so that I can use it on my next desert dio!
@ Nicolas: Did you scratch the interior of the tank? The figure looks good to me!

So most of the things have been painted and dry fitted, I still need to finish painting the figures I also need to print out some playing cards. I also need to weather everything with pastels. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on how you look at it) my diorama still smells of peppermint.





Regards,