Well it's been a long time, but 1.5 years and 3 counties later it is time for me to do another Build Log....

2010 was a crazy year for me and culminated in me making the leap from the UK to Australia where I am now nicely settled with my new fiance.
This however meant that ~70% of the stash had to be left behind in the UK and I made the drastic decision to leave behind all of my German stuff and most of my ETO related kits. This was partly because there was too much to bring and partly to make me branch out into new/neglected areas that I have been becoming more interested in.
One of these is middle eastern armour, and I particularly like ex-soviet and ex-WW2 AFV's used in this theatre and an SU-100 (which has been on the cards for a while) meets this criteria nicely.
Initially I was thinking of doing an Egyptian version captured by the British during the Suez Crisis (That now resides in the Bovington Tank Museum) but the colourful camouflage of Syrian versions made my mind up.

The plan is to show an SU-100 from the 1973 Yom kippur war during the retreat from the Golan heights that has broken down. The wounded comander has stayed on to try and fix his vehicle but finally sits down and admits defeat (in more than one respect!). I'm thinking "Admission of Defeat" would make a nice title for the finished peice.

Anyway enough chat and onto the build!

Here's a look at the kits i'll be using:



The main kit is Dragon's SU-85M premium edition. I know their actual SU-100 kit would have been better but the shop I was in had this, their old imperial series SU-100, along with Revell and Tamiya's offerings and this by far the best option.
The SU-85M is actually an SU-100 early that had 85mm guns fitted while problems with the 100mm ammunition were sorted out. DML include all the peices to make an SU-100 in the box, along with a few modifications of my own.

To help me along this road is Anubius Creation's 'post-war Czech built' conversion set which includes a late cupola, stowage bin, exhaust shrouds, infantry call button and self extraction device that were features of this model. The mouldings range from excellent to below average and come in a variety of resin colours which is a bit bizzare.

The figure is from Mig Productions and is their 'lebanese tanker'. AFAIK there is nothing specifically 'lebanese' about him and he would suit a variety of countries and conflicts. He is superbly sculpted and moulded and has the perfect posture for the scene I have in mind.

The engine is a resin offering from Pavla Models. Now I don't like to bad mouth companies but I bought several of their items a while back as they seem great value for money, only to find they are direct copies of parts from plastic kits. I don't think that counts for the engine but I wouldn't be surprised if it bears an uncanny resemblance to another aftermarket product. Perhaps we will see! Either way it is not a bad representation of the main engine block and although it has a couple of warping/shrinkage/flash issues I am sure that with a bit of TLC it will fill the engine hatch nicely.

We also have Aber's SU-100 alloy barrel. Very nicely done and pretty self explanatory.

Of course one of my builds would not be complete without having to prepare the (new) stash for plundering. Kit's on standyby for this are the following:



I also have the following reading material for reference/inspiration:



I just noticed while photographing that the cat has taken on the role of guarding my air compressor until later in the build. Shame he's not doing a very good job!



That's plenty for now, expect some progress soon!

Cheers,

James

You have a very contented-looking cat. I love Mid East subjects and I'll be watching this with great interest.
I've seen that Lebanese tanker, and he is indeed exquisite, but could anyone point out a few of the things that have to be done to transform some Russian/Soviet tankers into Arabs? If anyone has attempted it. Untuck their trousers, obviously.

Thanks, it's great to have you along.
The cat (Dexter) is not even mine and belongs to next door but has adopted us. Fortunately the neighbours don't seem to mind!

I would say the best tip for converting Russian tankers would be to add a moustache! It seems a common thing in the middle east and I am planning to do it with my figure.

Cheers,

James

Ok, the first update.

The first thing I did was to go over the magic track and remove the injector pin marks. These tended to be raised on the guide teeth tracks and sunken on the others and so were filed/filled then filed respectively. This is them half way through the process.



This is a dull process and was completed with a couple of beers while watching TV. I find it's sometimes best to do the more laborious jobs like this early on in a build while you are still keen. They still need to be tidied up with some sandpaper but the hard work is done.

The first thing to concentrate on is the engine bay. Any form of interior needs to be tackled first to ease the build and prevent it stalling while you finish it off.

The main part of this is of course the Pavla models engine and first up was to clean up the casting. This involved a fair bit of time filing and sanding, some boiling water to correct the warped frame, plenty of scalpel work and some filling to get rid of sink marks. There will need to be a fair bit of detailling yet, but the cleaned up engine is now ready for it:



One of the first parts of the SU-100 built is the suspension 'towers' for the christie suspension, and these need to go in so that I can get my engine bay finished. The instructions recommend painting them beforehand and I thought this would be a good idea as they would be hard to get at later on. I thought this could be a way to add some colour and so went for a red primer with the metal springs in humbrol enamels. Some chips and oil stains were then added and a wash of black oil paint applied.



It is only after finishing them that I realise very little will be visible when they are in, and that they will require some very clever masking if I will preserve this paintwork. Never mind, I know it's there!

Thats all for now.

Cheers,

James

Hi James,

Nice project. It should look great when it's done from what you described of your plan. One thing: In 1967 (Six day war) the SUs were all painted in Russian Green only. After the Syrians got trounced on the Golan in that war did they start to paint their vehicles in camo paint. In 1973 (Yom Kippur war) the typical camouflage was Grey, Green, Sand "patches, splotches, clouds or stripes". I did one from 67 myself and only way you could tell it was Syrian was that it had Arabic ID numbers on the Glacis plate and the name of one of their martyrs written in Arabic script on the sides.

Their is only one or two good photos of a Syrian camouflaged SU-100 from the 1973 war. That particular one was photographed after the war and is the lead tank in a line of T-54/55s, also destroyed or abandoned. You may have seen this one. Cool thing is right behind it, is a T-55 painted in the nicest camouflage of any tank from that war. Unfortunately it seems that the photog didn't appreciate that so there seems to be only one photo of that tank existing.

Anyway, Good luck and I look forward to following along with your build.
Best Regards,
Ed Okun/ Frogman_13

Well, well; well, look who is here. Great to see you back on the bench.

A few advices (from an old friend) if you want your build to be a perfect one.

I would add : 3 tone camouflage, an 88 mm gun, a FG 1250 IR device, some Panzer Grenadiers on the back , 3 tons dust & mud would also add to the originality of the project I don't push you here

Ok let's be serious. A nice project to follow. What will be the paint scheme?

I see you start making some stock in Russian tones, even an IS 3M... who knows what will come out of that

Hope to hear soon from you my friend.

spit

another view of this SU-100
ED

That last photo suggests camouflaged spare tank tracks, interesting alternative to the rusty hunks of junk normally seen.

Alright James! Good too see you I'd thought you fallen off the wagon. Great project to get back into the swing of things. I love Syrian armour. Count me in and great to hear everythings alright

This is going to be a good one,looking foward to following along.

PS I like your camo pattern on the cat

Thanks for the response guys!

Ed, I had seen your build while doing my research, nice work. You are of course correct and I had my dates mixed up. 1973 is what I mean't and yes the camouflage schemes and photos you have posted are my source of inspiration.

Anyone know how to change the topic title?

Pawel, As always a pleasure to have you on board. While I hear your suggestions I may take a 'rain check'! As discussed by Ed, I'll be going for a nice colourful camouflage, not sure exactly what pattern/tones yet, will see how it goes.

Steven, nice point could mean the camo was fairly fresh too.

Hi Jaymes, nice to have you along for the ride, hope you enjoy the build.

Anthony, Thanks man, I certainly hope so. The cat is sporting a winter scheme at the moment, slightly out of season for the Australian summer but he seems to like it!

Cheers all,

James

Hi James,

Here is a link that I was trying to find for you but couldn't remember where I had seen it. I had saved copies of the photos from this build and he signed each photo (very classy..) Luckily this very talented modeler, Marcel Jussen has a website. A quick search of his name and here is your link !!

Check out his version of the SU-100 in Syrian markings. The particular one that you want to do as well. Wait till you see his build-up though before you start........

Best Regards,
Ed Okun



http://www.mjussen.nl/modview.asp?section=gallery&model=su-100m

Hey Ed,

Thanks so much for the link, that is great reference thank you!
If my build turns out like this i'll be a happy man, I just hope you all don't compare me to it!

James

Ok some more progress for you guys now.

First up a new addition to the family. This will become an Enigma/Tiran version one day (have not decided yet) but will also come in handy for a few spares in this project:



Onto the SU...

The engine bay has been the main focus of attention and I have completed a little more work on the engine and scratched some firewalls for it.



Because I'm trying to get an idea of what else i'll need to add in the engine bay I completed the engine deck screen so that I can see what will/won't be visible. In the premium edition kit DML give you the solid moulded version along with one cut open and ready to receive the PE mesh parts. Unfortunately this part is not wide enough and does not meet the hull edges as it should (No idea how they managed to screw this up!) and so you need to cut open the solid moulded one anyway. Fortunately it's not my first time doing this having build Tamiya and Italeri/Zevezda T-34's in the past and so I put it together fairly easily.




I have also done some work on the fighting compartment rear plate to help me with the firewall line-up in the engine bay. One addition to make the kit into an SU-100 'late' is to fill in the lower section of the rear hatch which was deleted after the early production run. This was easy to do with some pastic card cut to shape and some filler. I have also filled the two notches in the sides after the pic was taken as they are to fit some triangular shaped areas that would sit behind the fighting compartment. I can't see these on any post-war models and so will be leaving them off my build.




You can see these filled in the following picture of the upper hull with the rear panel fitted. I have also added the PE insert parts for the areas behind the air intakes on the upper hull. These seem to conflict slightly with some reference material I have but never mind, they fill the gaps nicely.




Builders familiar with the kit will notice i've removed the rear mud flaps. This is because they are difficult to show realistic damage with in plastic and so I have made my own from some brass sheet which will give a better scale effect. They don't look too pretty now but should do the job.




Hopefully thats satisfied your appetites for the time being, more progress will be posted soon...

James

Look nice James, I always admire your efforts on the interior/ Something I'm not doing and will not do quickly I guess. I must say that it's very pleasing to look at your build. The pictures are outstanding!! Keep up the good work.

spit

Thanks mate,

I do like doing a nice interior, however, I do find it drags my builds out a while, my aim is to start finishing things by doing quicker builds, unfortunately this doesn't really seem to be working for me so far! I will get this finished, never fear!
Glad the photos are ok, I usually struggle to get good light, especially as I end up shooting my photos at night. I took your tip of buying a couple of cheap lamps however and find it helps. I may invest in one or two more as I have set myself up a nice little photo and spray area in one of the spare rooms which is pretty cool as I can leave it setup and shoot as and when I need to.

Cheers,

James

Some more progress now...

Firstly the engine bay is coming along, the firewalls are finished and I have added some basic representations of two of the fuel tanks that sit between the suspension towers. These will not really be visible once the engine block is in place but it adds some 'bulk' to the area rather than looking like an empty void around the engine block.



I have also done a little bit of work on the running gear (always my least favourite area) and have put together the sprockets and return rollers. Pretty straightforward stuff.



I also have started on the roadwheels. While I'll be using the kit wheels I have decided to supstitute two frtom the Tamiya T-34 to add some variation. I beleive these are known as the 'spider' type and these appear regularly on post war T-34/85's and SU-100's. The exception being that they have solid moulded tyres rather than the perforated design seen commonly during WW2. No issues there, some filler and sanding soon took care of this.
The real issue will be fitting them onto the DML suspension as they have a different size hole at the rear. Shouldn't be too big an issue though.



Thanks for looking, all comments welcome as usual!

James

Looking good James. As always, the detail level is very good. Keep it going!!

spit

Cheers mate!

this one is moving along real nice.

Thanks Anthony, appreciate you following my build.

James

Progress time...

The engine is slmost finished and I'll post some photos when it is.
In the meantine I have added the fighting compartment side panels, added the inspection hatch to the rear glacis plate and cleaned up a couple of the Anubis resin parts to see how they fit.

The fighting compartment sides were almost a balls-up as I blindly followed the instructions and used the parts numbered. These are panels with scalloped rear edges that should meet with the shape of the rear fighting compartment plate (kind of like a half dovetail joint). This did not fit well at all and so checking the references I found no SU-100's with this construction.
I figure that these must be SU-85 specific?
Fortunately the correct parts are included with the kit that demonstrate a very basic overlap join. Although I had already used the incorrect rear plate, in my eye the detail is nicer and I couldn't be bothered to fill the hatch hole again so I just sanded the edges smooth. The other issue was the left hand panel would not sit flush at the front where the fenders and glacis join. I could not work out why but I sanded the back of the panel down and used some superglue to fix it down while clamping it which seemed to do the job.

While DML have gone to some effort to create nice weld detail I found that there were slight gaps between the panel edges, nothing a careful application of poly cement didn't sort out.

Anyway, here are some pics with the mig figure showing the intended scene. I have simply taken off the casting blocks and blu-tak'ed him together for now.

This should however give you an idea of what this build is heading towards.







Thanks,

James

P.S. The last photo shows the 'torch cut' texture I have added to the ends of the fighting compartment side plates. More on this later....

Anyone watching?

I'll keep posting anyway

Engine work now complete!
Mostly wiring and a few scratched additions (I won't pretend to know what all the parts are called!) Mr. surfacer has been used to texture the exhaust pipes, copper wire for cabling and various styrene products for everything else.





I also scratched some very basic representations of the two radiators that should flank the engine. They were created by gluing sheet styrene together and filing to shape. The main work went into the pipe that connects them and bridges the main engine. Thick wire was used with lead foil and thin wire wrapped around it. The central 'part' is drilled out styrene tube with a spare bit of PE used to detail the top.





And this is what it looks like all snuggly fitted into the engine bay....





Thats all for now.

Cheers,

James

I must say you've done a pretty impressive job here .The engine looks great with all those wires. I can't wait the paint & dirt on your model. There will be some dirt hein

spit

Thanks mate, I just hope I can do it justice with the paint.

Don't worry, I'm planning to make it nice and dirty for you!

James