Hi Craig,

If your barrels are plastic you can easily make straps with styrene strips from Evergreen or Plastruct. An alternative is the foil like catfood lids from whiskas cat food tubs. I use that for several different things including straps and the like. you just need to flaten the texture and sand for super gluing. I have heard of some people useing tamiya tape by doubling and tripleing over the tape to make thicker and cutting to witdth and supergluing. Good luck Craig!

Gary

Craig...I use wine bottle foil.The stuff they use to seal the cork with.Here's a pic of a back pack I made for a 1/76th Jagdpanther using the foil for the straps.That's a toothpick it's resting on.
Gary... You may remember this from the Panther campaign
As you can see,you can do almost anything with it.Just make sure it's foil and not plastic Jeff T.

thanks you guy for the info

ok first time oil fading might be a bit on the brown side

Hey Craig, it really looks pretty nice given its your first time with this technique. it will get easier with practice.
your doing better the first time then i did for sure.

Gary

My first AB was Testors too with the various plastic tips. Greatmodels had a sale one day and I went for the Tamiya AB and it has made life SSOOO much easier. There was a learning period with thinning the paint right and cleaning the AB though. I use Tamiya paints thinned with Tamiya Yellow top thinner (1:1 ratio). I just use windex to clean the AB after spraying. I get done 10x faster then I used to and can easily make thinner or thicker spray lines. Double action AB is the way to go!!!

thanks for all the info gary
i really like my testors ab i just got a iwata eclipse hp-cs i have only ran water threw it so see how it works i like it the might unleash the beast on the stryker but i really like the testors alot once i got how to thin the paints down it works killer i have shot model air and tam thinned with yellow cap i like that the best no clogging or any thing like that.

Hi Craig,

My Iwata Eclipse is my workhorse AB. There is nothing i cant do with it. Craig, you practice and get comfortable with it, you will love it! Mind you, ive never used the aztec personaly, but any reviews or comparisons ive seen, heard, or read all favor Iwata AB's to be equal to or better than most any other AB's. Ive tried Badger, and Paasche. the iwata is superior. Badgers new line of AB's are great from what ive heard.

Be careful with windex in the iwata. If you use windex in the iwata be sure to flush a half color cup of tap water before storing away.

Gary

worked on the turret to along with some of the other parts that have been behind on
gary from what i have use so far i like the way it feels and sprays i sure the windex will mess up the fine ab if not washed out all the way thanks for all the help

Hey Craig,

I got to tell ya, the M-48's looking pretty bad ass! Your doing a fine job man.

Gary

Craig, I agree with the M48, looks real nice! Looking forward to more.

cheers!
Stefan

thanks guys more pics soon pigments this weekend

almost done with the M48 ill have more pics soon.
i used AVF #AF35005 T97E2 tracks
legend sand bag kit LF1073
barrel depot BD35039 metal barrel
painted with vallejo model air weather with ak mig and winsor and newton
also got some progress on the bronco combat tracks for the ZTZ99A MBT about 70 links of the 82 required for one side lots of work for those tracks

Looks really good.

Hi Craig,

Great job on the M-48 man! Can you tell me more about the base color you used? I realy like it. Well done!
Im looking forward to ZTZ coming together.

Gary

thanks guys for the the base i used the model air OD green and lightened it up with some yellow did do some pre shading but most of it was covered due to my heavy hand.the model air shoots ok i thin it with their thinner and a bit of water so i will not clog at that point i still have a bunch of it on hand due to than paint being hard to get at one point.

Congrats, came out looking the part

thanks greg where in ca?

i have one side done of the bronco tracks for the ZTZ99A MBT
they were not as bad as the looked.a few days work lots of cutting and sanding that took most of the time.i think the safe bet for painting is going to be the road wheels tracks and lower hull first then mask.

I'm in N.CA wine country and home of Charlie Brown & Snoopy, Santa Rosa

How about you?

Craig, the Tracks look awsome. well done man!

Gary

thanks gary lots of work on them but way worth it they fixed the loose final drive issue i was having.
greg...a bit south from you in san jose

ok a few HOURS later the other set of tracks is done with only two links to spare the bronco box said 82 per side but they took 83 not sure if that is because the kit is a hobby boss.the ref photo i have of this tank shows the tracks facing up but the hobby boss instructions show them facing down so i went with the ref photo.not one of the track links broke.first time using bronco stuff i might have to check out at kit very impressed with it.

Got all the pe parts on today .this is a dry fit.straps for drums and mg left and have to locate a "log"from the back yard

Hi Craig,

The ZTZ looks pretty bad ass! Its an uncomon build to see for me and i like alot! Im having to manualy check all threads ive subscribed to because im not recieving any thred update notices. dont know whats wrong. Anyways, awsome job bro!

Gary