Have not gotten small in a long time.

So close to paint I can almost smell the fumes.

All the fiddly bits are done. Tow cable is made from lead thread and brass tubes. Only thing missing is the metal liner that inside the loop but I am hoping that at this wee scale it will go unnoticed. A few more grab handles added. Vision ports on the commander's cupola are now separate with a new gun ring. And while not pictured, tiny little lifting lugs where added to the exhaust housings.

Got progress pics if anyone is interested.

Last thing before getting some color down is to add some resin hex bolts to the fenders.

Nice to see you back into "The Light," Marc. I take it that this is the Dragon offering? As usual, it's looking good but I'm curious as to why the screens over the forward engine intakes are a silvery colour. Did you use something different from the kit supplied PE? Also, wouldn't mind seeing a few progress shots since you are offering.

Cheers,
Jan

Marc,That is just too sweet .A couple of questions.What size brass tube did you use on the cables,and are the cable hangers and periscopes scratch built?
Also,You should consider sanding or cutting off the stock front hatch cover handles and and making some up.Jeff T.

First of all... thanks for the comments and the interest guys.


Jan…The kits comes with solid plastic screens. These were cut from something in the spares box. May be a bit large in scale but since it’s more than ½ covered by the turret I think it looks much better.



Jeff… I had noticed the handles on the front hatches and the holes are already drilled and I will add some wire tonight. The only PE with the kit are the for brass screens on the engine deck. Everything else is scratched with lead foil or PE scrap from the spares box. The track cable on the right side is 3 strands of wire from an old ear bud head phone set. Each is about .003”. The tow cables are .01 lead wire, again 3 strands, from a fly tying supply store. Since its soft it twists very evenly and makes the best cables I’ve been able to do yet.


I felt guilty about leaving the axe and sledge hammer as the only 2 molded on tools so made new ones.




Resin blots added to the fenders. Paint tonight.




Some of the WIP pics.

Commander’s cupola molded as one big hunk-o-plastic




Cleaning rod rack made with hat pins, cuz they are hard, and holding them over some .5mm brass tube and tapping with a hammer, cut apart and glued to the hull for the rods. Rods are made from .05 mm brass tube and the “threaded” ends are .3mm brass tube which fits inside the larger one.







Fenders scale up to 4.5” thick so had to make the new ones.




The molded on track hooks weren’t really hooks at all. The ones on the right are bent to be at 90 degrees from the side and the tips bent up into hooks.






The rolled steal texture was made by pressing different parts of a rock into the surface and sanding off the ridges created.

Marc,thanks for the info.I'm really starting to like the little stuff,but I'm still trying to figure out what size stuff needs to be.I noticed you commented on Steve's Nashorn build.That one is just amazing.
Oh,and Dude, a rock? really? Thats just GD brillant Jeff T.

Already makes me ashamed of my efforts in 1/35th scale. Great work Marc

Darren, nice of you to say but I've seen your stuff. Nothging to be ashamed of for sure

We got PAINT! Base coat has been applied and since I don't see anything that needs to be fixed... but shout out f you do... I cam move onto the camo.

Hi Marc,

Excellent job on the King Tiger and lots of useful tips too. I especially like the one for the gun cleaning rods mounting. I am going to IPMS Modelworld at Telford this weekend and will get some of that micro-tube it seems very useful stuff.

I did this one myself recently and was amazed at the commanders cupola, why on earth did they think that 60's style moulding would be acceptable in a modern kit, I also spent time cleaning it up and making it acceptable. What camouflage are you going to do? I look forward to your further updates.

All the best,

Paul

Marc... Looks good to Me. Make of paint ,and color used please if you would be so kind Jeff T.

Paul, With all the number they give to make any one of 42 vehicles form 3 Kompanies I decided on this one for no other reason that I think I prefer the numbers without the white piping. In the list they gave there are only 2. I have no idea how accurate the camo pattern is but I will be getting as close to that as I can.



Jeff, since you as so very nicely Tamiya, dk yellow/white/buff about 35/55/10. Thinned a tad more than 50/50 with lacquer thinner.

Excellent work,Marc!
The camo scheme for the Kurt Sowa vehicle no.222 is wrong,but look here:
http://www.ss501panzer.com/2_kompanie_tanks.htm

Hi Max

1st and foremost, thanks for the compliment.

I have seen that site and decided not to use the camo in the Tamiya sheet. Having said that the photos are very difficult to make out much of the pattern. Decent shot of the left side of the turret even though it is s till taken from a film. The long view of the right side is OK to. But again there is so much that can be argued, and wondered about, when it comes to those pics. That right side shot almost 3/4 of the side of the hull has a very light appearance. And we are so used to the grays that are used in a gray scale drawing of a 3 tone camo that the lightest is the yellow, darkest is the green and the middle is the RB. Depending on the film used back in those days, a red color could produce a very dark appearance so there’s the question of which gray represents what color.

Now I have to do the disclaimer...

This is no way intended to start that old “right color” argument and is intended to, if need be, start a CIVIL discussion.

Sadly I have seen way too many of these turn ugly. But I of course welcome all opinions.

I am going to end up doing a “what I think is close” and maybe just won’t use that number. Not sure.

My toothpaste experiment was a failure. The idea has merit but the paste I used must have had alcohol in it. When I washed off the paste a lot of the paint went with it. Bu the overall pattern was good.



A small step backwards. I already have the new base coat on after the stripping.

Marc, this type of topic has, as you mention, has a bad habit of cropping up far too frequently. From my various readings, and particularly from the excellent Panzer Colors book/series, there is pretty much no right colour. This is similar to the issue of what is the TRUE Russian Green. As the war progressed, the standardization of paints pretty much disappeared.

Then there is the issue of where was the camouflage applied. As the war progressed most vehicles left the factories in the "sand" colour and it was up to the individual units to apply the additional colours. These paints came as a paste and according to the book were mixed or diluted with whatever was available (gasoline, well water, muddy water etc). Obviously the resulting colour would depend on the mixing and/or application mediums.

As far as any wartime colour pictures are concerned, a recent show I saw on PBS stated that wartime images were not taken in colour but made colour by dying the negatives. Therefore you can't be sure that those doing the colouring did it right. While there are methods professed to be able to determine colours from black and white images, none are considered anywhere near 100%. About the only thing that one might be able to use as a guide from pictures of the subject vehicle is the pattern of the camo blobs.

As for the toothpaste masking method, firstcircle used it for a couple of his small scale builds. What I recall is that he stated that one use the "cheapest" white toothpaste without any whitening agents. I'm not 100% sure but I think that he also mentioned that the base colour should have a protective coat of varnish applied. Perhaps you could entice him to reveal his secret here!

Cheers,
Jan

This is really looking good and the extra details are fantastic. Sorry to see that the toothpaste masking didn't work. I also recall firstcircle using it for a build but can't remember which one (World War I tank? In one of the campaigns?). I second Jan's memory that he mentioned plain toothpaste without colour or additives.

Regards,
AJ

Marc, hmm, alcohol seems unlikely in toothpaste, possibly the soapiness did it? Maybe your paint wasn't fully cured, or maybe the plastic hadn't been degreased prior to painting? Did you prime it first before the base colour?

I must say that is a lot of toothpaste you've used! Almost looks like you may as well have squeezed it straight from the tube!

Here is one of those Jan refers to (MBN Campaign):

It was primed, then basecoated with Tamiya Dark Yellow, then the first application of toothpaste:


Then some Tamiya brown was added. I recall the paint was a bit too thinned, and I applied a bit too heavily, so that the toothpaste started to spread a little on the nose, but not too bad:


Then the next layer of toothpaste over the brown:


Then the Tamiya green:


When everything was washed off:


Then added the contrasting dots with a toothpick - more tooth-related tools...


Then some filtering with oils and Liquin:


I don't think the toothpaste matters much - on this one it was Sensodyne white I think, on the WWI Mark I tank it was Colgate minty blue gel (with stars, which I picked out). I certainly washed the model, then primed, then allowed the successive colours of acrylic paint to dry overnight between coats. Toothpaste was applied with a small brush, probably about one teeth-cleaning session-sized blob only. I never had any issues with the paint being damaged by the paste going on top of it. Certainly I used far less toothpaste - just a thin layer is enough to act as a mask, and it seems to me that the thinner the masking, the harder the edge you will achieve; when using blue tac etc. you can end up with a semi-hard edge unless you spray in towards the point where it attaches to the model (sometimes that is what you want of course).

Hope that is of some help if you decide to go with it again. As well as on the Mark I, I also used it on the Morris Quad in the MBN campaign, again with no issues. Your detailing on this model is fantastic by the way. I have the Airfix KT which I need to finish at some point and will come back to this thread, most especially with regards to the tools etc.

Marc... That's too bad about your paint job.The last photo in your post looks very forlorn.
I do have another guestion though.I am building Dragons 1/72 JagdTiger,and the track hangers are the same as on your build.I would like to bend them upwards,but I'm scared How did you do it?
Matt... Thanks for re-posting your SBS.Will try this on a future build.You picked the stars out of the paste?Man, you have more patience than I do Jeff T.

Matthew,Thanks so much for posting the info. After Jan had posted that info I did a search of “toothpaste” and found that SBS you just posted. I was going to PM you later today with questions that you now answered.

The model was cleaned with Polly Plastic Prep. The base coat of Tamiya dark yellow was dry for a few days. Nit having seen an SBS on the process, only a mention of it in another forum, I used a large syringe so it’s on there heavy. I wonder though if how thick it is will make a difference. But… look what happened I did a few experiments with different paste, one was Senosdyne, and I thinned it a tiny bit with water to brush it on and the results were much better. Still had some lifting but I think this may be the paint not sticking to the gallon milk jug. I am going to give it another go since it is easy enough to wash the paint away should it not work again.

I do have 1 question though. How long did you left the second color dry before putting on the 2nd application of toothpaste?


Jeff… I used the flat pliers seen in this photo. To bend them sideways I lightly gripped the tab with the end of the pliers against the surface. For the tip, if that’s what you are referring to, I grabbed the just the very end und bent it up. If I squeezed too hard and the tip flattened and spread too much a light squeeze with the pliers on the sides took care f that. If you need some pics to get a clearer idea of what I am talking about that can be easily arranged and happy top do it.

Marc, I only left it as long as one normally might in order to be sure that the paint is fully set, and since I normally am doing this in the evenings, that means around 24 hours. I guess because this is three colours, and you have to prep each with the toothpaste then overall it takes quite a long time. Thing is, it's the toothpaste application that takes up the time, and then the waiting for the paint to set. Once the paint has set on the previous layer, it protects the toothpaste under that, so when you apply the next layer of toothpaste you don't end up disturbing it.

Not so sure it is a good idea to thin the toothpaste... bearind in mind what I said about what happened when my paint was a little too thin and heavily applied, that it started to dissolve the paste a little. I think the thing is, I applied the paste by dabbing it on in small sections, building it up into the required shape in small lumps. getting the edges exactly right is obviously the most pernickity and time consuming piece. (I don't know if you've ever made shepherd's pie, where you have to put mashed potato on top of mince in gravy - if you try to spread the potato across the mince, you end up mixing it in and dragging it around - instead you have to apply spoonfuls to the surface, then kind of stick them all together.)

There are more pics of this being done in detail at top of page 2 of the Mark I thread. Note this was with four colours, and the paint layers were kept fairly thin so that there wasn't a noticeable step between the first and the last colours applied.

Marc, really nice build, and the tips on scratching all those fiddly parts is very cool. I will be doing this kit for the King Tiger campaign after I squeeze in a last minute Panther for that campaign. Looking forward to seeing more.

@wing_nut – Marc,

So good to see some of your work here again, you may have been moonlighting with some of those well detailed wingy things you like to build huh?

I see you’ve managed a lot of upgrades on this kit, as well as this kit is it needs the treatment and you’ve done a super job. Marc, if you don’t mind one suggestion? Please do try and carefully remove some of the material on the opening edges of the periscope guards on the Commander’s cupola, they are much to thick making them look way out of scale and toylike.

So sorry about your mishap with the toothpaste incident but the information generated in the proceeding postings are quit useful for any and everyone reading through this posting (thanks, everyone and firstcircle for the SBS).

I am seriously considering the toothpaste method for the camouflage on the IJA light tank that I am in the process of readying for posting here so this does come in handy for me as well. I know you will spring back and do an even better job on the next go.

As far as the paint scheme goes I happen to have a copy of MMiR’s ‘Modeling Guide to the Tiger Tank’ and the author did a marvelous job with the colors and camouflage pattern on this particular vehicle. If you’re interested PM me and I could scan you the color photographs and information regarding this vehicle and send that over to you.

~ Eddy

Matthew, thatnks for the add'l info.

Kerry, Thanks for the comments

Eddy, Thans for the comments. I agree with you 100% aboutthe vision ports. Concentrating so much onthe other stuff I missed that. You know the syaing... Can't see the tress for the forest. PM inbound.

Just curious Marc, are you planning on putting this in the King Tiger Campaign? It certainly would represent the Braille beasties.

The thought did not occur to m to do that. Maybe since I didn't know there was a King Tiger Campaign going on

I’ll head over there to see if they would accept one that is mostly built before actually signing up.

I don't think Darren will have a problem with it especially since your first post is after the start date. I'm going to join it after I get my Panther Ausf F done on short fuse!