Of cause no selfrespecting modeller would take this request – issued mockingly by my girl friend –. serious. But – very much to my surprise – it has been restated more sincere some more times ever since. That way this initial mock gradually turned into an idea and from an idea into a project.
OK, a pink tank. How to start?
Well, as always: looking for reverences.
This search left me with three pink tanks as potential models. All three have quite an interesting background so I will bore you a little bit with it:
Let´s start in Kiryat Shmona, a nothern town of Israel, better known as target for Hisbollah rockets due to it´s proximity to the lebanese border. Here a german born artist – Yigal Tumarkin – set up “The Big Chief”-Memorial in 1968 consisting of three ex-Syrian SU-100 tanks captured at the Golan heights during the Six Days War and painted them red, blue and yellow.
Since then the colours have faded quite a bit, particularly the red one, turning it into a light pink.
The second pink tank I came across is located at the entrance of the Military Museum of Lesany in the Czech Republik. It is an IS-2m and got there after quite a journey.
This tank originally topped the national monument, erected in July 1945, to commemorate the liberation of Praque by the Red Army. The monument was originally intended to represent Lt Goncharenko's T-34-85, the first Soviet tank to enter Prague in May 1945. But instead of Goncharenko's famous T-34, the actual monument unfortunatly bore the above mentioned IS-2m heavy tank and on top of that its turret mislabelled 23 (Goncharenko's tank had actually borne the tactical marking I-24). The original intention of the monument became more and more blurred by the further course of history as an ever growing number of Czech people looked at it as a representation of Soviet rule and suppression and the violent crushing of the 1968 Prague Spring uprising. In 1991, after the Velvet Revolution, the Czech art student David Černý and his friends painted the tank pink in a clandestine action and erected a huge finger in an obscene gesture on its turret roof. Černý was arrested and after an official protest by the Russian government, the tank was re-painted green. However, fifteen members of the newly elected parliament took advantage of their official immunity and re-painted the tank pink in protest against the arrest. The national monument status was eventually abolished, Černý was released, and the tank removed to be relocated to the Military museum Lešany where it greets visitors to this day. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_Soviet_tank_crews)
But it was a different tank I finally decided to build.
This is a Soviet T-34/85 located in London just a few minutes footwalk south of Tower Bridge.
(screen shot from google maps)
Originally brought to the UK from Czechoslovakia to be filmed in Richard III, it went then to a scrap metal dealer and finally to its current owner Russell Gray, a South London developer.
The story of its settlement on the street corner of Mandela Way No 1 is sometimes regarded as an urban myth as it's too good to be true:
It sits on a rough piece of land belonging to the above mentioned developer who wanted to build flats there. His planning permission was turned down and so he asked instead to build a tank. Assuming he meant septic tank, permission was granted and Mr. Gray placed a Soviet era T-34 on the land with the gun turret pointing towards the council offices that had turned his request down.
To accentuate his stance Mr. Gray named the tank 'Stompie', in memory of Stompie Moeketsi - an ANC activist killed by Winnie Mandela's bodyguards in 1988 after they suspected him of being an apartheid government informer. A not uncontroversial decision given that it is parked at Mandela Way No 1.
In 2002, Russell first allowed the tank to be painted. The American artist Aleksandra Mir then turned it a bright shade of pink camouflage.
http://www.hiddenwonders.co.uk)
http://www.aleksandramir.info/projects/pink-tank/
http://flickrhivemind.net/Tags/bermondsey,tank/Interesting
So this is the model after which I will model my model.
Okay. Enough prelude. Let´s start with the built.
The base is Dragons Braille T-34/85 (Kit No DML7269)
As you can see looking at the picture of the real thing, Stompie was a late T-34/85 (even participating in the crushing of the Prague Spring uprising) and features disc wheels. Hence I was happy to realise that MR-Modellbau offered just such wheels (MR 72070) in resin and ordered them.
Eduards PE-Set (22099) was taken to further detail the kit and Voyager contributed full workable metal tracks (PE72009). Yes, you read right: full workable metal tracks in Braille!
Detail, quality and fit of the Dragon kit excited me. Pieces fell together almost automatically. So I only had to think when and where to replace kit parts by PE- or scratch built-parts and which further modifications this particular version of the T-34 compared to Dragons required. The only kit item that did not convince me were the tracks. Their detail is very fine indeed but how you connect them without having to hide a piece of track lump in some mud, I do not know and all the models I saw figure this spot prominently.
MR Modellbau offers a full conversion kit for a late Sowjet or Czech production T-34/85 (MR-72047) but I would have used only the metal barrel and the exhaust stacks. Too little to invest more than 17 €. A request to MR-Modellbau to buy the exhaust stacks only is still pending, and pending, and pending…
So I used the kit parts, drilled out the exhaust and reshaped the outline. Thus coming a bit closer to the original.
Fenders were replaced by Edwards PE-parts. Problem were the front fenders for either the kits parts or Eduards fenders were of the round type. But I needed some with a kink. So some modification of the PE-parts were conducted to resemble that.
As you can see here, the spare tracks of the kit have not been mounted. Only the attachment points were added using 0,6 mm wire. All grab handles were replaced by self made ones. First I used 0,6 mm wire but that appeared too coarse so that I replaced them by some made from 0,4 mm wire.
Some effort went into the external fuel tanks. Originally equipped with three such tanks (two right, one left) Stompies actual configuration features only two (one left, one right). The openings of the tanks where the kits attachments are to be placed were filled.
All detail was sanded of. I found the rims of the tanks too thick and reconfigured them by wrapping an aluminum foil from a wine bottle around it.
The filler cap was scratched, PE-handles glued on and the tank positioned on top of the Eduard holders.
Those holders really add a new level of detail to the kit and are definitely worth the effort (and an effort they are!). The position of the rear light differs between kit and Stompie and was hence repositioned under the left tank.
The texture of the cast turret was simulated by stippling Mr. Surfacer 500 over the correlating surface of the turret (leaving the top out). A light sanding finished this step.
That much for now. To be continued.
Thanks for tuning in. All comments wellcome!
Happy modelling!
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