I received the St Chamond from Jim on Friday and of course I had to go away for the weekend .. So there it sat till yesterday on my desk.. On opening the box I was met with some really well molded and detailed pieces... One nice thing is this will build up nicely, and it doesn't have 1000 pieces to it . It should be a fairly quick build ,and I plan to look around and see if I can find a different camoflage scheme just to be different . I haven't seen any aftermarket decals yet but I hope I can find something easy enough to do by hand or piece together from other decals .We'll see where that goes.
I plan to take lots of pictures as I go and let you know what I think of each step. So starting tomorrow (if all goes to plan)
I will also try and show how I paint and lightly weather this monster ..My technique is a bit different but I hope some of you might be interested..
So keep an eye on this and let me know what you think as I go..
For those who haven't see it ,Jim has done a great in box review .
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/9806

Hope this will will be of interest to a few of you .

Rick

Getting started the first thing I must say that the quality of the kit is great ... I would put it up there with the big name brands like Tamiya and Dragon . I have to question some of the ways the parts were molded and the attachement points can be chunky and and placed is odd areas. But no parts were broken or warped so the have done their job..

..
With time, patience and a good file things clean up well.
The build starts off with the 4 copulas.. The larger ones are made up of 4 parts each . The two sides are glued together first . Some caution is needed to when cleaning up the seam as it goes through the details .. I used Mr Surfacer and a Flexifile to keep things round .. The lower portion has a mold seam that goes through the rivits and there are four attachement points that were tricky to remove . I had a few that needed a little putty to fix. Nothing much but be careful..




Once the cupolas were all sanded and glued in place the next step was to add five strips with rivet details go across the roof sections. These were attached to the sprues in at least 6 places .. I was worried about getting them off in one piece without them snapping.


A little trick I found was to to remove the top attachement points but leave them attached at the bottom for an easier clean up. It gives you something to hold on to.

When gluing these strips into place ,the only thing you need to watch for is they stay straight as there is a little room and not a snug fit.

Next the exhaust was glued together and the tail pipe needed to be drilled out .. Drilling at an angle had me worried but it went fine.

The machine guns were also drilled out .. It took my optivisor and a sharp number 11 exacto blade but they are drilled out ... I tried to get a picture of them but the holes are so tiny
they don't show up on the picture I took.. I'll try again tomorrow in better light .
The 75 mm cannon was made up of two parts and went together with no problems .. a quick sanding and all is good.

So that's about it for now .. Here's a picture of the kit beside a Panzer IV just to give you an idea of size. The Germans must have be scared to see these monsters crawling towards them.
.

Rick

Hi Rick,

I just started building this kit too. It looks like I'm at the same point in construction as you as well. I'm enjoying it so far. I'm looking forward to watching your progress. ...and hoping for more WWI models!

Have fun!

Chris

Hi Chris... Glad to see you following a lomg. I'm enjoying this build too .. I've got the hull pretty much done and it's really starting to take shape .. I hope the suspension goes together well ..did you notice how they've attached the road wheels to the sprues.. yikes!! going to have to be gentle to get them off without putting a notch in the wheel .. I've also started to clean up the tracks ... 5 attachement points on each track.. I'll get some pictures up this week.

Rick

Yeah....the road wheels were kind of a pain, but nothing you won't be able to handle, just be careful.

I'm looking forward to the suspension, it looks cool.

Actually the wheels went very well ... I should be finished the suspension very soon and I'll post the complete build up.. Going well fiddly but well..

Rick

Making some nice progress on this Rick even what you seem to be up against! Keep up the great work!

Hi I'm back ..after two weeks of overtime and other things to keep me busy doing anything except for modelling.
So starting off, don't get me wrong ..This is a great kit all around I'm having a great time building it .. Some of the attachement points are in questionable places but in the end it all works out fine . So where am I at now .. I'm cleaning up and gluing tracks ..seems like I've been at this forever ..But they will look great when finished .. The instructions were a little vaque when it came time to put these together but after a couple of links figuring out what has to go where and when ,it won't be too long to get them together . I still have a bit of sanding to do and then it should go smoothly..


Now over the past few weeks I've been getting very little time at the bench but things have moved along ... The wheels and suspension are quite complex and you really need to be careful to make sure everything is straight and lined up ..You start by gluing six different pieces to a very flimsy frame .. Makes you wonder how the real vehicle could have been held together without breaking down ...


To this you add swing arms ,stabilizing bars ,and the idler wheel assembly ..Oh yeah and the road wheels .. for them the only thing I would suggest is cut them off as far away from the attachement points and once removed cut them closer and finish up with a sanding stick .. If you cut too close you might end up damaging the wheels ..



You have to glue the roadwheels together and then you have to glue the supports that hold the wheels to the bottom frame .. again very sloppy fitting makes for lots of adjusting to line everything up. It would have been nice to have a deeper slot to fit into but if I can do it , anyone can .



I gave up trying to keep the road wheels free to rotate as trying to add three wheels between the two sides while the glue sets up was wearing on my patience.. so a little glue kept them in place while I got everything lined up . Might be a bit harder to paint but I'll manage and I'm still sane .. I kept dropping road wheels on the floor and before the carpet monster got the better of me I thought gluing them was the better option.



The drive sprocket is added to the lower hull section but the picture I took didn't come out well so I'll retake it and post it soon .. That too is easy to missaligne if not careful ..just be careful .
I've also added the guns to the main hull .. This thing has guns everywhere ..just be careful not to break them off when handling ..




See I did get thoses barrels drilled out ..


And that's it so far .. I hope to get the rest of the building done this weekend and maybe even a base coat of paint .. My base color should be gray (I think ) .. More updates as soon as possible .

Rick

Oh Darn .. I just found a picture of the tank I wanted to build from the other side .. My plan was to do TEDDY but on the other side there is a Teddy bear drawn on but it is not clear enough to be able to see the details .. Well that and the tow hook in the front is not the same as the one in the kit.. So I'm looking for another finish ... I have seen a few with just serial numbers on them with the type of camo I was planning ,but if anyone has any thoughts ..I up for suggestions .
I've got the tank pretty much finished ,I'm just cleaning up some of the joints with putty and Mr Surfacer, I'll have more pictures soon ..

Rick

Back again!! I've finished putting this one together .. The only real place to watch out for is the suspension ,and even this finally was no big problem. It was an enjoyable build from beginning to end . The tracks were long to clean up and build but worth it in the end ..
So since the last pictures I've added the suspension and it went in quite easily I would suggest that when you glue the springs to the suspension test fit the springs to the lower hull and leave them in place to dry so you know they'll line up later when you glue everything together.

I would also recommend you give the suspension a base coat before gluing it just so you can get in to all those nooks and crannies (what's a cranny??)
I know this is a bad picture but you can see how everything goes together .

I then glued the last few parts together and the kit was finished .. I added a small amount of putty or Mr Surfacer to the front and back plate joints. Everything was sanded smooth and I was ready for paint .


I started off by painting the exhaust .. I started with a base coat of Vallejo acrylic black and brown colors and while it was all still wet I added rust color pigments .



By adding to the wet paint ,you can get a rougher finish to the exhaust.
Next I base coated the model with Nato black. This doesn't have to be perfect because very little will be seen of this in the end .




I then added some light grey to the mix and went back over everything leaving the base coat in the crevises.


Then I added a little white and sprayed it over the places where the grey color would remain seen .




The camouflage colors start off using Tamiya's Hull Red.



The hull red was then lightened up a bit by adding some buff to the mix and sprayed over the hull red.

Next up Tamiya's Dark yellow .


Again white was added to the yellow and resprayed..


And the last color is Tamiya's olive green ,


And again lightened ,this time using yellow green and buff .




That's as far as I.ve gotten so far .. Next I'll be hand painting the black line between the colors .. Stay tuned.

Rick

Hi Rick,

Nice progress. This is an unusual beast, that large door cries out for something behind it lol.

It's good to see some new WW1 armour coming onto the market.

Look forward to the finish.

Cheers

Al

Thanks Al.. It was really a lot of fun ... Now I hope I can pull off the weathering.

And here is what it looks like this morning after adding the black lines ..I used a mix of Black grey and black Vallejo paints for the lines. I.ve also added a filter all over and a heavier wash to the suspension ..














Have a great day all!
Rick

Looking good Rick.

Al

Thanks Al.. The build and the paint job have been fun so far..

Rick

Tracks are on .. Must say it was a bit of a pain but just be careful not to break something off ,turn it over and line everything up .. took a while but it all came together.. Kinda looked like a turtle on its back!
I've also started playing with colors for the scratches , I've decided that the base color was probably grey so the deeper scratches will be grey in some places ..but this is all in the planning and testing stages.. The machine guns and the brass plaque have been base coated as well.











Rick

Hi Rick,

Nice progress. The WW1 camo schemes are an interesting subject, the French ones in particular.

Cheers

Al

Hi Al .. Thanks for the comment .. and yes the camouflage options are very interesting .. It would be nice if a company brought out a decal sheet for these early monsters.
I'm still trying to figure out how the markings work on these early tanks so I can make a plausible attempt at being at least believable .

Rick

First a gloss coat ..then decals ...then another gloss coat ..some more chipping...Two pin washes and that's where I'm at tonight.. Pictures were taken at 1:30 in the morning so sorry but you can see it's coming together .











Rick

Hi Rick,

Nice progress, coming along well, soon be mud time The tracks are looking much better now and I'll look forward to developments.

Cheers

Al

Hi Al .. Thanks bud.. I`m really trying to think of how to do the mud on this one ... Yes it was used on muddy battle fields but a man can walk faster than this thing could move.. So I can`t have mud thrown up that much ... there are shell bursts that would throw some up (even on the roof!) I was planning on a dust coat and some streaking on the sides .. Mud just under the front where it would probably drag as it climbed out of or over a trench.. and of course the suspension ...any ideas would help..

Rick

Hi Rick,

The firmness of the ground would determine how dirty it might get. I would think the tracks and lower hull would get pretty dirty if it was moving over shell torn ground, but if on a road or firm ground them it would be more dusty than dirty.

I'm sure you'll think it through depending on what the base is.

Cheers

Al

hi,
i've finished mine but you have realised a great paint schem !
see you soon for final...

Thanks Olivier.. it's appreciated.

Rick

Small update .. I wanted all the rivets and sharp corners to show up on this one but even with two washes I wasn't liking the results . So for the first time in years I dry brushed each individual color to bring out the details and vary the colors by scrubbing an almost dry (even for drybrushing standards ) over each color . I used Humbrol paints for this .. Also a few pigments were add to the lower hull but I want more contrasts and I will try to create the effect of mud drying out .







Rick