Hey Team,

I've been working on a Tamiya M109A6 I've got the build just about done. Ultimate plan is to make a simple scene with the gun moving through a muddy field. I will post some pictures once I figure out how to post them and I would love some feedback as I get ready to paint. I'm trying airbrushing for the first time with this one, so I'll let you know how it goes.

My big hick up right now is getting the track to lay right. I've seen a few folks talk about training the tracks to get them to lay right... How do you do that?

-Joe

The track on the Italeri-come-Tamiya M109s is a couple links too long. Remove two links, then the tracks will fit better. I find the best way to make them look right is to superglue the tracks down to the top of all the road wheels except the first and last ones. This represents the track sag pretty well.

Here is one I did a while ago.

Thanks for the reply, here are the pics of my gun in its current state. You mentioned removing pieces of the track, will super glue or rubber cement hold the track together? I've had bad luck with that in the past...

Use superglue for the track. You can also either sew it together or use a couple staples for added strength. Rubber cement won't hold them at all.

The tracks are too big and very stiff vinyl, that is why they are floating above the road wheels. I have built a bunch of these and that is one of its issues; the track.

If you want to replace them, get the Riich Model T154 tracks for it.



Also, you have the .50 cal in the mount backwards. The pintle should curve toward the rear of the gun, not forward.

Good catch on the pintle. Thanks for the advice on the tracks, I'll cut out a few tracks and try gluing it down.

Also, if cut out carefully, the excess tracks can be used for the spare track pieces stored on the front battery box covers. These are not mentioned in the Italeri/Tamiya instructions, but as you know, are carried on all Paladins.

Also, the final road wheel at the rear should not be painted black. It is all steel w/no rubber on it.


Lastly, do you plan on painting it? It looks unpainted right now, but the roadwheels look painted. I don't add the track or roadwheels until after painting since it is easier to paint without them.

So I've built a few models over the last few years trying to achieve the level of detail I see on other peoples models with a paint brush... very frustrating. I started this one painting as I assembled only to realize that I wasn't achieving the level of detail I wanted. Thus the road wheels are painted, they are not glued on thou I put them on to try and figure the track out.

With this one after I painted the road wheels and a few minor pieces on the bottom I started doing research on how to achieve the more realistic detail in stead of discovery learning. I bought better cement (Tamiya Extra Thin in stead of testors plastic cement) and I'm going to try airbrushing for the first time. I left a few pieces off just to experiment with attaching detail pieces, like spare track, after painting the main piece since I've see arguments for and against. So I suppose that's more discovery learning on my part.

I am planning on repainting the road wheels since they come across as sloppy. Once I get the track sized right, I'll paint the track.

Any advice or tips and tricks on painting this are more then welcome. Like I said bit of discovery learning going on right now.

-Joe

It sounds like you are off to a god start then on the painting. I usually leave off the roadwheels, track, and any tools or gear not part of the vehicle (pioneer tools, jerry cans, bags, etc.). I paint all of these separately and add them after painting and decaling, but before weathering. I secure them with a small amount of superglue. I weather it all together so everything blends in and looks natural.

For painting the roadwheels, the easiest way I have found is using a circle template from an office supply / graphic arts store. Find a template that fits the roadwheel center opening (inside the rubber part). Spray the whole roadwheel black, then use the template and just paint the center part the hull color. It works well and pretty quickly to get clean edges and nicely painted centers. I paint and weather the track off the vehicle too, then add them after. I will usually add a final weather once on the vehicle to blend them in as well.

Hope that helps.

Update on the M109A6: I bought an airbrush last week and spent some time practicing then decided to jump right in and paint the thing. I started with a NATO Black base then came back with desert yellow. After covering it with desert yellow and letting it set I came back for detail work on the bii.

I then spent some time painting the tracks, started with NATO black based airbrushed on then refined with NATO Brown. Finally I re did the road wheels with the airbrush and a circle stencil. Over all I still have alot of work to do with detail work and getting the tracks to lay right... But I think It is turning out pretty well.

Please let know what you guys think!

Looks pretty righteous so far, Joe!

I think it looks awesome! Maybe work on the barrel seam some.

Cheers,
Dustin

Looking good so far. A few things that I see that still need attention:

I agree on the barrel. It really needs to be sanded/filled and repainted to remove the seam line near the muzzle end.

The vent on the hydraulic compartment door (front left corner of the turret) should not be black. It is simply a vent to allow vapors to escape and should be sand like the rest of the hull/turret.



The long, tubular piece you have on the right side of the turret still in sand is a spare .50 cal barrel and should be gunmetal in color.

You might want to fill the gap at the left front, top corner of the hull where it meets the front plate. It is a defect in the kit and shouldn't be there.

You still need to add the spare track pads on the battery compartment doors on the left front of the hull as well. You can make the track blocks from the extra runs of track included on the track sprue. Cut them apart carefully (4 individual pads) and then glue them to the doors as shown in the above pic.

Lastly, the right side track is on backwards. The "V" should point down when looking at it from the front.

Keep up the great work. With a few corrections and shortening/gluing down the track as I talked about above, it will look great.

There is no AFV ever made that cannot be improved with the addition of a pretty woman.

Tracking the reversed track... I was kicking my self when I saw that in the picture. As to the gun barrel, I need to get some gun metal paint before I can paint it. same with the actual 50 cal. I also want to add some steel paint to replicate the unpainted portion of the tube.

I agree with the seam in the barrel and noticed the gap on the front as well, but I've never tried filling gaps before, do you have any TTPs to ensure it blends well?

Finally, I can't tell you how awesome it is that you used a paladin from 1-5 FA in the picture. I'm currently a staff officer in the 1-5 FA waiting on CMD. I'm hoping to change the bumper number to ones for 1-5 FA instead of 3rd ID ones that came in the set, just seems wrong to use ones from a different BN. Have you tried painting your own bumper numbers before?

Hamilton's Own!
-Joe

You can get some putty and smash it in and very slightly build it up on the outside. Let it dry and sand smooth and blend. Or, use some stretched sprue to fill the gap, use tamiya extra thin to melt in place and then you'd use less putty to fill in and sand smooth.

Coming along very nicely. Your airbrushing turned out very well. Looks like an nice even finish with good coverage. You're doing a great job overall. The things that have already been pointed out are easily remedied, the most important in terms of modeling skills/technique is to fill/sand the seam on the gun tube, then the gunmetal paint on the spare MG barrel. If you haven't already figured it out Gino (HeavyArty) is our local arillery guru. Good luck.

Dustin covered the filling of the barrel well. It isn't that hard to do. I recommend Squadron Green putty for filling seams and gaps.

As to the 1-5 FA pic, just luck. I googled it off the web. I don't recommend painting the bumper numbers. They just won't come out very well. You can make your own decals though. Testors and others make home printer decal paper. Check Hobby Lobby or the likes. You simply design the decal in a graphics program, I prefer Power Point, using an appropriate stencil font. Then print them off onto the decal paper. Once dry, seal the decal paper with an acrylic clearcoat (I like Krylon Krystal Klear). Once this is dry, cut close to the image and apply like any other water slide decal. They come out great. Check out the 3 ID Bradley I am working on. All the decals on it were made by me in this manner.

Avoid using the gun metal paints, they usually are to shiny. To depict gun barrels, I paint them dark grey (Tamiya NATO black is a good ref) then I rub them with graphite powder to give them a subtle metallic look where it is needed.

Printing your own decals is quite easy in fact. The hardest part is to get the right font in your software.

Olivier

I have to respectfully disagree with my esteemed colleague about the gun metal paints. I use Testors Model Master Gunmetal on all my weapons. I think it looks perfect.


It looks even better once dullcoated. It is not that shiny once dry and dulls out well to look just like a parkerized finish.

As an example, the barrels below have not yet been dullcoated.

Gino I don't feel offended I think your point about applying some dull coat is totally relevant to tone down the shiny look.
BTW thanks for naming the "parkerized finish", I didn't know the term in English. This is exactly what I try to depict with Tamiya NATO black + graphite powder.
I recently discovered that Tamiya issued new refs and their Dark Iron seems to be spot on for painting gun barrels and tools metallic parts.

Olivier