Hi folks,

I realized that the post I made a few weeks ago declaring my intention to build this kit did not properly upload...so yeah. A bit late to the party.

Anyway, better late than never. I am building Tamiya's reboxing of the venerable Italeri kit - 1/35 Chaffee. The kit comes with the almost unmodified chaffee produced by italeri in the 80s, with some new tracks and metal barrel added by italeri in the 2000s. Finally, tamiya added some pretty nice looking stowage as well as a revised MG for the kit (the 90s sherman MG IIRC, so this isn't state of the art... way better than what comes in the kit though.)

I have decided to build this vehicle as one belonging to the 81st cavalry reconnaissance squadron, 1st Armored Division in Italy, April 1945



Started the kit before the new year. Builds up well enough. A couple of gaps and finnicky fit in some places, nothing too bad though. Filler hides most of them.






The turret... did not go too well for me to be honest. No alignment pin, large parts and flash on the connecting parts made it a bit tricky to get a good proper lock on the pieces. Again, filler came in to the rescue. The problem though is that because the gaps needing filler, some of the turret welds that italeri added to this kit when they revamped it got damaged/sanded off. Ah well, I tried to blend everything back with a knife.

What is pretty good though is the tracks. Well detailed, only has two attachment points and fits well. It has two shallow ejection holes in each though... but I tend to weather the tracks well so that will be hidden.



Primed. Ready for paint. I did this kit at the same time as a M3 Stuart. I'm actually 90% finished with the stuart. Just need to weather the turret to blend the rest.



basecoat and highlights on. Decals applied and glosscoated



And here's where it went to [auto-censored]. Applied a bit of tamiya panel liner (enamel based) on the wheels. Left it to dry..... and it turned the plastic into a brittle mess. I didn't take photos of everything but ALL the outer part of the wheels broke into a minimum of 2 pieces. One broke into 5. Was really pissed off when this happened - I've done harsher weathering with more caustic products on other tanks. I even applied this same product on bare plastic and it didn't break. Oh well. I glued everything back best I can.

Here's another photo of the broken wheels. It was at this point that I decided to go to town weathering the running gear to hide all the ghastly gaps and broken details with mud and dust. This was a week ago. I've made significant progress. Will post more photos later on. Cheers!

Zon,
That interior looks great!

Gaz

Hi Nigel,
Welcome to the campaign! You really got the major building done quickly!

I'm rather dismayed with the results of the Tamiya Panel Liner. I don't think I've ever seen that happen to a kit before.

The worst I've done is dripped high-powered lacquer thinner onto a part with the resulting destruction of all detail.

Thank goodness we can always turn to mud and dust when something like this happens.

Gaz

Wow, so much has happened here. So many great builds going on, and fantastic painting too...

Nigel, I am stunned that something like that could happen with a product actually designed for models. Glad to hear that you persevered and will finish albeit with a dirtier vehicle than you intended.

It has been some time since I last updated. I blame the holidays and new-toyitis and some track issues (the kit ones were too long so I had to order new tracks which took a while to arrive). However I am back on track with my Sherman.

Painting and weathering is complete. I still have a few small things to do i.e. antenna's and final matt coats. I am undecided on whether to add stowage etc to the vehicle. I will make the call once I am completed my MBT campaign vehicle (an M1A1 Abram with tons of stowage)

Nigel,

Never seen such a thing happen before with using panel liner. I wonder if it is crappy plastic used by the kit provider?

Mark

Intrigued by this as panel liner is not generally available in the UK. Did some "googling" and apparently there is a warning on the label that it may turn plastic brittle. Given that the model is issued by Tamiya, albeit that it is a reboxed Italarei, I would have not expected any difficulties, and I can only sympathize with you. The general feeling is that it is simply Tamiya enamel that is heavily thinned with their enamel thinner, but I have had to strip a Revell Elefant ( ironically also a reboxed Italarei) after applying a gloss varnish over Tamiya Acrylic paint which had been thinned with X-20A thinner which reacted giving a wrinkled or frosted effect.

Wow, Rory! That looks really sweet. You've done a great job of bringing thus that scheme to life.

Gaz

Gaz: Thanks for the kind word.

Rory: really like the camo. Nice work.

Happy Modeling,
Zon

Rory,
Your Sherman looks fantastic. Really nice work.

Thanks for the support folks! I've completed the kit (I think. I still have stowage to add but don't have a satisfactory place to put them)

I think this is the fault of Italeri (rather than Tamiya). Italeri's plastic is usually quite brittle and weak for the older kits (assuming Tamiya did indeed not do anything about the kit and let Italeri produce it).

Tamiya's Panel Line Accent color though is really nice. I hope I don't turn people off from using it. I've used it on bare plastic before on armor and aircraft kits without much fuss. It really has to do with the type of plastic used I think. I've seen this kind of damage on the internet before on Bandai's excellent Star Wars Kit (which is weird because they do look quite well detailed and the plastic is nice.) I love the product and I use the black and brown colors to add nice panel washes on my models. Oh well, C'est la vie. Mud and dust to the rescue!

Anyway, here's the tank now Would love to hear your thoughts and advice. Thanks!

excellent rescue job

Yes, good work and nice photos. This is a kit I have in the stash. I think mine is boxed by Testors.
Congratulations on completing your build,
Don "Lakota"

Very good work, Nigel. Congratulations.
Kalin

Looks great Rory. Nice job on the defined Camo.

Fantastic save Nigel. You would never know from looking at it.

Nigel,
Fantastic job! With the mud, nobody will ever know. I like the weathering and the detailing you added! Congratulations on completing a fine model.

Gaz

PS: Don't forget to put a photo in the gallery so you can get credit for the campaign.

Getting her there. Focusing on another build that needs to be finished by Friday.

Thanks nsjohn, Lakota, k_mero4, petbat, and GazzaS! Really appreciate it. Will be putting up photos on the gallery soon, need to resize the ones I have to fit.

@McRunty - that's a fine looking sherman! Good work on the camo

@d6mst0 - great progress on the Elefant. Would love to see your paint and weathering on it. Looking for inspiration on my own 1/35 Ferdinand!

Shell,
Looking good with Annie... man, that's a lot of model!

Gaz

I wonder which one !

Looking forward to seeing more of Annie Shell.

Great Looking Chaffee, Nigel, and nice save! I like the weathering. Personally I'd replace the .50 cal, I don't like the look of the Italeri ones.

I had some Progress on my P40, tried the finish the suspension first Approach, and I must say that gets the worst part out of the way right at the beginning. Next I'll have to focus on the turret.

No real issues so far, just the alignment of the turret panels and roof were a bit off and required some sanding.



Sorry, out of focus, I probably should finally get a new camera…





Cheers!
Stefan

Stefan,
Very nice progress! The wheels and tracks lii look great!


Gaz

Looks great Stefan. One question, as I have this to build, is the empty engine area very noticeable through the grills?

Thanks for the comments guys!




Peter, yes it would be noticeable unless you paint the inside black. I addes some blach sheet styrene to close the holes.

Cheers!
Stefan

@Stefan - Thanks mate! As for the MG, luckily the Tamiya rebox had one of their 1990s MGs from the Sherman sets added. It's not as good as more modern MG sets but it's a huge improvement over the italeri parts. I decided to use that without upgrading as it was satisfactory.

Nice progress on the P40. I like the subject but it's kinda expensive in our LHS