Hi all,
I need your advice about the MCD color and the pre-shading, a technique I used for the first time. It seems to me that the brown is still too "heavy" under the camo color.
What do you think of the tracks weathering, should I do more i.e. some rust or other thing ?

Remember this is the first step, a lot still remains to be painted.
TIA

I think the MCD color is great. It works well.

The camo color looks great also. It gives well-worn look to it. The brown base doesn't set it off.

And for the tracks. Since the "feet" of the tracks are rubber don't use any rust. If you do use any rust, use it lightly on the connectors. Tankers take good care of their tracks. Overall, you have a great USMC M1A1. Can't wait for the next update.

Jeff

Looks good for a start. I think that you actually coverd too much of the preshade. As it gets weathered the preshade color difference gets toned down. So as you weather this it will hide alot of what shows now. This can be fixed by adding some post shading.

HTH

I think you have made a wonderful effort on this.

I think you should try to get the color of the gold panel a little more uniform. You'll have to apply some future to it to when your done and shine it up. I think the pre shading is just fine and will look more natural after weathering.

Remember when adding muzzle blast to the coax tube that there will be powder burns on the vents as well as the end. The vision block on the front of the CWS actually extends down much further than you have painted. There is a solid direct vision area that the TC can look straight through when the hatch is in the protected position.





I like the scratches in the track pads, this is something I seldom see on models and so I think it looks good. As Jeff said the rust should be light, especially on a tank in the desert where the is no moisture in the air. The weld seam on the front of the hull is also well done. The rh armored skirt is a little overdone. These are basically 3 inch thick steel and composits welded solid. They mounts for the skirt would probably rip off before the skirt itself became damaged like this. This is however only an opinion. If you references suggest differently I would love to see it.

There will be a lot of dirt and sand built up in the end connectors and center links of the tracks. I might suggest mixing up a large amount of pastel chalks to the right color and scrubbing it into the tracks.

Thanks for all the tips BroAbrams. I just didn't understand the remark quoted since I look closer to my pictures. I didn't realize myself the way it was overdone. It is not intentional, I'll correct that before continuing the weathering, thanks for drawing my attention to that point

It looks like the skirt is bent in the front view but from the outside, maybe not. This was just the impression I got. Now that I look at the side one maybe it's not bent and just a trick of the photograph.

I am not talking about the fender, I think that is great.

The assembly and paint job looks good even at this stage.

I did notice the weld marks in the front hull. Rarely this has been depicted in M1 models. Clarification though: My references show that the weld marks are more like three lines running horizontally across the face. Your representation seems to be more of vertical indentations.

Pic taken from Tanxheaven:




BTW, I've been watching your progress since I saw your post on turret construction. Not only you're way ahead of me already, but IMHO, youre doing a better job!

Looking forward on your final product.



BT6

Hi BT06,
you're right for the vertical indentations. It's due to the way I did the weld seam : a strip of plastic soaked with liquid cement to soften the plastic before pressing a blade on it.
For my M1A2 I'll try to correct this ;-)

Thanks for the kind comments.
olivier

I didnt fare well in emulating the weld seam myself.

I tried using 3 thin strips of Evergreen rod, but after working this way and that way, it ended up as one solid looking weldseam :-) ...IMHO your efforts look better.


BT6

Great build, the only thing I can see it the MCD plugs into the rear of that juction box through a small hole on the right side of the plug. Now, this has been debated heavily, and I could be wrong. I base this conclusion on hundereds of photos of said vehicles, and all show the 2 front plugs as unused when the MCD is attached. I did find one photo the other day that shows the hole the cable runs out of. Again, I could be wrong here.



ever so small hole is where the power cable will run from, IMO.



Also, if you want, there is a small wire line that runs from the LH CWS mount that runs underneath to the .50 cal. A firing solinoid perhaps? Dunno, but easy to add. Also, some small cotter pin/chain detail for the .50 cal and M240. Holds said weapon onto the gun mounts. They look plain, made this way, but easy to add as well.

Drivers hatch could use a latch to hold it open.

Again, these are just suggestions, this model looks well built, a cleaner build than what I did. I didn't even attempt to add the weld seam on the lower front hull. I really like it. The mantlet lifting brackets need to be drilled out. Some questions, did you hand paint the tank name? Is this the Dragon kit or did you modify the Tamyia kit with anti-slip texture? Your MCD looks awesome. The scratch built rear turret bustle rack is awesome. The eduard set sucks. Too difficult to assemble. Yours looks better. Scales better with the vehicle, IMO.

Again, great looking beast. Please check out my gallery, let me know what you think about my Abrams'.

Thanks
Ryan

Hi Melon,
a lot to get from your post ! I supposed my wiring for the MCD was wrong and expected some info from here to alter here, thanks for this.

The other details will probably be added provided that I've good pics for them (weapon holding chains, M2 solenoid...). I tried to do the best I could with the infos I had at the time I begun the building.
I must admit that I got a lot from Armorama (thank you all guys here )

To answer your questions, the kit is the first Dragon USMC M1A1 so it came with the antislip coating already casted (I had to add it on my Tamiya M1A2 that I'm building too). The MCD is the Tamiya one with some alterations to have it more faithful to the real one.
The mantlet brackets are drilled out but the pics don't show it.
The name on the barrel just comes from the excellent Echelon Fine Details decal set (6 tanks represented). Another option is the Archer dry transfers set, this one gives you only one decoration per sheet.
As far as the turret extension is concerned, I did not want to spend some more bucks on this kit, so the scratchbuilding option. Thanks to Tankleader comprehensive file.

And yes, I do appreciate your Abrams, plural here
I don't know which one I prefer, the sand one looks great and quite living on the pics. Both are inspiring me for the steps ahead. Still some work to do before coming to the end