Syrian T-34/D30 Build

My materials for this project: Rye Field Model's T-34/D30 and RB Model's metal gun barrel for the D30 gun. 

The first step is pretty simple (and not wheels for a change—Huzzah!). I'm quite happy that I recently decided to buy myself a Proxxon Micromot as well as a nice set of small drills from RPG Model, as it came in quite handy here. Altogether, there are roughly 45 holes of three different sizes to be drilled on upper and lower hull. Having to do that by hand would have been a bit arduous. 

Overall, this seems to be a great kit, but I'm really not all in when it comes to the method used to attach the wheels to their swing arms.
Most manufacturers nowadays seem to use the good, old Tamiya method of inserting vinyl caps into the wheels. Others are simply using a press fit. Both are fine, as they easily allow to mount and also remove the wheels when needed (painting!).
RFM, however, puts tiny caps into ("!!!") or through ("Argh!") the wheels that you have to glue into a small socket on the swingarm. Friction between swingarm tube and wheel is nThis means that you cannot mount these wheels in a removable way,  

The road wheels themselves are made up of four parts, with the rubber tires being separate. I first thought that this would allow me to paint those separately (which would have been a nice touch), but no, you have to fit them onto the wheels from the direction where the other wheel half will block the tire once assembled. Too bad.
RFM also adds four wheels of a different type (spider type), but they are on a completly different sprue and I forgot about them until after I glued the tires to all the wheels, so I won't be able to use them. My bad, though, not really RFM's fault. Though a tiny hint in the instructions would have been nice. 

Completed the wheels. This time, I even added the little cuts and nicks those tires tend to attract, a step I woefully forget all to often. 

I then switched over to the hull. This is where the kit really shines—not only is the fit great for almost all parts, but I'm really impressed by the work RFM did with the welds that are already on the parts. Especcially the one around the MG port, those look incredibly gnarly and detailed. 

More greebly bits added. Sadly, I made a pretty big blunder here. I originally intended to add some armor texture to the hull's front and side plates. Of course, this is now basically impossible to do, given all the stuff that is attached to them. Guess that is what I get for working in models while on sick leave (I'm better now, though). 

Okay, this was one of the most annoying things I ever had to do so far for a model. See those barrel mountings? They are almost completely PE. And RFM PE, it turns out, is pretty thin and springy, so bending it into the correct shape for the barrel was kinda hard. Maybe heating it would have helped, but I didn't think of that at the time.
I did get it mostly right in the end, but it took something like one and a half hours to do these theoretically pretty simple steps. 

An aside first: I really like RFM instructions! They highlight everything added in blue (if it is not annotated with an arrow), and sometimes, PE parts are highlighted in yellow. Makes reading them very simple.
But back to the actual step. Gluing in the boxes wasn't hard and neither was gluing this strip of PE (Y11) onto the side. You will, however, notice the 19 (!) little hoops that I needed to glue onto the ring part. And while most manufacturers provide you with markings on the plastic to show you where to do that, RFM only provides you with the distance from the bottom edge as well as the distance between the hoops! 

So, I had to come up with a plan for how to get that right. This is what I ended up with: A pencil line at the correct distance from the bottom edge for vertical orientation (I'm SO happy I bought a marking gauge recently!) and a strip with markings in roughly 7.25 mm distance for horizontal orientation. 

Done piece after tape removal. The method actually worked quite nicely and placing the little hoops wasn't that hard. Only annoying part was actually getting them to stick, as the superglue I used is quite thin and I needed to press the PE loops onto the plastic using my tweezers for several seconds. Without moving. 

Turret replacement ring affixed to the chassis. I also added the additional louvers/radiator covers on the engine deck. Looking quite good! 

There's actually one more piece of PE here I want to mention. It can barely be seen beneath that big grating on the rear end. This piece was, once again, pretty annoying due to the springy-ness of the PE. It is a thin sheet with the grill etched into it. And the plastic part beneath it is curved on one side, which meant that the grill always wanted to spring back into a flat sheet, no matter how much superglue I used. Very annoying. The big grill above I added to basically hide this—you're not supposed to use it when using the PE part, but it looks better that way. 

Finished the hull. The grating in the front (the platform for the gun crew) I cemented to the model in the orientation actual pictures of the vehicle show, not the direction the instructions indicate. According to those, they should be flipped, which would mean that the frame for the bars would stick out much more.
I'll probably add some damage to parts of this later on, but for now, it is time to get started on the gun. 

Started the work on the gun. It goes together quite smoothly so far, really good fit.
I used the metal D-30 barrel from RB Model for this weapon system. However, this barrel is meant for the Trumpeter models of the D-30 gun, not the RFM one. As a result, the fit is not 100% the same as with the plastic barrel. In fact, I had to cut off part of the barrel's end and leave off the final brass ring to make it fit. Didn't think the ArtScale razor saws I recently bought would be up to the task of cutting turned metal, but they ate right through it! Nice! 

Got the cannon done. Some parts were a bit fiddly, like those shields—they are connected to the gun only by a thin rod and one small inset, which don't really do a good job at keeping them stable while the cement cures. Also, trying to glue the shackles that keep the gun in its cradle using extra-thin cement didn't work for me, it just everywhere, so I glued the gun into a position I liked. This also helped with the hydraulic cylinder which is part of the elevation mechanism, as it would have otherwise been quite fiddly as well. Not sure the small PE part meant to keep its inner cylinder part in position would have done a stellar job of it. 

While the gun cured, I used the time to add the formerly forgotten lights as well as some damage to the hull. The cage parts for the lights seem to be a bit short when it comes to the struts connecting the three frames, so I ended up cutting some out and bending others to hide these defects as additional damages. 

I finally took the time to get the tracks done. I like link-and-length tracks, but in this case, it was a bit of a "meh" experience—though partially my fault. The upper track has to be installed the right way around, as the molded-in sag won't sit correctly otherwise. And I completely missed that, so I had to pull the track back out and flip it around. And to top it, I didn't see early enough that the long bottom part is also a bit misaligned, giving me this ugly part where the track is not conforming to the last road wheel's curve. I guess I accidentally flipped the number of single links needed on the front and back curves, though I have no idea how that has happened (had the instructions right in front of me).
In the end, I decided that I'd have to glue the track to the wheels. I prefer having them a separate part to make painting easier, but the whole situation was just too delicate for me to leave it like this. Of course, I couldn't glue it to the drive wheel, as this one is already firmly connected to the chassis. Getting the track/wheel combo on and off is pretty fiddly, but doable. 

And the other side. I made sure to have both long parts, top and bottom, oriented correctly this time and it looks much better. 

While the other track cured, I used the time to add additional damage to the chassis. There were also a few track links left, so I decided to fashion them into two short runs of track. I'll probably put them around this ring that replaced the turret, as it contains ammo boxes and some additional protection from splinters and other dangers might be quite welcome by the crew. In either case, it should look quite interesting. 

Priming done. I used Vallejo's Grey PU Primer, as it was the only light-color primer I have at hand. I don't think a black or dark, rusty primer would work too well with a light base coat. I also have to say that I rather like Vallejo's PU primer, it sprays quite well and makes less of a mess in my airbrush than Mr. Surfacer or the AK Tracks Primer. 

I added some pre-shading. I don't have much experience with this technique and I think it shows in how jittery some of the lines are. I also had some problems with splattering in the beginning, but turning up the pressure helped with that. 

Adding some shading to the parts covered by the gun platform was unexpectedly fun. 

And once again, assembling the tracks as one big assembly has come back to bite me. Painting the rubber parts was very much an unpleasent experience, as they needed several coats to achieve a solid color. And of course, I'm not experienced enough to do this without accidentally painting stuff I very much do NOT want to get a different color. I'll need to clean this up once they tracks are otherwise done. Also, some parts are basically unreachable using a paint brush, so they'll have to stay in the sandy color. 

Talking of which: This is the base coat, a mixture of Tamiya's XF-60 (Dunkelgelb) and XF-57 (Buff). I like the color, though I'll have to see how much it will make dusting the vehicle up later on more difficult. Great choice for someone who has no experience doing desert camo and desert dust. 😄 

And with highlights applied. Another area I desperately need more experience in, but I'm quite happy with the results this time. 

Which, of course, means something needs to go wrong. And it did!

For the red camo spots, I chose a mixture of XF-7 (Red) and XF-9 (Hull Red). And didn't note done the exact mixture, as I had more than enough in my airbrush's paint bucket.

I wanted the camo to look field-applied, so I didn't bother masking the hull up and went with freehand camo. Another first for me, by the way. And I think it shows. A bit too much, actually, with how spray-y the edges are. Too many little paint dots for my liking.

It also didn't help that paint was leaking out of the hole for the paintbrush trigger. I guess the bucket might have been too full, but at some point (after I had removed the piece of paper that kept the paint from spilling, thinking the leaking had stopped), a bit blotch of paint leaked, reached the needle and utterly FLOODED the hull's right forward corner. Thus, I had to make that camo splotch much, much bigger than I wanted to.

To add insult to injury, I messed up mixing the highlight color. So, I know that you cannot simply lighten any color using some shade of white without potentially messing up the color. So, I SHOULD have used the pure red color to lighten my mixture. What did I use? XF-55, Deck Tan. A freaking shade of white.

Of course, my paint turned out much too pink. Not that it mattered, because from this point on, it simply refused to come out of the airbrush in anything but tiny splatter, unless I cranked the trigger open so much that I would have instantly flooded the surface in a wide radius.

Overall an VERY unpleasant evening. 

Luckily, things got better the next time, when I went and sprayed the green camo splotches. This time, I made sure to note down the exact mixture: XF-58 (Olive Green) and XF-60 (Dunkelgeld), mixed 4:1. I also added some extra thinner and increased air pressure to roughly 1.5 bar. And guess what: It went down SOOO much better. No comparison, really.

And I also used the correct color to lighten it this time, so the green splotches actually have highlights! They are not terribly noticalble, but I'm happy with it. Only this one little spot of red overspray on one of the ammo boxes inside the armored ring is a bit annoying, but I'll find a way to deal with it. I'll need to cover atleast part of this big hole in the hull anyway, I guess. 

And I also added the camo splotches to the wheels. If only painting the track would be that easy. I'm REALLY tempted to just go and mask over all wheels so that I can use my airbrush for the track.

I'll still need to decide on the concrete color, though. I've often heard that tracks do not rust in a desert environment, but I've also heard the opposite. I'll need to check that and decide on something. 

Having taken a (too) long break due to being very much not enamored with my tracks, I decided to take a page out of Night Shift's book and do a rusted track by base-coating them in grey colors and add rust shades via enamel washes later on. I ended up masking off the metal parts of the wheels using masking putty and just spraying Revell's AquaColor Gunmetal Grey over everything else, including the rubber. It will look lighter than before, but that's fine with me. 

With rust wash applied. Some splashes need to be cleaned up, but I'm mostly happy with the look. I might do another, spotty pass of rust enamels or add some splashes on the track links to add some more texture.

I also added a bit of a subtle highlight on the metal wheel's rims, which also covered up any overspray on the metal.