Char B1 bis
Kommentarer
James CThanks Villiers. Going to start the weathering process shortly, beginning with a wash.
James CThanks Guy, Pietro and Robin. 🙂
I got the tracks mounted finally yesterday and am in the process of applying the final weathering.
Pics to follow...
James CI finished this one off last week, but it has been unseasonably wet to take it outside for some shots of the completed build before now.
A really nice kit by Tamiya (as you'd expect) of an unusual subject, and not having done anything French yet is why I decided to put it on the bench.
The fit was superb with the only challenging aspect of the build being sandwiching all the small road wheels between the lower hull and frame rail.
To make this a little easier, I'd recommend securing all the wheel axles in place to prevent them falling out of position and be done with it, as there is really no need to keep them "workable" and this makes the job of painting them much easier as well.
Tamiya provide four paint schemes to choose from; two of which being tri coloured (I chose version "A" as per the box art) and also supply a metal tow chain to hang from the rear which is a nice touch.
The only problem I had with the kit was with the tracks which are made up of individual links that snap together to be workable.
I'm not a huge fan of "workable" plastic links as frequently I find that the connecting pins tend to shear off when trying to snap them together requiring them to be glued instead and the painting/weathering process also tends to foul their movement. This Tamiya set is no exception and while not too bad, they are VERY weak and you only get six spares!
In the end I found it best to "click" one side in at a time to minimize the risk of shearing the connecting pins off, but still damaged quite a few in the process which required gluing.
Tamiya indicate to use 61 links for each run, but I found that this ended up being slightly too short to connect each run together. So, not wanting to put too much tension on them and risk shearing the pins I decided to make each run 62 links long and have them sit a little loose instead.
Lastly, avoid the temptation of playing around with them, and assemble them in batches of 10 to keep handling to a bare minimum and put them aside until your ready to paint them.
If I were to build this kit again I'd definitely splash out on a set of metal links from Friulmodels for both the extra strength and weight.
All up, a really nice kit.
Cheers for following 🙂
Youtube Video
Youtube Video
Michael KohlBeautiful model. Special thanks for the summary. Those hints and tips are especially useful and thus appreciated.
James CI had been considering applying some acrylic mud texture and pigments to the lower hull and tracks, but decided against it in the end as I didn't want to risk damaging the tracks due to their fragility and also I didn't think it really needed it as sometimes less is more.
Anyway, thanks for the feedback guys, very much appreciated.
Album info
A really nice kit by Tamiya (as you'd expect) of an unusual subject, and not having done anything French yet is why I decided to put it on the bench.
The fit was superb with the only challenging aspect of the build being sandwiching all the small road wheels between the lower hull and frame rail.
To make this a little easier, I'd recommend securing all the wheel axles in place to prevent them falling out of position and be done with it, as there is really no need to keep them "workable" and this makes the job of painting them much easier as well.
Tamiya provide four paint schemes to choose from; two of which being tri coloured (I chose version "A" as per the box art) and also supply a length of metal linked tow chain to hang from the rear which is a nice touch.
The only problem I had with the kit was with the tracks which are made up of individual links that snap together to be workable.
I'm not a huge fan of "workable" plastic links as frequently I find that the connecting pins tend to shear off when trying to snap them together requiring them to be glued instead, and the painting/weathering process also tends to foul their movement as well.
This Tamiya set is no exception, and while not too bad, they are VERY fragile, and you only get six spares!
In the end I found it best to "click" one side in at a time to minimize the risk of shearing the connecting pins off, but still damaged a few in the process which required gluing. Tamiya indicate to use 61 links for each run, but I found that this ended up being slightly too short to join each loop together.
So, not wanting to put too much tension on them and risk shearing off the pins, I decided to make each run 62 links long and have them sit a little loose instead.
Lastly, avoid the temptation of playing around with them, and assemble them in batches of 10 to keep handling to a bare minimum and put them aside until your ready to paint them. If I were to build this kit again I'd definitely splash out on a set of metal links from Friulmodels for both the extra strength and added weight.
All up, a really nice kit.
Completed February 3rd 2023
