Trumpeter's Challenger 2 MBT, scale (00345)

Treehugger
I tried to make all the wheels level, though I did not know of any way to try make them level other than simply eyeballing it. Regarding the imo bad small wheels that the tracks rest on, with the extra armor added to the sides, luckily those tiny wheels won't be seen at all.

I don't really know why my photos are this bad. I know I can take good photos of my models. Perhaps I don't have enough light in the room I am thinking now.

Also, I suspect that the last part of the gear that sticks into each wheel, isn't supposed to be hollowed, so one would want to maybe fill the hole in those hollowed parts.

Treehugger
I guess I should make a light box or something to avoid the overly strong light from the window, or.. try set up some extra light to brighten up the shadows here. I took this photo just below a window.

Bart Goesaert
looking good so far... to level the wheels, apply revell contacta and let it rest and cure on it's wheels. It's slow curing, thus... or when doing it upside down, put a flat plate on it while curing...when looking through the wheels and the plate, the light will indicate a touch or free space. A light box can help, but that depends on the situation...

Treehugger
I realized that I screwed myself with the wheels, because I could have waited instead of gluing all the pieces together. I will consider ripping off the last part on each wheel position, and see if I can make some wiggle room, and then try out what you suggested. 🙂

Treehugger
Btw, I am using a photo etch saw here, showing me starting sawing off the limbs off the "wheel area".

Patrick Hagelstein
Don't sand those edges at the rear hull plate down!!! They should be there!

Treehugger
I am not quite sure what edges you are referring to, though if you are thinking about the two thick plates that protrude at the back, one on each side, I looked at some photos and just sanded those edges to become parallel to the rear plate.

Patrick Hagelstein
I tried to find reference pics but some seem to have those plates flush and others seem to have the small lip present. So, I guess it's up to the actual tank you are portraying.

Treehugger
I suspect that the Challenger I's have it flush at the rear. Though I would have to double check to confirm, it's just that I think I saw that earlier today when doing an image search.

Btw, I uploaded a photo showing this particular detail if you want to have a look. The uploaded photo shows what it looks like after sanding the edge parallel with the rear plate.

Treehugger
I just learned that, if you use an additional two stacks of post it notes (or similar), you can place them next to the wheels on the side, to try better align the wheels facing properly forwards as well as vertically.

Patrick Hagelstein
[img1]
Hmmmm.... Those were not the ones I had in mind. But still, looks like those ridges should be there.

Treehugger
Ah, ok I think I know what you mean. Though, it looks like that is an additional plated added outside the rear plate. I'll check this out further. Thanks for the input.

Update: Ah, this extra plate is included in the kit. Though, it is cut off in the kit, and doesn't have this full length to the slanted top surface of that smaller plate.

Murad ÖZER
Treehugger i am following this with great interest since i have the one without plow in the pipeline. my experience with these early cheapo trumpeter armor was their rubber tracks are usually short so i suggest while you are still at the road wheel stage give them a dryfit, if things are as i feared you'll have to do a lot of surgery with the first/last wheels and the sprocket which you don't wanna do it all at the very end before topping the build unless you chose to hide things behind the sideskirts that is.

also another word of caution; if you are intending to do weathering with enamel based products, turpentine based thinners and this early cheap trumpeter plastic don't agree, you'll see any load bearing joints glued with a thin type plastic cement (or had to be forced with like clamps etc. to set) will dissolve and break off, couple this with the above issue of very tight track run and you are looking at bursting wheel arms an suspension off of their joints!

Treehugger
I did a dry fit with the tracks and it looks like it will be ok. I managed to effortlessly fit the tracks with "three" of the "four" locking pins (they are doubled so there are eight of them in total). Presumably, using a heat gun, I can shape the tracks a little and get the tracks on with full tension without breaking anything.

I am using Vallejo's acrylic paints and acrylic gloss coat stuff, so I should be fine working with weathering. I will take your advice and try avoid using stronger stuff like White Spirit around the glued on wheels.

Robert
The back of the turret is really a pain in the ***. Had also a lot of problems with my Challi. But you've done a good job!

Treehugger
Re. that image of the thumb with photo etch. That thing got dropped onto the floor, and it bounced 50 cm !!! Took me 5 minutes to find it under a carpet edge where it stopped after the bounce.

Olivier
You were lucky to ever find it. It is so tiny.

Patrick Hagelstein
The four thingies in picture 26 are the brackets for the smoke screen mufflers. They should be a little beefier indeed, they are made of half inch thick steel, so the plastic looks more in scale.

Treehugger
In image 32, afterwards after uploading photo, I managed to adjust that second to first hinge so that it aligns properly. The glued plastic had still not fully hardened, so I yanked it into correct alignment with a tweezer. 🙂

Edit: Oops. I forgot to glue on the last hinge. So.. 16 hinges in total. I had one left and though that was odd.

Ingo F
Looks awesome. Make me want to start mine Challenger 2. 🙂

Treehugger
Thank you. 🙂

Do you have the exact same kit? If you haven't bought it already, buy NEW newer variant (or not from Trumpeter) and not this one that has this weird build for the turret with all these parts.

Ingo F
Got the same kit as i am going to build the KFOR version. I do not need to think about the turret as it will be covered up. 😄
Challenger 2 - Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, KFOR | Project by Igi87 (1:35)

Patrick Hagelstein
So, what is going on exactly in picture 44?

Treehugger
In picture 44, I have used a scalpel blade and a ruler, to gently make guide lines, for creating bits of styrene off a sheet of styrene, using a blade and not a pencil for marking the cutting lines. The photo doesn't show it well, but I made cutting lines in the sheet styrene for cutting out the view port frame and the back plate.

A problem with cutting and clipping into sheet of styrene, is that the the smaller the bit of styrene you are cutting loose from the sheet styrene, the more that bit of styrene will bend outwards, so one must be careful. The thicker the sheet styrene is, the more of a problem this becomes.

Patrick Hagelstein
I see what you mean. And I get the idea of what you are doing here. That's true, the shearing of cutting into the sheet directly deforms the the pieces. I'll try your technique to see if I can get more squared off cuts as well. I'm curious! Thanks for explaining by the way! 👍

Treehugger
And unless you are going for making some x10, x20, or thirty things with bits of styrene, if things fail, it is a good idea to try again if you only try to make a few pieces of some scratch built detailing. 🙂

Patrick Hagelstein
😄 Gotcha!

Martin Bishop
Very nice work on this, some great detail there. I have the original release of there Chally, so i know i will have a bit of work to do to make it right. Some great ideas in this build.

Treehugger
One thing I have not yet gotten used to, is how thin the layer of paint is with airbrushing, so scratch marks shows up too clearly from under the layers of paint. Having said that, I have tried to learn new things with regard to airbrushing with Vallejo's primer paint, so I hope I can both make it look nice and smooth and maybe also get a better cover. I ofc try to always remove scratch marks during building. The dried putty is easily dented though.

I will for this project try to make use of Vallejo's gloss varnish. I will experiment with mixing the gloss varnish with water and see how that goes. I am only used to the 'Humbrol's Clear' gloss coat product but feel it is a tad difficult to work with.

Update: Hah, I pretty much forgot! I have some PE bolt heads ordered, so those have to go on before I start airbrushing.

Martin Bishop
I recently started useing MR Paint and that shows up every little scratch. With enamles ican get away with a lot, but these new paints go on so thin, you have to do a good job prepping the surface. Of course the good think with armour is that you can always cover it with a bit of mud lol.

Patrick Hagelstein
I love the Mr. Paint range as well and one of their benefits is that you can apply layer after layer without obscuring any surface detail! Sadly enough that means a scratch will show up layer after layer... 😉 A good thing to prevent this is to apply a primer coat using Mr. Surfacer 1000, 1200 or 1500 in a 1:1 ratio with Mr. Leveling Thinner. This will sharpen the surface detail but will fill in all those tiny scratches. Not sure how but it works! 👍

Bryn Crandell
Another great one to catch up on. Love the detail on your pictures.

Bart Goesaert
Splendid work so far...

Treehugger
Oh, joy. Re. image 61 & 62. I finally got to airbrush something, after some two years not doing any of that. 🙂 I ofc ran into clogging issue with Vallejo black primer, psi at 40. I then just mixed in, more thinner and flow improver, and just flushed out the crap onto a large piece of paper. I sprayed on the stuff, in bursts, making sure I had ok flow. I also made sure to use a tiny flat brush, moist with cleaner liquid, keeping the needle tip clean every once in a while. I only cleaned the airbrush once(!). I kept filling the cup up with more thinner and flow improver and primer and mixed it with a big soft brush, and kept on airbrushing. Next time, I will lower the psi to 30. I also wore a dust mask to be safe, as some particles probably went a little outside the vent. Working area. If I lower the psi, I should be better off the next time I think. I will now, not touch the painted stuff for the next 24 hours at least.

So, I used black colored primer. I am not 100% sure that was a good idea. I hope the relatively lighter green color, goes on ok and doesn't look too dark. Alternatively, I should consider buying more paint bottles of the greens to be sure, those smaller ones are just 17ml. :|

Treehugger
Re. Image 63 & 64. Such fun having control over the airbrush, for once. Making sure the paint was thinned well enough. I used a psi of 30. It was tricky to airbrush the wheels, as it is too easy to spray on too much paint at once, when airbrushing a cavity. I really like to do short bursts with the spray, seems to work great for me.

Jos Jansen
Heavy armor...love it, after two years absent, this excellent build is one to follow!

Treehugger
I hope this is interesting. The scratch building is really fun. Doesn't take much time either. I think I got a lot out of the photo etch, learned a lot.

Sadly, I don't know where the decal sheet is. I had it the other day. A small decal sheet. Might have to use stencils and airbrush on the most prominent markings.

I initially thought that 71.315 Tire Black would be ok, but it was too gray. So I mixed Tire Black + Nato Black + just Black to make it even darker. :| Should have planned out that part better.

Bart Goesaert
Nice work so far....

Treehugger
Thanks. 🙂 I am pondering on whether I should try create some fuzzy demarcation line for the other camo color, or not. I think I will do something in between, a modest attempt. I don't want to place any blu tack on the model, and blu tack is all I have for working with some paste like goo to create a spacer between the model and the masking tape for the camo paint job. I will try use bits of masking tape as spacers.

I will experiment for adding a gloss coat and using the bottom side of the tank. It that works well, I'll spray the tank with it when I need to. I want to try using Vallejo Wash'es, and I have to look up some tutorials to figure out if I need a gloss coat or not before adding an acrylic based Vallejo Wash.

Patrick Hagelstein
Treehugger, those road wheels look great! Good choice to go for a slightly darker color. On the thought to go for a slightly bigger circular opening: In real life there are a couple of things happening to road wheels and rims. Depending on the manufacturing or repair process a couple of things can be observed. On brand new tanks/road wheels sometimes the whole side of the road wheel is painted in camouflage color. This can be seen with KMW photo presentations of new Leopard variants. The paint on the rubber will wear off eventually. When a wheel is worn out and the rubber band needs replacement, the fresh rubber band will be applied to the 'old' rim resulting in a very sharp demarcation between the rim color and the fresh rubber. Sometimes old wheels out of stock will be put on vehicles as a replacement. As Leopards were previously painted in a color called Olive Gelb the new 'old' wheels would stand out and maintenance crews would repaint the wheels in the Bronze Green used in the NATO tri-color scheme resulting in a less than stellar demarcation, either sprayed or even brush painted. I saw different examples when it comes to Challengers (both I and II) as the same processes apply to those vehicles as well. Long story short: every kind of demarcation is perfectly feasible for any variation in time, wheel and vehicle. 😉

Jos Jansen
Good and correct comment Patrick...👍

Patrick Hagelstein
Thanks Jos! Means a lot to me coming from an expert as yourself! 👍 🙂

Treehugger
For the darker color, I mixed Vallejo Model Color Black with Model Air Olive Drab, I wonder if maybe it ended up being too dark. I wasn't sure, but maybe it makes sense that the Model Color is thicker, and can't be mixed directly 50% 50% with Model Air, which is perhaps more diluted.

The paint guide doesn't really show well what the pattern is supposed to look like. I will simply try create an original pattern, and then fix it if it doesn't look good enough. Should ideally end up with "tiger" stripes and not looking like a panda.

Bart Goesaert
You can lighten it up afterwards with darkgrey, but sprayed on top like marbling

Treehugger
I think I will add a dust or sand mix on top of it all, maybe that will help. Not sure I dare adding grey over this.

Bart Goesaert
Very. Interesting, not only the build, but also how the camo is painted

Treehugger
Thanks, I'll check out that product and see if that is available. Perhaps very similar to blu tack, but hopefully something that doesn't leave any residue behind after removal.

Treehugger
I've started to mix my paint in a tiny jar. I noticed that even if I start by adding first thinner into the bottom of the airbrush cup, when adding paint, the paintdrops seem to fall to the bottom through the thinner. Probably best to mix it outside the airbrush and also making things a little more thin, then I can always add more paint if the mix is too thin. That way I will avoid clogging.

I wonder if finally airbrushing it all with very thin and somewhat darker olive drab, that the dark and the light patches can harmonize better.

Bart Goesaert
you can also try: [img1]

or drill the headlights and add a plastic foil:
[img1]

[img1]

Patrick Hagelstein
That's a cool idea! For 1/35 I would definitely go for drilling but in 1/72 the painted on route would work very well.

Treehugger
Interesting. I think I can try that, but I have to think about it. Not entirely sure how well the lights are glued on. I have some "Clear fix" but when I tried it today, it is gel like, and tricky to work with. I also have 'Humbrol clear' (near water like) and also a bottle of 'Micro Kristal Klear' which is more liquid than gel.

I will check out some tutorial for using Vallejo Wash'es and add some grime to it all later, and maybe a dust bath or something like that.

Treehugger
Well, the idea was to use 'Olive Drab'. I already had a bottle of that. I thought I neede more bottles, so I bought some more, however, even though the number on the new bottles is the same as the old one, the new bottles is a tad brighter than the old bottle, and there are indications that these are different hues of olive drab, even though the Vallejo number is the very same. I decided to use the new bottles. Now that I think about it, I could have mixed in a drop of black or something, to darken the Olive Drab. This is the US Olive Drab I am using.

Old bottle of Olive Drab = 71.043 (RAL7013 -RLM81) <-- seems a tad darker
New bottles (the ones I am using) of US Olive Drab = 71.043 (FS34087) <-- seems a tad brighter

Bryn Crandell
Paint work is looking good Treehugger.

Treehugger
Thank you. A fun part of airbrushing on a camo pattern, is that one can always change the pattern and make corrections, as long as the paint(s) has the same shade.

Frankie Roberts
Beautiful. I have a 1:35 Tiger II to do.

Treehugger
I have since added a pin wash and some streaking, but I think I honestly liked the clean look of the tank, because the paintjob sort of seemed realistic I think, not matte, nor glossy.

I think with Vallejo washes, it is a good idea to take your good time, not only while working, but allowing a first pass to fully dry for, well, maybe a day or whatever. That way, you can dilute the wash so it isn't too strong. I found it difficult to work with the wash but I think that was because I used a brush that was too large both for applying a dark blob of wash, and also, for removing excess. Using a smaller brush for removing excess may allow for better control so that you don't sap back all the wash that was added in the first place. :|

As for the paintwork, I learned to always, always thin the damn paint. Also it helps being careful, so you don't break tiny parts while holding the model, and also keeping your hands clean, washing them good to avoid fingerprints from greasy fingertips. If there is a blemish, it is easy to airbrush on a fresh new layer of color, as long as you mix the correct hue to match the existing paint.

I think I will add a second round of pin wash, and then add more concrete streaking, and then add pigments at some point.

Patrick Hagelstein
The outside picture captures the colors exactly! Good job on the mixing! I don't know what you mean by getting slack in the tracks. Modern day double pin tracks are so called live tracks. this means the track segments have a natural springiness to them which adds tension to them. ie, the tracks are tight around the sprocket and the idler and will not sag or slack. Neither while driving and neither while at rest. If the tracks are tout, leave them that way!

Frankie Roberts
Yes, I know what you mean about keeping your hands clean, I'm making a Tamiya Yamaha Roadstar as a small project and something different. I painted the damper gold titanium and got a fingerprint on the edge, and I can't quite get rid of it, although I haven't tried too hard as it's hidden inside the bike.
Do you use Vallejo paint?

Treehugger
Yes. Vallejo paints, primers and Vallejo putty (becuase the Tamiya putty is obnoxious to work with). The Vallejo putty sands off nicely with the proper grit, but tend to rub and deform if going too fine. I tend to not having the patience to let my putty dry for long enought I suspect. I can't wait a day for the putty to become 100% hard (or however long it takes, I never figured that out).

I restarted the hobby only recently after 2+ years with it on hold. Only now have I (hopefully) learned to thin my paints and also sift my paints so I don't get glogging. I also have learned to now rely more on primer to evaluate what is a good closed seam or not on the model. I also learned to point the airbrush away from the model, start and finish, to avoid spluttering ending up on the model. 🙂

Frankie Roberts
You certainly seem to know your stuff, HMCS Snowberry was my first ever project and Only started in December 19. I'm still trying things out.

Treehugger
Your first project ever? I don't believe it. 🙂

Frankie Roberts
Well I tried to do an Airfix Sea King when I was about 10 yrs old, but I didn't even get to the painting stage. I watched a lot of YouTube videos to learn though.

Treehugger
Nicely done then. 🙂