Panda 1/35 Object 279

[JR]

Well as the mainly Russian builder on the forum I'll have a seat please Dom.

Hope you do complete it in either the Berlin camo or in Russian Green (khaki green): Standard Basic color used by Soviet Union between 1956 to 80’s but very common until today. It was combined with other camouflage colors, like in Afghanistan war.

Comrade Dzhon.

[bilbo]

I don’t think I would have installed that round etched screen under the ventilator dome … It seems entirely pointless to me too — etchings for the sake of etchings, more or less. Enjoy the tracks, I know I usually do

yeah, in hindsight I should have left it off, however being the fool that I am Inot only used it one this side I also used it on the other side also so 2 pieces of pointless PE.

didn’t get all the tracks cleaned last night will keep lugging away at them.

[bilbo]

Welcome John, glad to have you along for the ride.

Have reached the point that I have finished the lower hull,

and the wheels,

the tracks, though they are currently only held together with masking tape and the will of the gods.

Now need I to work out how to put it all together.

Reading up on the individual links the normal way appears to be to assemble the runs, glue them, then wait a few minutes and then wrap them around the wheels so that they don't disintegrate.

Just to make things entertaining, because 4 runs of individual links wasn't enough fun, the sprocket is separate from the main wheels. So it looks like the best way forward is to:
Paint the wheels, tracks, and lower hull separately,
Fit the sprockets and wheels to the hull,
then glue the links together and wrap around the wheels as would normally be done just means the inner lengths of track will need to be feed through and then formed around the wheels.


Painting needs to be done first as painting the inner wheels and tracks will be impossible after they're fitted, so that has to be done off the tank.

I cannot think of an easy way to keep the right height and gap between the sprocket and the rest of the wheels while i fitted the tracks to them off the tank, and I don't think the tracks would survive the reassembly on to the tank, but I'm open to any suggestions that anyone may have.

[Tim Marlow]

I think I would paint separately, as you say, then assemble the tracks, wheels etc, as separate sub assemblies. I would then add them to the hull at final build.
Great work on a strange looking object by the way....

[scottie3158]

Dom,
You are doing a great job. I will follow along.

[bilbo]

I think I would paint separately, as you say, then assemble the tracks, wheels etc, as separate sub assemblies. I would then add them to the hull at final build.
Great work on a strange looking object by the way....

Thanks Tim it is a weird looking beast, it looks like the love child of the Haunedu and a t34 (other Russian tanks have also claimed to be the father)

[bilbo]

Dom,
You are doing a great job. I will follow along.

Thanks for the compliment, good to have you along

[bilbo]

Still making some slow progress in this, it’s now mainly annoyingly small little bits that need to be stuck on and panda do not make them very easy at all.

I getting to the point where I have todo my least favourite part of the hobby, painting. Don’t know why I don’t like it but I really dislike it.

digging in my cupboard in found this :


So it should be easy for me to get some paint on at least the green bits of the tank.

hopefully get some paint on it, beyond primer that is, later this week.

thanks for looking in.

[JR]

Dom.
Nice to see the paint box making an appearance. Looking fwd to this.

[bilbo]

Well the bottom and the wheels are now sort of painted, initially I tried Ron’s patented brush painting method but the wheels and bits were to fiddly and I am too impatient to wait so I broke out the airbrush.

End result is this:

Need to order some more primer to do the turret and the top and of the body, hopefully some more progress over the weekend.

[Jim R]

Hi Dom
You're off to a great start on this strange looking beastie. I think if I saw those tracks I would have returned it to the stash. I looks like a flying saucer with tracks :tongue-out3:
Jim

[Guest]

If you just show that hull underside/suspension to people, I doubt their first guess would be that it’s a tank

[bilbo]

Hi Dom
You're off to a great start on this strange looking beastie. I think if I saw those tracks I would have returned it to the stash. I looks like a flying saucer with tracks :tongue-out3:
Jim

yeah, what makes it worse is I have the takin offering in the stash too, so at some point I’m going to go through the same pain. What was it they say, doing the same thing and expecting different results is insanity....

[adt70hk]

Looking good so far Dom. Apologies for getting behind.

ATB.

Andrew

[Steve Jones]

Nice paintwork. Coming along really well