Looking good there mate haveing same problems with the walls not lining up proper and been able to nearly stick ur fingers throgh the gaps lol wasnt the best desighn model ever but its a stunning tank only reason i went for it

Issue 5 - Not another brick in the wall

A short and easy one this time, with issue 5 we again get 2 outer and inner turret walls, that just have to primed, painted and stuck together. Hachette wisened up and had the connecting pins on the plastic side this time around, which made everything go together a whole lot easier.




Next time: turret support ring, commanders and loaders seats

Issue 7 - 5% done



We receive the turret floor, hydraulic motor, machine gun tool box and gunners pedals.

This floor will be crowding up soon.

It's got to be taking some serious self control to follow the steps in order. Looking good

Issue 8



Received the gunners seat, traverse gear and fire extinguisher. Everything went pretty smoothly together, a welcome change from the issues this kit had in the beginning. It seems hachette has hit their stride after all. (Of course I know things will go all topsy-turvy later, buuuuut let's enjoy the good times while we can.)

The paint on the seat cushions needs another coat to hide rips on the edges, but that's something I already expected from the material and will be dealt with before issue 9 is done.

Next time: the recoil cylinder, water jerry cans and we actually get to put together all the turret parts. (The turret will be deconstructed again in about 40 issues or so when Hachette remembers they had all this other stuff they wanted to fit in there, so I've postponed any gluing, filling of seams, washing, drybrushing and further detailing until that is done somewhere around issue 48. I WILL screw together the turret however for now, because I'm running out of space.)

The beast is growing and looking good....

Regards

Alan

Nice to see an update with this Greyhawk and looking very nice indeed. I think you should leave the seat ripped especially if you are going to be dirting it up as I think it will really add to the look

Coming along brilliantly.

There will always be issues with any build and its really down to the builder to consider and resolve as they feel best.

That seat tear though i would not worry about because did the troops not stand on these seats to look through the cupola.

Put it down to some heavy use

Issue 10 - Things are getting kinda iffy





Soooo, we receive parts for a plastic emergency hatch that's sitting kinda very weird in the hull , some mushroom type thingies up ahead at the front ends of the turret and some holders for the track links.

Which totally don't hold diddly squat, these track links keep falling out of there when I look at them sternly. I'd glue them in but apparently they will be replaced by others later, so I just got them in there for the fun of it. Still weird they keep falling out.

Then there's the track links colour. This is supposed to be Tamiya Flat Black and I used Tamiya Flat Black, but it's actually so glossy I could use them as mirrors. I have no idea what happened there. Has something like this ever happened to you? Bad batch of colour maybe?

Also one of the struts connecting the turret proper and the bottom broke it's glue bond and I had to open up the whole thing again and redo. I used contact glue this time to be sure. Only it doesn't want to seem to dry. Yay.

So yeah, weird episode. Glad to move on.

Update: While writing this, I handled the turret a few times, now the tracks don't fall out again, not sure why, but the escape hatch keeps flipping open. I may need to think of a way to lock it.


Hatch with a view how about you

With regards to the black, was it definitely Tamiya XF1 and not X1 as X1 is the gloss black. I've have middled the two up myself in the past.

Apart from that was the part primed first? Can't really think of what else could be causing it