Tamiya Leopard 1A4: Like Going Home

 

I’ve neglected this blog for far too long, and have been so busy in recent years with my writing career that modelling has taken a back seat. I've completed only two models this year (though worked on at least five others), the first being the Dragon 1:72 Jagdtiger I posted about six months ago. Recently I got to build one that’s been on my to-do list for many years, Tamiya’s 1979 35^th scale tooling of the West German Leopard 1A4 (35112).

The Leopard 1 is still in service in 2025 with some sixteen armies around the world, with new upgrades on offer from many firms, so it’s far from a period piece, despite Australia having retired our Leos in favour of reconditioned M1A1s (not a universally popular decision) many years ago.

Okay, Meng’s much newer kit is far superior, but it’s also correspondingly expensive, and I do enjoy vintage Tamiya for its own sake. The kit is straight-forward though there are one or two bits that can bite you if you’re unwary. Construction follows the standard Tamaya pattern, running gear being suggested to be assembled first, though the wheels form a subset that can be built and detailed separately from the rest and added late in the process if you work that way—I do, as it happens. Upper and lower hulls are large single piece toolings, dressed with smaller parts.

The drive wheels housings are compromised by the kit sharing tooling with the popular early motorised version. I say compromised, they are inherently weak and need to take a lot of force when the tracks are joined and tension thus comes into play. This has never been a problem, however, with superglue making a suitably strong bond.

When I began this project it felt like going home. Muscle memory would just about build it, especially as I built the Flakpanzer Gepard AA tank version back in the 90s, about my third armour kit ever. Construction proceeded without much difficulty, though there were details I wish I'd spotted. The co-axial MG in the turret is not moulded as a proper gun barrel, merely a protruding rounded shape, and I could have at least drilled out the port for appearances.

The tracks took a lot of work. One thinks that one-piece vinyls should be child's play, and they are, but the detail is very repetitious. There are 672 rubber pads—that’s four per link times 84 links per track times two. After a sprayed base coat of rust/dirt browns, every single pad was brush painted rubber black (Tamiya XF-85) by hand, rather a daunting proposition. They were then treated with a Tamiya dark brown weathering wash to create depth, and oversprayed with an ultra-thin glaze of buff (two drops to forty drops of thinner) to create a dust coat. Lastly they got a few touches of MiG powder pigment to suggest fresher rust here and there, and the guide horns were drybrushed metallic. For all this effort, the effect doesn’t really show up in pictures—I might as well have not bothered... Fully half of each track is also behind the side skirts, so I could have detailed only the middle part and saved the effort!

The wheels were masked with a combination of rubber solution and disc stickers, then sprayed rubber black for the tires. I used the template method for the faces of the wheels, a 15mm circle template fitted nicely.

The main paintwork was a mixed shade for German Army Gelbolive, a formula I found at Armorama. XF-51 Khaki Green plus XF-57 Buff plus XF-74 Japanese Olive at a ratio of 4:1:2. This seems a very good match for the original. I made a batch darker with the addition of some black as a shade coat for the underside and behind the running gear, then another batch lightened with extra buff as a fade coat to mottle/pattern the upper surfaces. With all this done, I sealed the surface with Micro Flat. Where the decals would go I splashed with Micro Satin to bring up the lustre and improve adhesion, then resealed with flat over the decals once applied.

The kit decals were quite old but worked very well indeed. They took a while to part from the backing sheet, but snugged down surprisingly well and their finish was very close to that of the paint. They were slightly out of register, so when it came to the crosses, I took some from a Supercsale sheet that were within half a millimetre of the correct size, and these, surprisingly, were glossier and needed more attention to blend in.

The pioneer tools were a fair job in their own right, with a sprayed metallic, brush painted wood tone and hull colour on the clamps, Micro Flat over the hull colour areas, brown oil wash to create a patina on the metal and a darkening effect on the wood.

Finishing techniques included Flory wash in the engraved detail, MiG pigments for dust and rust, and drybrushed metallic for abraded areas, plus the usual suite of oil techniques, being dirt spots and chipping, edge profiling and rust streaks.

I had the advantage of a research source showing the very same vehicle as the kit depicts—a 1984 partwork whose first issue featured a centre spread of the Leo by the talented Kieth Fretwell. On reflection, the kit might have actually guided the illustration, which even shows the wading -kit tower on the commander’s hatch, which is included in the kit as optional parts! I did not bother rigging a radio antenna, as photographs are quite contradictory. Many Leos are photographed without radio masts at all, others have stub antennas only. If I get a definitive source on this I can always add it later.

The Leo looks good, was a fun build—I wish I could have spent a little longer on it: I could have caught some problems before they happened. But it’s a good addition to the modern armour collection. I look forward to doing Revell’s Marder IFV in the same scale, using the same pre-NATO-camo Gelbolive.

If and when I replace my studio lights, I’ll take better photos.

Thanks for looking,

Mike

Kit Review: MPC/Round 2 Space: 1999 MK. IX Hawk

I can’t remember the last science fiction model kit I completed. I have a few in my stash but I actively can’t remember completing one in recent times, so this Hawk is rather a milestone. In the late 70s I did a couple of the very disappointing MPC Eagles (under the Airfix label), and obtained their Hawk as a built example from the famous collector Phil Rae ten or more years back, but brand new kits from this cult TV classic have started to come available in the last few years from Round 2, under the MPC label, as a direct result of interaction between company manager Jamie Hood and both the fans who would be buying the product on one hand, and the leading experts on the originals, on the other. This fusion culminated in the Eagle Transporter kit in 1:48^th scale, which has done great business and spawned a family of secondary releases. The first guest-star hardware to join the family is a 1:72^nd scale Hawk.

The Hawk appeared in the episode Wargames, familiar Earth craft which mysteriously appeared from an alien planet and attacked Alpha. They were mental projections, plucked from the Alphans’ own minds, as was the entire unfolding scenario of destruction, as a means to persuade the humans not to attempt to settle on the planet they were passing, no matter how compatible it seemed. This meant a craft could be designed to reflect the same general era and mode of design as the familiar Eagles, which leant itself to rapid production of the needed models. Two were built, a definitive model scaled to the 1:24^th scale Eagle, and a distance model at 1:48^th scale. They were very different in detail when studied together (both have survived and are well documented photographically, and appear at fan conventions).

Round 2 based their detailing on the “hero” 1:24^th scale Hawk and on inspection I was most impressed with the degree to which almost every detail of the original has been captured at one third the size. I studied the Hawk with a view to building a studio scale replica some years ago, amassing a fair bit of reference material in the process, and as a result I am able to say that the company has captured the important features to an amazing degree. Proportion and detail, including precise replication of the kit parts used as dressing on the original, are all there. The only notable exception I could find was the absence of the ribbing on the Saturn V-derived parts, this being more than likely due to the limitations of moulding technology. When the firm produces the promised 1:48^th scale version to go with the larger Eagle, this omission will hopefully be corrected.

Assembly was quite straight forward, though fit was not as crisp as one might have hoped for, giving rise to some seams to be dressed, mainly on the command module sides and where the fuselage, split in upper and lower halves, comes together just behind the stub wings, and at the rear. Otherwise there were few hassles. The worst parts are the tiny Lunar Module legs, five of which are produced at a third their original size. The originals were forever breaking on the studio model, and these are so fragile you hardly dare breathe on them. The one above the cockpit broke and was repaired four times, while the ones around the engine barely fit (locator holes in the wrong places?) and the modeller is reduced to “superglue and prayer” — not ideal. Whitemetal replacement parts would be highly desirable.

I built the model in subassemblies, the lateral boosters and engine, solar panel and underslung weapons pods, the X-girders, plus the underside girder/rod/pipe parts all being completed separately, including decals and topcoats, and brought together at the end. This eased painting of the fuselage and side boosters, and I noticed that proper alignment of these units to each other depends largely on all parts coming together in one go—so they needed to be fully finished at that point.

In 1:72^nd scale no cockpit is provided, just black decals for the windows. The Hawk’s interior was never shown in the program so any attempt to add one to a kit is an exercise in what-if. It will be interesting to see how the company tackles the issue at larger scale.

The biggest “wow” factor was the decals. The sheet is very finely printed, featuring over 130 markings for the craft as seen on-screen (orange trim) or the prototype model (white overall). I did the latter for simplicity, though picked up two kits and will do the on-screen version at a later date. The decals reproduce every marking seen on the original, including many which were actually drawn on by hand. They behaved very well indeed, were a delight to work with, and reacted well enough to Microscale chemistry. The small coloured bands took some work to wrap around the girders, several applications of Microsol were needed to get them to conform, and they could have done with being somewhat longer to wrap fully and seal to themselves. The anti-glare panel decals were sprayed with Micro Flat and trimmed closely from the backing paper, producing a decent flat finish in those areas, contrasting with the satin finish white I selected overall.

Improvements are always possible, and when I do the second kit I’ll make some small changes. The original had rows of holes drilled into the leading edges of the stub wings, weapon pods and solar panels, and these are represented as silver dots on the decal sheet. Dressing those edges very carefully to fully eliminate mould lines and drilling in the holes is an obvious enhancement. Being forewarned about those LM legs might ease that aspect too.

The model was a pleasure to build, notwithdstanding the acute frustration of those aforementioned LM parts. On the provided stand it looks the part, and is a milestone as the first fully accurate depiction of this craft to be produced as a conventional styrene kit. If the larger version eventuates, it will build upon the experience from this one, and be the perfect compliment to the big Eagle—as surely as the soon-to-be-released 1:72^nd scale Eagle compliments this Hawk.

Full marks to Jamie Hood and Round 2 for giving us the kits we craved long ago and never expected to be possible!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Recently Completed: Tamiya 1:48 F4U-1 Corsair (Birdcage), #61046

As a modeller who tends to have something like three dozen uncompleted projects at any one time, it’s always nice to get an older one past the finish line. This was a 2017 build that’s been playing shelf queen waiting for final details and paintwork ever since (it was a matter of display space, which opened up not long ago when I boxed for storage a batch of projects from around five years ago.)

This is the 1996 kit from the grand masters in Shizuoka City, and a sweet build it is. It can pull the odd surprise, but overall is a pretty friendly kit. To wit – the ovoid transparencies for rearward view on the fuselage sides are incorrectly identified in the plans, the numbers are reversed – swap them port and starboard and the parts fit perfectly. Interestingly, the masks for these parts on the Eduard sheet are also reversed!

The cockpit is quite well detailed, and if the canopy is to be closed you’ll see little enough. I used the decal seat harness supplied, and painted everything a dark bronze-green, as research suggested the cockpit shade of the time was somewhere about FS 34092.

I decided to depict a bird from VMF-213, companion squadron to -214, which became  the Black Sheep, when they entered combat in the Solomons campaign in February, 1943, the first Corsairs in-theatre. This is the two-tone scheme, which later gave way to three-tone, and finally to overall Sea Blue Gloss and its variations. I’m currently enjoying the 1976 series Black Sheep Squadron, which, though unavoidably compromised at a historical detail level, gives you a look at Corsairs in the field and the kind of effects the conditions created in their appearance. Solomons Corsairs were battered and heavily weathered by the elements, caked with dust and mud – one can certainly go to town on the weathering process, though I fancied something a little cleaner. Okay, a bird fairly fresh on the line!

The Tamiya Corsair is very well engineered, when it came out I recall reviewers raving about its click-fit precision. It’s not quite that easy, the folding wing option is a PITA to avoid an obvious joint line if building with wings extended, as I always do. The landing gear is very solidly engineered and fits into big receivers, but somehow the legs managed to be at different angles, meaning the wheels were a few millimetres out of alignment…

The paintwork is Tamiya Acrylics, mixed as per kit specifications – XF-18 + XF-2 (3:1) for the topside blue-grey, and XF-19 + XF-2 (2:1) for the underside grey, with soft-masked demarcations. I used Miscroscale Satin to seal both the paint and the following Florey washes, and Flat as the final low lustre after decals.

I made standby decals in case the masks pulled the paint off the canopy struts, but they were unneeded. This means I have 1943 blue-grey over black, with clear, decal material in stock in case any future USN/Marines project develops the issue!

Decals in this edition were by Scalemaster, printed by Vitachrome, and behaved generally well – I say generally as they did not offer to pull into engraved detail at all and did not seem to react very well with Microscale chemistry, wrinkling patchily. The roundel on the right fuselage side broke up somewhat after application and refused to settle in, being still wrinkled when dry. I removed it with the old tape trick, and replaced it with an identical item from a Superscale sheet; the blue is a fractionally different shade, but nothing the eye really catches. The Superscale item of course snugged down perfectly – I’d expect nothing else.

Oil wash and Mig pigments comprise the weathering – when I get a Prismacolour silver pencil I’ll take a crack at chipping but I aborted the attempt in paint when it became clear I had no control over the process at all. My hands seemed to do anything they liked, and I knew to quit before I made a mess.

The radio antennas were rigged with EZline, usually the last task of a model and not my favourite activity. I set the long piece first, pegged the mast end and managed to hold the thread in tweezers to secure the tail end (despite cramp in my right thumb…), then pegged the fuselage end of the short piece to dry over night. The upper juncture of the lines I found I did not have the dexterity for, no way could I hold the line in tweezers long enough for superglue to get hold. I made up a contraption of tweezers, two bulldog clips, a sanding block, a CD and two thicknesses of card that brought the end of the short piece into contact with the long, and left it to set. The applications of glue created a thick spot on the line, which suggests a ceramic insulator or some such, but of course there was nothing there on the real plane. The line was painted with black, some hull blue was used to touch up around the glue points and clear flat added to even out the lustre.

I hope to fit the 1000-pounder on the centreline rack, but the olive drab I sprayed it a year or more ago is very dark under a clear coat, dark enough for black decals to probably be waste. I’ll respray it in lightened olive drab when I next mix that shade, then apply the ProModeller decals for WWII ordnance and hang the bomb.

So, some work to do on her in future – hang the bomb, add the missing pitot probe (the entire project was complete and photographed when I spotted the omission – d’oh!) plus do the above-mentioned chipping.

Last year I built all 72^nd scale for reasons of storage space, and it’s nice to get back to something larger. I’ll be completing a 1:32^nd scale Bf 109 in the months ahead, too – at least that’s the plan!

Cheers, Mike Adamson

Building Bigger

Sometimes, with the pressure of one's daily obligations, a piece of work can be produced and clean forgotten. Below is a model build-up feature I wrote years ago, and even then it was a retrospective on a project which had not been documented at time of actual completion. I was browsing for some information in old articles and came across the text, so figured it was high time this one saw the light of day!

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As I’ve ruefully mentioned before on this blog, some modellers build bigger as they get older simply because they can’t see the small ones anymore. That’s very true for me, yet I haven’t built large scale planes since I was a kid – in fact I’ve only done one 1:32 aircraft in modern times. My previous was 34 (now 36!) years ago!

In 2014 I tackled Hasegawa’s big scale Fw 190 A-8 and had a great deal of fun with it. There were one or two hassles – the fit of the engine cowling to the fuselage left a lot to be desired and was a tough contour to fill and sand but that was about the only structural difficulty. The decal sheet was a let-down – I had selected Hans Dortenmann’s Red 1 and as with so many Luftwaffe aircraft the markings and the camouflage scheme particulars go hand in hand. It was bad news when it turned out the sheet was unserviceable, as the paintwork was fully finished. Patching the markings together from AM sheets would have been a $60 job (three sheets required). Fortunately a friend in Europe had the same kit and was doing it in different markings and sent me his sheet, which worked perfectly.

It’s a big, beautiful bird, and at this scale the problems of airbrush mottling are minimised – overspray can still be an issue but the battle for fineness seems less acute. The cockpit was easy to detail, and the 1:32 etched harness was incredibly realistic. The outer pair of canon barrels is missing – by the time I was done I was more than slightly browned off with Hasegawa’s engineering choice to simply scab them onto the exterior as optional bits, as my confidence to get them lined up in both axes while glue dried was in negative numbers, so she’s a slightly odd-looking A-8 here. Better that than make a mess after so much work had been invested…

I didn’t weather this one heavily – weathering is a skill mated t0 scale and one must learn to use a heavier hand as scale increases. I’m not comfortable with really laying on filth so this bird is in very well-maintained condition – which they must have been at least some of the time.

So why so few models in this scale? Simple, somewhere to put them. You can store four, even six, 1:72^nd scale models in the same area as the “footprint” of a 1:32^nd scale project, and you very quickly fill display cases with the big guys. I have plenty of models in this scale and would like plenty more, but until the day comes I have some sort of storage designed to receive them – shelves of the appropriate depth and at a spacing which does not waste cubic volume with empty air – I fear I’ll have to leave them where they are, buried deep in the stash.

There’s also a lot of work in a big model, even if it’s structurally no more complicated. It certainly uses a lot more paint, you’re aware of your running supplies being used more quickly. But that’s par for the course, I can only imagine the investment in time and materials the ship guys go to when they’re building the new Trumpeter 1:200^th scale battleships. Now there’s a project to conjure with – it gives a whole new meaning to the term “big scale.” It is to ships what 1:16^th scale is to armour or 1:24^th scale to planes.

Hmmm, that reminds me, I have an Airfix 1:24^th scale Harrier hiding away in the stash. After more than forty years since the basic tooling came out it might be high time it got the full treatment… If only I had somewhere to put it!

Mustang in Blue Diamonds

Earlier this year I completed Airfix’s 1:72 P-51D Mustang (A01004). This is the same kit I built around 2014, same original issue, though the kit has been boxed several times now with fresh marking options. This time I learned from my errors and did not try to include photoetched harness, though I succeeded in installing both joystick and radio mast unbroken. It remains to be seen if I can do that trick twice.

I have long wanted to do the varied post-war schemes and an old Superscale sheet (72-149) features the markings of the Philippine Air Force, who used Mustangs between the late ’40 and late ‘50s. The most famous of these was “Shark of Zambales,” the personal mount of the commanding general of the arm, B. N. Ebuen, and which has been the subject of numerous restorations over the years, including a standing display at the PAF museum at Villamor Airbase. Superscale included markings for a very particular phase in the original’s career, as the markings seem to differ in detail from one photograph to the next. Prolific aviation artist Gaetan Marie (check out his page here) has painted three different schemes worn by this aircraft, varying by the size, shape and colour of the shark-mouth, the scroll over the tail marking, spinner decoration, etc. and Superscale seem to have based their rendition on a single B&W photograph in which I am not prepared to swear the shark-mouth was actually applied. Angle and the nature of the filmstock make it dubious, but what’s not dubious is the unlikelihood of me applying the decals perfectly, so I left them on the sheet. I can always apply them in future if I feel justified.

The sheet must be over twenty years old and worked beautifully, I find myself thinking I’ll still be using decals from my stash decades hence, and they’ll still work as well as ever!

Another important factor, this is my first natural metal scheme in many years, as I have had the greatest difficulty in achieving a credible finish. I used Tamiya flat aluminium acrylic, overworked with 6B pencil graphite to vary the tonal values, then topcoated with Micro Satin for lustre. It feels quite good and I look forward to trying this technique again.

The landing gear of the Airfix kit is its only real disappointment – the plastic is soft and the main gear legs are irretrievably warped right on the sprue. The first time I built the kit I overlooked the problem and photographed it from angles that hid the gear, but this time I just couldn’t. I picked up the white metal replacement set from Scale Aircraft Conversions, beautiful castings in strong metal, absolutely straight, and they even supply two sets in the box so the next Airfix Mustang will get them too.

This bird came out very nicely and I look forward to adding more to my line-up – I recently picked up decal sets for postwar ANG birds and third world users, plus the Airfix edition with decals for Grenada, 1983, the last user of Mustangs in a combat role. I should think I’ll develop a long line of P-51Ds based on this kit and the ocean of decals I’ve collected over the years.

Keeping it Simple: Academy’s Hellcat

When the weather has hit 112 F out there and you need AC and fan in combination to get through the day, you don’t want heavy, complicated projects, and knocking off some quick builds is the right medicine to break up professional commitments.

I picked up Academy’s 1:72 F6F Hellcat (#2121) on eBay many years ago and it has hung around on my shelves for the last two years or so with some pre-painting done, therefore technically started. I would like to do a USN midnight blue subject in each year, along with another from the grey-over-white era, but my last blue was Academy’s F2H Banshee in 2015 – I was amazed to find years had gone by since the last time I uncapped the blue! This Hellcat is a surprisingly good little kit, very simple to put together (so long as you’re careful with alignments, the wing to fuselage can bite you on the underside) and has engraved detail so looks the part under a coat of paint.

Construction was not difficult, fit is generally okay, though the engineering is not quite up there with the big guys. Options include the small side panel windows to do the -3 variant, and you have bombs and rockets for the -5. Clear parts are well done, with a choice of windscreens for the two variants plus clear plug-in domes for the position lights on the spine an tail light under the rudder. The engine is a decent little rendition of an R-2800 and looks okay with a black wash. The prop shaft seems a bit thick and profits from a swipe with a file. Landing gear is reasonably strong for the scale, and undetailed gun barrels are moulded into the wing halves.

I’ve had disappointing results from commercial canopy masks, they can pull up the paint as you remove them, and it’s frustrating indeed when that happens as the product adds several dollars to the build cost. This time I did it the old fashioned way, using thin-cut slivers of Tamiya tape and Gunze masking fluid to outline and fill in the areas, and the thin braces are custom decals – clear Superscale decal film oversprayed first with Interior Green, then Midnight Blue, and finally Micro Satin. I made a piece 30 x 48 mm and should be cutting strips from it for many years to come. I used my “Chopper” mini guillotine to precision-cut a single strip, which provided the four short pieces necessary (I didn’t get fancy with the 45-degree corners of the bracing strips – tis is meant to be a simple project, after all).

I went with a mixed version of USN Midnight Blue (An 607/FS 25042), as I had read and agreed with the observation that Tamiya’s shade (XF-17) was too dark. I tried the mixing ratio of XF-17 : XF-8 : XF-2 at 5:3:2, this producing a slightly brighter and lighter blue. The original was not a full gloss, so Microscale Satin was the perfect finish, right out of the airbrush. I used the Academy instrument decal and going by the way it went on the kit sheet would probably have been usable, but I intended from the start to go with Superscales for this build, 72-737 being my choice, simple markings for a -5 from an unidentified unit toward the end of the war.

The support straps running under the belly tank should be in natural metal, and if I ever locate my silver strip decals I’ll add them. Likewise with the bombs – lightened Olive Drab for scale effect, but the ordnance decals I remembered turned out to be 1:48^th scale, so if I ever find smaller ones I may add them and perhaps a clear coat to dull down the weapons. In the same spirit, when I get some superglue in a fresher state I’ll look at adding a radio antenna, if I judge the mast strong enough to take the mild but constant pull of EZline.

It came out very nicely and is my first Hellcat ever – I built a Wildcat as a kid, if memory serves, but never its successor.

I can’t wait to get a Corsair into this mixed blue – it looks better, to my eye, than any I’ve had out of a jar or can so far. Mind, it’s a good job I wasn’t trying for a high gloss, or I’d have been very disappointed, as I have yet to learn the trick of keeping dust and micro-fine hairs out of the painting space.

Next up looks like being a Spit, and maybe a Phantom is impending…

Cheers, Mike