I had already broken one of the hinges for the commander's hatch, and so had set it aside, with the broken part and the intact hinge taped to it. When I got ready to try some preshading, I found that I had lost the intact hinge. Typical for this modeler...I didn't spend much time looking for it-I had vacuumed in there since then I think. I had to laminate some Evergreen sheet to get the thickness I needed and then it took a couple tries before I scratched out a suitable replacement hinge. Painted, it looks good enough.
I don't think I preshaded anything on the other two tanksI built years ago. I doubt I had heard of it then. But in the interest of tryin' sumthin' new, I gave it a go. I used Testor's square bottle flat black and tried to give all the recesses a coat. I may not have done it heavily enough though. I had intended to spray the vinyl tracks flat black and forgot those today. I'll find some rattle-can black to give them a shot. Then, I'm anxious to try out a new color I bought. It's Humbrol enamel in "track color". Looks interesting anyway!
I took some pics to show a little progress. Not much to see really, but proof that I'm making headway with this one. Final paint will be the dark OD, Humbrol 66, mentioned above by Carlos.
A shot of the underside, showing the sponson bottoms before any preshading:
The "new" hinge:
The new lifting rings on the glacis plate, with the lights and guards:
Two fuel cans and the bustle rear:
Lift rings and turret, before preshade:
The right (SB) side before shading:
And the Port side in the same state:
And now some pics of some of the preshading:
And, that's all for now folks! Thanks for your interest and I look forward to posting further progress soon!
