Tamiya A34 Comet
Posted: Fri Dec 01, 2023 10:54 am
Here we go,
Finally I succeeded to finish a building project, that took a few months all in all.
It was Tamiyas rather new A34 Comet, which as a kit is just so wonderful to build!
I made it to represent an A34 that was used by the Finnish army in the 50's and 60's, actually all the way until 1970!
On top of that, most of the Comets were stored until 2007, when the army finally and formally removed them from their inventory.
To make it a Finnish version, I had to order an AM decal set from a Swedish company "Star Decals". This just to be able to get the registration number with correct typeface/font. I cannot say I was too impressed of the print quality and on top of that, strong silvering unfortunately. I only used 4 decals in total, but that's probably the normal amount of decals anyhow when building armour
To make it look like the role model, "Ps 252-38", I "had" to do some scratch building; adding a storage box, kit bashing the smoke launcher from a Centurion kit I had in my stash and do some cosmetic changes (moving the spade to another place), making the gun barrells hollow.
Regarding the smoke launcher, what is a little bit special, that in this particular Comet the smoke launchers were only on one side of the turret.
But I am nevertheless pretty satisfied with the result, even if I have not weathered the kit at all. I would want to make it more "used", not overly, but some dust and dirt. But I feel I lack the correct skills at this moment to weather it and I don't want to use this kit as a guinea pig either.
I need simply to practice that first with another (read cheaper) kit.. :-)
Below some pics from the building process, ending to the finished product + it's rolemodel.
I am happy I succeeded finally to finish something, on top of that a tank!
The real Ps 252-38
- Kari
Finally I succeeded to finish a building project, that took a few months all in all.
It was Tamiyas rather new A34 Comet, which as a kit is just so wonderful to build!
I made it to represent an A34 that was used by the Finnish army in the 50's and 60's, actually all the way until 1970!
On top of that, most of the Comets were stored until 2007, when the army finally and formally removed them from their inventory.
To make it a Finnish version, I had to order an AM decal set from a Swedish company "Star Decals". This just to be able to get the registration number with correct typeface/font. I cannot say I was too impressed of the print quality and on top of that, strong silvering unfortunately. I only used 4 decals in total, but that's probably the normal amount of decals anyhow when building armour
To make it look like the role model, "Ps 252-38", I "had" to do some scratch building; adding a storage box, kit bashing the smoke launcher from a Centurion kit I had in my stash and do some cosmetic changes (moving the spade to another place), making the gun barrells hollow.
Regarding the smoke launcher, what is a little bit special, that in this particular Comet the smoke launchers were only on one side of the turret.
But I am nevertheless pretty satisfied with the result, even if I have not weathered the kit at all. I would want to make it more "used", not overly, but some dust and dirt. But I feel I lack the correct skills at this moment to weather it and I don't want to use this kit as a guinea pig either.
I need simply to practice that first with another (read cheaper) kit.. :-)
Below some pics from the building process, ending to the finished product + it's rolemodel.
I am happy I succeeded finally to finish something, on top of that a tank!
The real Ps 252-38
- Kari
A Cold War era Finnish Comet is sure an even more unique take on the subject. Bravo!