CyberHobby M-46 Patton
I am working on and off on a series of Patton tanks from the M-46 to the M-60A3 and this is part of that idea. American armor is for the most part kind of boring, especially the earlier stuff since color choices are OD or OD or perhaps OD. I decided to change this up a little and depict this as a model of a Patton from the 6th Tank Battalion, 24th Infantry in Korea, 1951.
The CyberHobby kit was the only M-46 kit in 1/35 available at the time this one was built. It's actually pretty nice; the only complaints I had about is were a rather nasty seam to fill between the turret halves and the tracks which are Dragon DS. I don't mind DS tracks, matter of fact I like them but these came with individual styrene guide teeth which was an awful job.
Once the tracks were painted I went to install them on the running gear and both sides promptly broke. Giving the problem some thought, I went to the LHS and picked up the Tamiya rebox of the old Italeri M-47 and stole the nice new tool Tammy tracks for this project.
The model was primed with Tammy fine grey rattlecan primer and then a red and yellow mix of something I don't remember was applied in the spots orange was required. Then the orange areas were masked and Tammy XF-62 was applied. Tiger stripes were hand painted with Tammy XF-1 ftat black. The tiger mouth decal was very difficult to position correctly and if it was not for Micro Sol it would not have gone on. Dirt and mud are various MIG and AK products.
I built the base in conjunction with the model so I could fit an articulated suspension to a particular spot. Air dry clay on the roadway with AK earth textures on the sides painted and covered with grass tufts from WW II scenics and Frediricus Rex. The grass was airbrushed in dark green then green with increasing amounts of yellow in each succesive layer. First I've done this and I like the effect.
Very nice result.
Thank you sir
The paint scheme came out great, nice looking M-46.
Thank you sir as it turned out the paint scheme was not as difficult as I thought it'd be
Very nice looking tiger armor, Mark @markh
Thank you sir
Excellent result on a very cool tank! The M46 looks great Mark @markh!
I'm pretty sure the 6th was the only outfit ever to paint tanks in such a garish fashion, I don't think I'd want to stand out like they must have. Thanks for the positive comments
Very nice armor! I am a little curious as to the modelling purpose of the .45 cal, though. Does the the kit need to be threatened together, or is it modelling motivation? 'Victory, or death!'
It's actually a Glock 32 in .357 SIG. I was taking it to clean and had to set it down to run the camera. I did threaten the model with it but the model remained unimpressed. Thanks for looking glad you like it
Beautifully done! Great job on the tiger.
Thank you sir
Nice work on this Mark, actually in the middle of building the same kit. I am at the point of building the tracks, using the AFV Club track set, It is a slow task building that set to say the least and quite frustrating. I like your suggestion of just using the tracks from another kit. Simple way to get around the AFV set. This will be an overall USMC Korean war OD scheme. So thanks for the inspiration.
Sometime in the past I tried the same AFV Club track set you're battling now, took me a day to get one run together and then it promptly fell apart upon handling. Next stop was the garbage bucket. Oddly enough, this company's track sets for the M-48, M-60 and M-1 assemble with great ease and look excellent ya gotta wonder what went wrong. You're quite welcome, and I'll be keeping an eye out for yours
Excellent model! I shy away from Dragon kits because of the parts count and ridiculous break down of pieces. I have the M-26 and each link is 5 pieces (IRC). That is what is keeping me from building it. I like the articulated wheels.
Thanks for the nice comments
I've done quite a few Dragon kits and am tired of them also, all I have left in the stash is one of their Panzer II's. Having built the kit before I'm aware of all the fit issues and mousetraps but what keeps me from starting it is the dust particle size Tragic Tracks. The first time was awful and I see no reason to think the experience will improve on the second.
This M-46 is one of their older kits and at the time they'd not yet gone overboard with the teeny parts or the five part assemblies that everyone else molds in one; it was actually an enjoyable build
That's a really nice tiger camo:)!
Thank you sir