 1/48 Tamiya M10 Michael Van Kesteren Possibly the most controversial thing to happen in modelling recently isn’t, surprisingly, the overstuffed boxes by Dragon and Trumpeter appearing on the shelves, but Tamiya’s decision to produce 1:48 scale armour kits. These have started many a flame war on forums between people adamant about 1:35 being the one and only true scale vs. people who tell them to shove off because they’ve been around longer than 1:35 scale and between people who think they’re okay, but won’t buy them vs. people who tell them they should loosen up and give them a go. The former debates are generally much better to eat popcorn to than the latter, but only if you can stomach grown men crying. For me personally I think they’re a tidy little addition to the range of scales going from 1:286 right up to 1:6. Why should we let aircraft modellers have all the fun, eh? They’re also great for people, like myself, who live in cramped quarters and don’t feel like staring at 3mm parts on 1:72 kits all the time. Whats in the box? Tamiya does a lovely job of over packaging in a nice eye pleasing way. Where as their direct competitors put seperate ‘special’ parts in plain white card boxes or in plastic bags, Tamiya goes all out and puts the die-cast lower chassis in a nice blister package inside the box. Totally unnecessary, but you feel like you’ve got something special in your hands. Not a bad thing considering the price is almost that of a 1:35 version of the same thing by Academy. On the other hand, Skybow outdoes them with their snazzy Tiger boxes. Besides the die-cast chassis there are 5 sprues of olive green plastic, a small bag containing polycaps and self tapping screws, a decal sheet with options for 3 M10’s and a 10 page highly understandable fold-out instruction booklet (quite the opposite of Dragon’s 3-1 Flak 36 stereogram). All three decal options are for American vehicles. Putting it all together. As always, Tamiya’s excellent, clear instructions make assembly straightforward. The kit fits nicely together and can be built in a few hours sitting on a sunny porch (like I did..). The one thing that sets this kit apart from its brethren is the inclusion of a through-the-hatch interiour. It’s a two piece affaire (floor with driver + co-driver seats and the rear bulkhead) that’s detailed ‘enough’ for the job its got to do. There are a pair of ammuntion racks that glue into the inside of the upper hull to hide the whopping great holes where the sponsons would normally be. Why, Tamiya? Why? The Panther gets a pair of covers for these, but why not the Shermans? Ho-hum. Another sad thing is the lack of proper grab handles. The handles are all molded as a tab sticking up from their hatches. Seeing as I haven’t told Ausfwerks where I live yet and thus haven’t gotten a bendicator yet I left them as is. In fact the entire kit is out of the box. On the plus side the tools are all separate pieces. The tracks are link and length. They (link and length in general) tend to get a love-hate reception. Some love them, others hate them. If done well they’re great. However sometimes they can end up a little too short or half a link too long. Not so with the M10. They all fit together perfectly and are exactly the right length. I departed from my usual approach of making each side into a drive and return section by gluing them all in place. I thus ended up with the entire lower hull as a sub-assembly. Other sub assemblies were the upper hull, turret halves, gun breech, gun barrel and mantlet, turret ammunition and hull interiour.    Pass the crayons! Time to make things pretty. I started by spraying the entire thing flat black. Bad idea. I thought I’d tackle it like I did the 1:72 and build up the colours, however a little dispute I had at customs in Amsterdam meant I had to leave my airbrushes needle behind before coming to South Africa. This meant I had to borrow an ancient single action Badger that has a binary paint flow on it (nothing or an inch of paint…). This wee setback, plus my getting back to grips with enamels meant I was having a harder time than normal painting this thing. In the end I decided to paint the upper hull and turret Tamiya khaki drab and the lower hull Tamiya dark earth. This would be the basis for my weathering, as I was intending to make it a seriously dirtly little tank. A couple of coats of Future (pot pourri scented. That’s all they had at the shops) was the base for the decals and a wash with oils. Now I had a shiny and lovely smelling M10 staring at me. The decals went on with some micro set and micro sol. Beware of the star on the front of the hull. Micro sol works exceptionally well on these decals, and they tend to wrinkle badly around the four bolts on the glacis. The one on the kit in the pics was a second attempt. A sprinkling of more pot pourri scented Future and it received a wash with black oil paint. A drybrushing with lightened tan oil paint followed, then all was sealed in with a humbrol flat varnish. Time for the rest of the weathering! Fish with your chips, sir? I’ve recently been very impressed with how people have been doing paint wear and tear. I decided to try and replicate some of the things I’ve seen by taking a fine brush and added a few strategic chips with humbrol dark red-brown. I then took some nice and thin (but still opaque) Tamiya buff and carefully outlined some of the chips. This gave a wonderful sense of depth to the chips that I’m quite proud of. I then added a few scrapes with buff on the sides of the hull, but might have been a tad heavy handed at times. Next time I’ll use artists pencils instead for greater control. Migs on your tail. I decided to weather entirely with Mig products. The mud was a mixture of some organic roots I found in a plant pot, some plaster of Paris, Mig European dust pigment and Mig acrylic resin. I made a nice muddy consistency and applied this to the front, rear, running gear and hull sides. This was followed by a wash of Mig Europe and Light dust pigments in a mixture of methelated spirits (denatured alcohol) with water. This was the only medium that didn’t melt the paint again. An added bonus was that it dries quickly. By now I had a lovely muddy looking tank, but it was looking a tad monochromatic. For interest I dabbed the odd wash of meths + water and Mig dark mud pigment on several spots on the roadwheels and lower hull to give the impression of mud that’s still a bit damp. I used a mix of europe and light dust dry to dust up the upper hull. The great thing about these pigments is that the washes can be toned down and blended with a stiff, dry brush. The rust on the grousers was done in 4 stages. First a thick-ish wash of meths and water, black smoke pigment, vietnam earth pigment and standard rust pigment. Second a lighter spot wash of standard rust pigment in meths + water, Third came a dry dusting with light rust and finally a q-tip with the new gun metal pigment was rubbed onto the grousers for a metallic burnished look. The gun metal was also applied in this way to the gun breech, muzzle opening, travel lock and various high traffic areas such as grab tabs, eh, handles and the turret edge and also to the M2 machine gun on the turret. Last but not least Black smoke pigment was used for the exhaust smoke and also rubbed with a q-tip onto the chevrons on the tracks. I loved the way that worked out and will definitely be using that method more often, maybe adding some dirt coloured pigment to the mix too.    And in conclusion… I really enjoyed this kit. It goes together wonderfully and maybe with a few minor additions can be made into an absolute gem. I’m quite happy with the way it turned out and can only hope I don’t stuff up the Panther I’m now trying to finish.  copyright©2006 ausfwerks |