Author Topic: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)  (Read 6439 times)

Offline taiidantomcat

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Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« on: November 14, 2013, 03:54:47 AM »
A quick aside:

Why do I have so many unfinished kits?  ??? Well there are lots of reasons. Beyond the very standard What-If practice of abandoning a cool idea because you want to start on an even better cool idea you just thought of, and couldn't sleep because you kept thinking of even more things to add to it-- Which I believe we suffer from more than other conventional modelers-- There is what I call the "chess theory."

 Building a kit with sometimes wildly different aesthetics and paint and plans means there isn't always a step by step guide or instruction booklet you can turn to and sometimes it requires a lot of planning and there is no reference if you "lose your place" for lack of a better phrase. Multiple projects require a lot of mental effort as its like playing several chess games at once, each in a different place and different scenario. The worst thing is taking a half done kit and putting it aside for awhile as when you dig it out you may find yourself playing detective as to exactly what your idea or strategy was based on how the pieces were laid out or sketches you made. worse yet, pieces may have broken or become lost. It can get a little tiring. especially with a vexing problem you still don't know how to solve, or when you finally figure the puzzle out, you remember why you boxed it up in the first place (10 hours of PSR to go? Back into the box with you!) It can be very time consuming trying to figure out where you left off and despite all the clues and notes I leave for myself its not always clear, or of course you change your mind entirely!

OTOH, This tank is one that I have yet to find what made me box it up, it seems straight forward. I wonder if I was being too fussy about a few details, luckily I am in "just get it done" mode which can help clear away a lot of the perfectionist need that just leads to procrastination.




Original Post January 16 2011:

I was originally planning to put this on the Armorama What If GB but it fell well behind schedule, and I didn't even post a single pic!  :-\ I love the T-80 and T-64 and the Abrams of course so this is a natural for me. My backstory is that a frustrated Soviet tank designer looks at the new American Abrams and the old T-34 and realizes that the Russians have moved too far away from their roots of sloped armor. So a with a little copying (borrowing ;)) Of the Abrams style with soviet design results in the T-83:












this is supposed to represent an early version of the T-83, with new Kontakt 5 Reactive armor and side skirts retrofitted. The majority of Russian pieces are from a DML T-80U kit I got when I was 11(!) and has been scrapped along with removing the paint for spares. T-64 road wheels, sanded and adjusted to fit the abrams hull (All 28 of them  :banghead: ) T-64 Kontakt 5 from SP designs. There are some Challenger and T-72 pieces there as well too.
Still a lot of work to do, but finally to phase where I can show something!

One move and taking up far too much space in hot garage later I am here to show some progress:



The resin warped from the long term hot storage^

So i got the kettle going and got a few tweezers I was extremely nervous about bending it too much and breaking it, and then something amazing happened:



I poured the hot water on it and it just righted itself. I never even had to touch it. Magic water. Easiest fix I have ever had in my entire history of modelling.

"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline Brian da Basher

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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #1 on: November 14, 2013, 04:58:32 AM »
Nice, Mr Tomcat. Glad to see you're getting this Machine of Supreme Intimidation back on the road (to being finished)!

Brian da Basher

Offline father ennis

  • I got paint older than most of you guys ...
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #2 on: November 14, 2013, 09:53:20 AM »
Looking good there,dude ! 
I may be old but I'm not dead ... yet anyway ... !!!    And NO I did not know Richard III !!!!!!

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #3 on: November 14, 2013, 09:53:43 AM »
Looking good, TT! Keep it happening! :D

:)

Guy
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline taiidantomcat

  • Plastic Origamist...and not too shabby with the painting either!
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #4 on: November 14, 2013, 11:42:28 PM »
Looking good, TT! Keep it happening! :D

:)

Guy


Will do!







Barrel replacement. This was another project that I thought would take a long time of cutting and adjusting and then it took about 2 minutes! So I'm happy  :D
"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline father ennis

  • I got paint older than most of you guys ...
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #5 on: November 15, 2013, 07:52:58 PM »
I've had good results making a thermal jacket from toilet paper soaked in white glue with clamps made from evergreen strips.  I'm really liking what you got going here,my friend. It's looking very impressive. I'm excited to see more of this...
I may be old but I'm not dead ... yet anyway ... !!!    And NO I did not know Richard III !!!!!!

Offline mrvr6

  • Accidentally created a Tejas….
Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2013, 02:13:22 AM »
thats a really good explanation of whiffers curse lol

i forget nearly everything but i tend to be fairly consistent about problem solving ie theres a good chance il come up with the same solution i did in the 1st place lol


ps the target looks great

Offline Claymore

  • It's all done with smoke and mirrors!
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #7 on: November 18, 2013, 03:04:41 AM »
Great work.  You just can't beat some heavy metal whiffing!  :)
Pass the razor saw, there is work to be done!

Offline taiidantomcat

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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #8 on: November 27, 2013, 02:18:34 AM »
Thanks everybody!

I was going to post some pics, but Flickr has a layout that is so pants-on-head stupid I am probably going to have to find a new image hosting site  :icon_punal:

Here is the wonderful feedback so far and this stupidity:

https://yahoo.uservoice.com/forums/230780-flickr-photo-page-beta/

Very frustrating.  :icon_killbill:

Anywho, I figured it out:



Nostalgia Alert!! This is built from parts recycled from previous projects this turret storage top was first painted when I was 11! The newsprint got stuck on there after I Impatiently flipped it to spray paint the other side 20 years ago. I was young what can I say? I have gotten better-- Now I don't paint on newspaper before flipping them too soon  ;D



Lots of little road wheels I spray painted things black to experiment with "shadows" more on that later.





Turret progress.  :) (Compare to the first pics.)



painted treads
"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #9 on: November 27, 2013, 02:34:22 AM »
Coming along nicely!
All hail the God of Frustration!!!

You can't outrun Death forever.
But you can make the Bastard work for it.

Offline taiidantomcat

  • Plastic Origamist...and not too shabby with the painting either!
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Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #10 on: December 12, 2013, 12:25:03 AM »


So I did a test fit and found something I didn't like The fenders are not only larger than what is on a normal abrams but they stick way far out too. I'm not usually a stickler for a lot of things, but having fenders that stick out about 3 scale feet past the tread just looked weird. Fixing them though, meant that the Idler would be even further ahead of the first road wheel and would probably ensured that would look weird too. So I decided on the lesser of two evils and moved Idlers forward and down:





The camera was not cooperating but hopefully you can see the idler lower and further forward on the hull... getting close on this one.
"They know you can do anything, So the question is, what don't you do?"

-David Fincher

Offline Old Wombat

  • "We'll see when I've finished whether I'm showing off or simply embarrassing myself."
  • "Define 'interesting'?"
Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #11 on: December 12, 2013, 12:28:27 PM »
Neat answer to a vexing problem, TT.

Bet she'd look good without the side plates with the rakish angle of the return run of the tracks! ;)

:)

Guy
"This is the Captain. We have a little problem with our engine sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and, ah, explode."

Offline Claymore

  • It's all done with smoke and mirrors!
  • Alt Hist AFV guy with a thing for Bradley turrets
Re: Taiidan Tomcat's Entry(s?)
« Reply #12 on: December 13, 2013, 05:15:27 AM »
Looking great.  :)
Pass the razor saw, there is work to be done!