Been a while since I touched the VT 1-2. Somewhere along the way between airbrushing and now, I managed to lose an outer return roller. I presume it dropped off the toothpick that I use to support parts during painting. I have been hoping it would turn up, but to no avail. So now it is time to scratch build a replacement. Watch this space.
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If you weren’t on the other side of the world, I’d offer to send you one of the ones I have spare due to replacing them with Leopard 2 parts on mine.
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Appreciate the thought Jakko. Postage would probably be more than a kit cost!
I am going to use the built one as the inner wheel and use the kit inner as the outer one. Same wheel, just with a ’hub cap’. Here it is, good enough for Government Work, if nothing else.
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That’s what I was thinking, too 
The way you solved it is a good fix, you’ll barely be able to see it anyway on the completed model.
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I am struggling manfully with my own M4/M26 build, but hit a snag with the tracks. After starting a set of RFM T48s, I decided to cheat with a set of “Lazy Tracks” that I downloaded from Cults via the designer’s website. A friend printed them and I thought they looked great! But after getting everything painted and ready for assembly I tried offering them up to the Academy hull and found they were too long despite having the correct 79 links! (Yes, I counted them…) I could potentially cut them up to remove a link and then make good, but for now I’ve grabbed a set of Tasca band tracks that i know will fit. It seems the distance between sprocket and idler is too long - I measured my build and some other brands in my display cabinet and they are all about the same - 140mm axle to axle.
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This shows why I very much prefer kits with moveable idlers these days
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Okay, calling the Neubaufahrzeug done.
I kept it pretty basic; OOB all the way. Paint is Tamiya and AK Real; pigment is Vallejo.
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What is that anatomical drawing on the glacis plate?
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Supposedly an elephant’s head.
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Oh! Now you mention it, yes, it looks like that, kind of. But without, I couldn’t really make heads or tails of it. One of my thoughts was that part of it seemed to represent a pod full of peas, but I felt this to be an unlikely subject to paint on the front of a tank
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I would like to enter this campaign with a real oddball. It is a Best Tracklayer 75 from about 1917. It is not certain that it was even a real tank or even considered for production. Even worse, so little is known about it that it is not known if it was armored or just used a sheet metal covering over a wooden frame. The 75mm cannon looks suspiciously like wooden dowels.
The automotive parts were a standard Best tracklayer farm tractor. I would not be surprised to hear that after its work for the ARMY it was stripped of its outer “armor” and sold to a farmer.
The kit is one of those wonderful 3D printed jobs put out by Vargas Models. The parts count is low but much time needs to be taken cleaning up the parts, particulaly the hull. It really does look like someone overturned a fishing boat on top of a hapless tractor . . .
For reference, there is almost nothing, just a few newspaper accounts of its use in training, perhaps not even real training but only newspaper setup battles for propaganda value. “See, Uncle Sam has tanks too.”
The kit comes with no decals so I designed a set of my own and they are off to one of my favorite decal suppliers, Vintage Flyer. The markings, like other features of the model are open to debate. The few grainey newspaper photos do not agree on the features or makings so this is very much a best guess type of job.
This makes it a complete change from the normal research I like to do before any project.
Here is the start. Some of the parts have been cleaned up. The hull was quite a job with repeated sessions with putty & sanding sticks.
Paul
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Hi Paul, that looks great! But you’d better get your skates on as the campaign only has another month to run…
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Thank you, I had thought it had 9 months to run. I better check on those decals . . .
Paul
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That thing is cool.
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Paul, the good thing about the Best Tank campaigns is that anything started for one is eligible to be finished in the next! There will be a BTTNW5 campaign shortly after this one finishes (I run one each year), so your tank can slip into that one if it isn’t finished in time.
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That is great news in case I run into delays. I’ve already done the time consuming part getting the parts cleaned up and the rasters puttied & sanded. The decals will be the sticking point, my supplier had trouble with his equipment of unknown delay. He has several jobs for me, not just this one.
Paul
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Okay, getting into the last stages on the VT 1-2. Most manufacturers have you fit the two road wheels together, then add to the torsion bars. I never do this this, 1) because it is easier to fit the tracks up against the inner wheels, rather than try and slip the guide horns over the outers, and 2( You can fix any fit issues, like in this case. The fit on the road wheels is a little slack and track tension pulls them out of alignment. The remedy was to cut bits of 0.40 thou evergreen strip into short sections and insert in the gap around the bar.
Also, the return rollers are meant to be glued together with a tooth fitted into a groove, then added to the model. Getting the halves lined up correctly would be okay if kept separate, but I inserted lengths of rod into the centre holes so it was far easier to slip the two parts together for a perfect fit.
I am starting the pin wash and will do a little weathering before I attach the mirrors, etc…
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Looking excellent Peter, great progress.
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More work done on the Best 75 Tracklayer. It got a coat of a grayish green paint, a pure SWAG based on trying to devine a likely color from viewing poor quality photos. The red wheels seem an odd choice for a military vehicle but this thing was built on an agricultural tractor and red wheels were very common in that realm. I found a picture of a restored Best tractor with red wheels and tracks.
The custom decals arrived and were applied. This presented a problem as the model differs in a number of ways from the photos I was able to find. I applied them where they looked good with the model as it is. Only better source material will tell the real story.
Is this thing cool or what?
Paul
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