Tamiya A34 Comet

[Jakko]

At the model show I spent last weekend at, I bought a Tamiya A34 Comet kit to build there. Of course it didn’t get finished, though I think that if you were to build throughout the show, rather than walking around (occasionally) and sit around chatting (a lot), you could probably build this whole kit over a two-day model show.

Saturday afternoon 12:15 hours:

Sunday afternoon 16:27 hours:

In between, I didn’t take any pictures of progress The outer wheels will only be fitted after painting, and what you can’t see is that I asked another modeller, who had brought his airbrush, compressor and paints, to spray the sides of the hull and parts of the track in a mud colour before I installed the wheels and tracks, because I didn’t want to run the risk of bare plastic being visible later because paint couldn’t reach it.

Tonight, I continued, which mainly meant fitting the smaller details:

The only thing I added myself was an eye from copper wire, to connect the ends on one side of the tow cable. This is because British tanks weren’t equipped with two tow cables, like most people (including those at Tamiya) think, but one tow cable that consisted of two cables connected by a teardrop-shaped eye, as it was meant to be used in a V-shape.

The engine deck has a bunch of handles that have been cast in, and which you could replace with copper wire or something, but I’ll put a couple of infantrymen on there so that those — if all goes well — will be barely visible anymore.

[Jakko]

Another hour and the turret was also done:

That basically finished the build, but I might just replace the handle on the loader’s hatch by copper wire. Now the figures.

[SSGToms]

Nice tight OOB build Jakko. Looks excellent.

[Jakko]

Thanks This is one of those kits that just falls together (in a good way ), really. It feels a bit like I’ve already put more work in the MiniArt figures than in the Taniya tank, and they only consist of torso, legs and arms at this point …

[Shermaniac]

Lightning fast work there and the kit looks amazing! Considering the level of difficulty associated with the T6 you are building, something like this could be an excellent way not to burn out on the other project.

[metalhead85]

Looks great Jakko.

I have the old Bronco kit in the stash somewhere….

[Jakko]

I built that when it first came out, straight from the box. Only later did I learn of its many minor problems. I intend to take a picture of the two together when this one is done

For now, with the tank finished, I’ve been working on the figures.

The tank commander is from the A34 kit, with added leads for his headphones and microphone. For some reason, Tamiya insists on moulding a web belt to their figures in pixie suits (both the loader — that I won’t use — and the figures in their Archer kit have this). The real overall had a built-in holster pocket exactly so vehicle crews wouldn’t need to wear a belt and a holster that might snag on things in the vehicle. They also put far too many folds in the garment — these are made from thick material plus a sewn-in liner. However, I’m not going to resculpt it so I just glued the holster to the belt. Maybe this particular commander prefers this.

The MiniArt figures have a similar problem with folds, IMHO, which is by no means uncommon to MiniArt figure sets. A lot of their figures seem sculpted as if they’re wearing thin cotton clothes rather than wool ones. Another problem with this set is that it has four figures who are supposed to be armed with rifles, and yes, it does come with four rifles, but only two of those are No. 4s, the other two are SMLEs. Also, it has plenty of helmets, but only the Mk. III with a camouflage net — but they’re far too big to fit the resin heads (that come in this version of the set). I’ll have to add nets to the Mk. II helmets myself.

[metalhead85]

Yes good point about the pixie suits, they were heavier from what I’ve seen than is usually depicted in figures. Alpine has a set of British tank crew with pixie suits and they look just right.

[Jakko]

A museum I’m a volunteer for has a real one, production date 1952 off the top of my head.

The outer material is heavier than decent jeans, the inner is lighter and softer, but still nowhere near light-weight.

[Jakko]

The figures are now mostly complete. I used the Mk. II helmets from the basic figure sprues (rather than the extra equipment sprues) and covered them in putty from a tube to sort of replicate a fine-mesh net. The personal equipment is also largely from the basic sprues, except the pouches of the standing man, which are from the extra sprues, as he’ll be a Bren gunner.

[Jakko]

Today, I’ve been digging through my boxes with accessories to find and make stowage for the tank:

It’s from a number of different manufacturers: a plastic box from a Tamiya kit, resin boxes by Panzer Art and Value Gear, jerrycans (British and German) and an oil can from Bronco, while the tracks on the front plate are the four links you’ll have left after building this kit. I’m thinking of putting some more stuff under a tarp on the engine deck.

The jerrycans on the turret are odd, but with thanks to @jpwaller on Missing-Lynx:

Notice that all three that are visible, appear to have the spout downward, which is why I glued all of them on like that here, too.

[metalhead85]

Looks great so far Jakko. Are the Jerry cans welded to the turret?

[Shermaniac]

@Jakko

That’s looking nice!

[Jakko]

@metalhead85

Are the Jerry cans welded to the turret?

I don’t know, but I suspect they were. I couldn’t see any strings or wires in the photo of the real tank when I zoomed in on it, and anyway, how would you otherwise easily hang a jerrycan upside-down on a tank that has no tie-downs on its turret?

My thoughts are that they were intended as anti-Panzerfaust stand-off armour. Which, I just realised, might just explain the spouts facing down, too: if one gets hit, this wouldn’t send the spout flying off and possibly hitting a crewman in the face, but slam it into the hull roof instead.

[Shermaniac]

@Jakko

If they are welded onto the turret armor then they most likely were full of water prior to welding.

[Jakko]

If you say so — I know very little about the practical side of welding with anything other than solvents But yes, that would be a good reason for having the spouts downward, too.

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After a little trial, error and thought, I figured out how to put junk on the rear deck with a tarp over it:

Two scraps of 5 mm foam board and a bit of resin that used to be attached to a part from a resin kit The figures will (most likely) end up like so on top of this:

First, though, the glue needs to dry before I will stick an aluminium foil tarp over these bits.

Then I started looking at photos of real Comets to see where to add dirt in the wheel rims:

Not more than that, because it looks like it mainly stuck there. I used the texture gel you can see in the photo, as it has little “pearls” in it that give it a structure that will make it look like soil.

This also has the advantage of obliterating a detail that Tamiya missed. The real tank has a ridge there that you can see quite clearly:

Not that well here, I admit, because it’s covered in thin mud, but you can make out a ridge between the outer edge and the wheel disc. (This is Bovington’s Comet, on 10 September 2002. I took this photo, and a few more, at the time because the tank showed very well how mud spreads over the running gear.)

That ridge, BTW, is why AFV Club’s Centurion kits give you rubber tyres, that a lot of people appear to dislike, IMHO without good cause:

You can see the structure of the gel here, too. That’s still white here, but will dry transparent. It also shrinks a little, so you need to apply a bit more than you want to have on the model once it dries.