a7v tank by King Derelict - Emhar - 1/72

[king derelict]

I wanted to build a big AFV as a counterpoint to the tiny Renaults. So a couple of days ago this arrived. 

The Curtis looks like a great model. I hope I can find the nerve to start it in the coming months. The current focus is the Emhar a7v. The internet blurb states

In November 1916 the German War Ministry authorized the development of the A7V, which finally rolled out of the factory in January 1918. The first combat that the new tank saw was in March 1918 at St. Quentin.
The first 5 tanks were armed with a 5.7cm Maxim-Nordenfeldt cannon, which had been produced several years earlier in Britain! 6 German MG 08 pattern heavy machine guns were also carried. The tank was powered by 2 Daimler 165-204 type 75 Kw petrol engines and had a top speed of 6 ½ mph with a range of 50 miles. The crew was 18 men but as many as 26 could be carried. There were 20 A7Vs produced

Quite a contrast with the two man crew of the Renault.

The kit has about 35 parts and is never going to be confused with a Flyhawk kit although the detil is quite nice and there is very little flash and few seams. The tracks and running gear are moulded as a single assembly but very little of them will be seen when built. The underside is a bit simplistic but who will look?

The major annoyance with this model is the lack of positive locating features. The track assemblies just sit on the lower hull piece and its up to the modeller to decide where they are positioned. I lined up the rear drive wheel with the vestigial rear axle. The upper hull is made up of four skins which are chamfered as is the roof. The fit on mine was a bit marginal and even after a bit of filing I have a gap at the upper corner of the front 

The kit has a sprocket wheel at each end of the tracks which I think is an error and there should only be a sprocket at the rear (drive) end. Its more or less irrelevant because it will be all covered by the skirt of the upper hull but I did clean the teeth off the front wheel

The six machine guns were added before building up the hull. They press into their locations and I didn't fancy trying that with the walls and roof assembled. I hollowed out the end of the main gun barrel and installed it. That uses up all the parts except the exhausts and these are only applicable to one of the four tanks that can be built from the kit. I want to build the Mephisto (#506 - the box art) which doesn't have them so it is now time to paint. I deviated from the instructions by building the upper hull on three sides and roof as a separate assembly so I could paint the track assemblies before final build. Possibly the hull would have been easier to build on the lower part.

I think this one is going to be all about the painting.

Thanks for stopping by

Alan

 

[mtaylor]

The Germans is WWI and WWII were very good at re-purposing other countries' equipment, so the guns would come as no surprise.  I think that main gun that as British was designed in Germany.....   I need to do some Googling.... 

[Canute]

The lack of locating pins and very basic fitting is pretty typical of the limited run, niche market kits. A number of companies, such as Amodel and Emhar, come to mind. Do a good job prepping the fit before you paint and assemble and you'll see a nice model of that tank. You may need to tape the parts in place to glue them up, so you'd need to balance that with prepainting your parts.

[king derelict]

17 hours ago, mtaylor said:

The Germans is WWI and WWII were very good at re-purposing other countries' equipment, so the guns would come as no surprise.  I think that main gun that as British was designed in Germany.....   I need to do some Googling.... 

IT must have been an interesting experience being inside one of those with all guns firing

Alan

[king derelict]

11 hours ago, Canute said:

The lack of locating pins and very basic fitting is pretty typical of the limited run, niche market kits. A number of companies, such as Amodel and Emhar, come to mind. Do a good job prepping the fit before you paint and assemble and you'll see a nice model of that tank. You may need to tape the parts in place to glue them up, so you'd need to balance that with prepainting your parts.

HI Ken

Thanks for the information. It makes sense. Its still quite a nice kit. I did take the time to work on the chamfers between each panel and it makes a lot of difference. Your tip about taping the parts is good; it never occurred to me, I kind of barrelled into this without too much thought. Working on Flyhawk and Trumpeter kits has kept me in a sheltered environment. In retrospect it would have made far more sense to have painted the tracks and assembled them onto the lower hull and then built everything up on the lower hull and taped the corners. It would be easy to mask the running gear while painting the hull. I put a little filler on the hull and Io think it will come out fine when painted.

Thanks

Alan

[Baker]

An excellent choice.
I do have some info available about this model.

[Canute]

Alan, glad to help. 👍

[Baker]

On 10/26/2021 at 7:35 AM, mtaylor said:

The Germans is WWI and WWII were very good at re-purposing other countries' equipment, so the guns would come as no surprise.  I think that main gun that as British was designed in Germany.....   I need to do some Googling.... 

The cannons are from British/Belgium origin 

[Egilman]

Post war, if you study all the post war developments, you will find that for a period, that socket mount designed at Spandau was used by all nations as a quick efficient way to mount weapons up to any medium calibre.... 

 

They didn't change for ten years.... eventually as armor increased and the need for more and more powerful guns came into being, the carriage mount model became standard using horizontally mounted elevation mechanism so they could get the optical aiming devices closer to LOS which made them more accurate...

 

Even at the start of WWII you will still see some designs using it....

[popeye the sailor]

it's not just short run kits that have locator issues.......I've ben building brands that I've never heard of lately,  and the lack of tabs or pins has been somewhat of an irritant.  even Revell,  which I'm quite accustomed building,  has been skimpy in this respect.  it depends on the kit really........just be sure you got a good fit before you commit to glue.  definite quick builder...  

[king derelict]

On 10/27/2021 at 3:44 AM, Backer said:

An excellent choice.
I do have some info available about this model.

Thanks Patrick

I have that book on order. I am struggling a bit with the base colour for the hull of Mephisto. The kit calls out FS.16118 which i understand to be Gunship Grey which has an equivalent as Tamiya XF-24 deck grey which is quite dark. The box art looks a bit lighter and Mephisto at the Queensland museum looks like its painted in sand . brown / green camouflage. Do you have any insights?

Thanks

Alan

[king derelict]

I found this interesting section while searching for paint colours for the hull of Mephisto, the tank I plan to model

I'm sure the mechanics role was a highly sought after post.

 

I painted the tracks, added a black wash and then some basic weathering. The running gear is pretty much covered by the hull so thought I would get it started before adding the hull. The hull was added and the rear part pf the hull put in place. A little putty is needed at the top corners; the mould seems to have rounded the corners leaving a slight gap. That completes assembly of all the parts. The painting of the hull should be fun. I'm trying to decide how much weathering is appropriate. It seems like they weren't around long enough to be really rusted and their limited clearance kept them out of the muddiest fighting.

 

 

[Baker]

10 hours ago, king derelict said:

The box art looks a bit lighter and Mephisto at the Queensland museum looks like its painted in sand . brown / green camouflage. Do you have any insights?

Not much actually.
It's been a long time since I've built a German WW1 tank 
I'm going to look in my book first.

[Baker]

Results. 

Base color : (factory color) field Grey

Camouflage  : red brown, light green and lime yellow.

 

[king derelict]

7 hours ago, Backer said:

Results. 

Base color : (factory color) field Grey

Camouflage  : red brown, light green and lime yellow.

 

Hi Patrick

Thank you very much for the paint information. It sounds like the Queensland museum got it right I think. That is a huge help. Thanks again

Alan

[king derelict]

I've been getting bogged down with the corvette build so progress has been slow here. I decided that I like the box art paint scheme in spite of the historical evidence to the contrary. We will assume that it is in its initial field grey and there was only time to break it up with a brown pattern.

So the basic grey has been added. I'm playing with masks for the brown parts but I want to get a soft edge to the paint so I'm thinking I need to stand the mask off the model.

Thanks for looking in

Alan

 

[lmagna]

You can always do it in black and white and paint the word "COW" on the side. Everyone knows you are not supposed to shoot cows during hunting season.

 

I like the progress you are making

[mtaylor]

11 minutes ago, lmagna said:

You can always do it in black and white and paint the word "COW" on the side. Everyone knows you are not supposed to shoot cows during hunting season.

 

I like the progress you are making

I thought cows were supposed to be targets by those that think a cow is just really fat deer that tastes good.   When I lived in a small town a long time ago, the local paper every year printed a front page article the week before hunting season in big type about making sure your cows, horses, and other furry critters were out of the fields.  They did the same for chickens and ducks being away from the ponds before bird season.  

[king derelict]

On 11/2/2021 at 8:58 PM, lmagna said:

You can always do it in black and white and paint the word "COW" on the side. Everyone knows you are not supposed to shoot cows during hunting season.

 

I like the progress you are making

Thank you Lou. It feels like its been stalled for a while.

I think you are onto something with the camouflage. This could have a devastating effect on the Allies

Alan

[Old Collingwood]

Just dont let them try to milk it........

 

OC.

[mtaylor]

Make it look like a cow and I guarantee someone will try to shoot it.   

[king derelict]

I thought a bit more about the camouflage scheme and scanned the paint scheme illustrations from the kit. I then printed them on light card stock scaled up to the kit dimensions. I cut out the brown sections on the card and created some similar patterns for the side not shown in the art work or paint scheme. I rolled out some blue tack to about 1mm thick and cut slices which I used to space the card masks off the model. Tape was used to seal the corners and hold it all together

It looks a bit of a dogs dinner but I think its functional

 

 

I airbrushed Tamiya Flat Brown in light coats and then removed the masks

 

 

 

I am happy with the soft edges of the brown areas but I think the shade of brown may be a little light. I quite like the look so it may stay that way. If so I will begin the detail painting, some washes and weathering.

Thanks for looking in

Alan

[Old Collingwood]

That is looking so nice Alan   - that soft edge masking has come out spot on.

 

OC.

[Canute]

Definitely like the way your soft edges turned out; well done. 👍

[lmagna]

Looks much better than a black and white cow Alan. I don't know virtually anything about these vehicles but I would think that camouflage was pretty much a mute thing given where and how they were used. A little hard to hide the largest thing in the area and one of the few moving. 

Edited November 5, 2021 by lmagna

[Egilman]

That's the way soft feather edge camo is done brother...

WELL DONE!!

[mtaylor]

5 hours ago, lmagna said:

Looks much better than a black and white cow Alan. I don't know virtually anything about these vehicles but I would think that camouflage was pretty much a mute thing given where and how they were used. A little hard to hide the largest thing in the area and one of the few moving. 

Don't forget the noise either.   Engine, tracks... etc. and maybe exhaust smoke.  Seems to me, that such a beast would draw fire.

[king derelict]

21 hours ago, Old Collingwood said:

That is looking so nice Alan   - that soft edge masking has come out spot on.

 

OC.

Thank you for the kind comment OC. I think I learned a new technique with this. I'm happy with the result

Alan

[king derelict]

11 hours ago, Canute said:

Definitely like the way your soft edges turned out; well done. 👍

Thanks for the nice comment Ken, something that will be useful in other builds. I might try some aircraft soon.

Alan

[king derelict]

9 hours ago, lmagna said:

Looks much better than a black and white cow Alan. I don't know virtually anything about these vehicles but I would think that camouflage was pretty much a mute thing given where and how they were used. A little hard to hide the largest thing in the area and one of the few moving. 

Not only moving but spitting rounds in all directions too probably. I guess its a military thing. Salute it or paint it.

Alan