The Atom Furnace: March 2022

I have never started a post before without at least having the kit in hand. Well, there is a first time for everything. Amazon reports arrival today, 3-19-2022. The last 1/72 model I built was an Airfix Curtiss Warhawk, built as Ken Taylors Pearl Harbor P-40B - a Pandemic project in August 2020. Since then I have been rehabbing old models or building 1/48 scale aircraft and 1/56 scale Bolt Action armor.

Arma Hobby is a Polish manufacture that reviewers have highly rated for accuracy and quality. They produce kits in 1/72 and 1/48 scales in three categories, Model Kit; Expert Set and Deluxe Set, with price points accordingly. I chose the expert set that includes some photoetch detail parts, masks for clear parts and wheels and expanded decal set. So now I wait!

The wait is over and the kit is on the bench. Since this is my first experience with Arma Hobby this post will be about the kit particulars as well as my struggles with the level of detail in this 1/72 scale kit. As I proceeded I realized that I needed some guidance besides the kit instruction, so I had Scalemates at the ready on my phone that contained tips on building. It provided an order to assembling parts, painting and adding decals. The first order of business is to open the box and see what we have.

Extensive decals, PE parts and masking for the clear parts and wheels (nice).

The PE includes an instrument panel, seat belts, engine wiring, cockpit controls etc.

The sprues are super clean (new high tech molds), great panels lines and flat (not glossy) exterior surfaces.

This rather dark photo shows the first three parts assembled with the PE instrument panel attached and all painted interior green. The PE results in more of a 3D look and as you will see next allows for the cover decals to mold into the 3D relief.

This is why Micro Sol or Solvaset is so important - to melt those decals into place!

Next up is the addition of seat belts to the seat. The Scalemate tips provide the order of gluing seat belts to their attachment points on the rear and sides of the seat. The decals are then overlaid on the PE belts after which they can be bent into position and tacked down with cyano. gel. The tweezer gives good scale to how small this construction really is.

Here is an example of teeny-weeny decals that are placed on PE prior to installing onto cockpit components. Unfortunately I did not photograph each of the PE parts or decals being applied to the cockpit control pieces.

But here are all the components in place. I think it is real good detail at this scale and it was very fiddly to do (for me at least).

The positive for me is that a dry fit into the fuselage showed me that I put this stuff together correctly!

Next up is the forward bulkhead. The PE chain and sprockets were easy to place on the molded nubs and glue in place. The interior in front of the cockpit is to be painted the same as the "underside" which for my version (4) is Matt White. A word about that choice. There are 6 different versions based on exterior paint and decal choice. When I researched and found that Wildcats (FM-2) from CVE-60, USS Guadalcanal were involved in the capture of the U-505, the choice became easy for me. Those Wildcats are Dark Gray and White!

Well this almost elicited $#@&^ from me. The first two pieces of the complex landing gear have to go in before closing up the fuselage. The first triangle was easy as it fits into a notch at the base of the bulkhead. The second piece has a 5 point attachment; two points at the top ends of the first triangle and three points to the fuselage. This is where that third hand would be nice. The loctite Gel is needed so as to hold the second piece to the first at the end points while positioning the bottom of the second piece to the fuselage attachment points. Why, gosh, that sounds easy - until the second piece decided to attach itself to the end of my xacto! As I freed the piece loose from the tip it began it's long fall toward the gaping jaws of the carpet monster😱 NOOOOO, this is a component that CAN'T be lost. To my hands and knees I went - nothing. I took a break for the men's room. As I lowered the sweat pants I was wearing there the little guy was staring up at me (no, not that little guy) part number two was stuck to the right pant leg - Whew! As you can see. I was able to re-attach the part fully. Crisis averted.

Closure Happens!

The cockpit structure does keep the halves from seamlessly coming together, but it will not be much of a gap to fill.

The engine is next - that should be fun!

The best way to show the engine build is above. It consists of four plastic parts and PE. The rear bulkhead and cylinders are painted gun metal, the hub is engine gray and the rods are black

You can see the prop shaft sticking out of the housing - it does turn. I was concerned when applying adhesive to the housing since the shaft is fitted in between the cylinders and the housing.

Now comes the PE wiring harness. The harness is in two PE pieces. The ring tabs get glued to the housing after which the individual wire strands can be bent to their position on the cylinders. It was not as fiddly as I thought it would be. It is supposed to end up looking like the following:

Not too bad IMHO.

The tail is two pieces. The plane fits snuggly and really does not even need glue.
The elevator tabs are perfect and easy to glue to the plane. The rudder is similarly attached. The assembly results in nice detail.

Since this is version 4 I am going to employ the rockets that are included. The inside of the wing has wonderful molded rings to hold the pin vise bit to drill the necessary holes for attaching the hard points later. Also note that the three piece cowl has been installed.

Starting to look like a Wildcat now with the wing halves glued together and then attached to the fuselage. Very little seam work will be needed.

I was a bit nervous about the landing gear as it is a rather complex tangle of struts and shocks and reading reviews said the Jig included in the subsequent F4F version helps with the assembly. This is 4 separate pieces carefully snipped from the sprue and bent (as the instructions indicate to fit into the notches of the gear legs. Attaching the struts to the sturdy center yoke was not an issue and the struts were flexible so as to position the ends into the receiving notches in the gear legs as can be seen below....

Now wait a minute, that gear looks familiar, like on the Lunar Lander. My brother reminded me, "well. Grumman was the prime contractor for the lander", something I forgot!

I was also painting and decaling the prop. The decal sheet had yellow half moons for the prop tips, but that is a bit much I thought and, for me, much easier to paint. Let's get back to the Wildcat itself!

I thinned out some Navy acrylic and used my fine tip to try some pre-shading of the very fine panel lines. Now to mask the cockpit and engine go the spray booth.

The gray is on the light side and I need additional masking of the gray to spray more white and define the boundary, but the pre-shading worked fairly well.

Again - pre-shading looks ok.

Armaments for the North Atlantic FM-2 was 4 machine guns (reduced from 6) and rockets with explosive warheads that were able to penetrate a surfaced U-Boat hull. These are are a 2 part construct with the fins being separate. It was easy due to the arrangement on the sprue which allowed the attachment to the rocket body and then snipping off the sprue attachment after the glue was set! Paint was applied while on the sprue and touched up after. There are two decals per rocket. The ones on the olive color portion are difficult to see at this scale, but they are there.

Masks are always fiddly to place at any scale, but at least these are included I you don't have to make your own.

I'd give the result an 8 out of 10 - nothing is perfect. I won't show what the wheel masks were like. It was a disaster on the front side. I have to redo by hand. I think the version 3 wheels are better suited to the mask.

Inserting the landing gear assembly was not hard, but I did have to do a bit of trimming and when I pushed the yoke home into the fuselage a couple of the strut attachment points popped loose and have to be re-glued. But I got it in and the wheels attached.

The rockets were easily attached in the holes I drilled, plus I had applied the Bars and Stars. The kit decals release easily and quickly from the backing so be ready with the Micro Sol.

The prop was glued to the shaft🙏

👍

A word about decals. Everything has been included on the decal sheet. At this scale it is fiddly at best to apply the tiny ones much lass the extremely tiny ones. This close up shows that the decals can be read - some even with the naked eye! This macro photo also exaggerates the white overspray - oh well, it's not too bad considering.

Almost complete. The canopy has been set in place and the antenna. Monofilament will be used for the version 4 radio wire.

Holes drilled for the up wire and the extra antenna forward of the vertical stabilizer. Monofilament is glued to the tail and tied and glued to the antenna. The up wire is glued to the fuselage and then tied and glued to the horizontal to pull it taut.

Bottom side shows the rockets and some weathering.

Finally with her mates in Bill's 1/72 museum.

These are two of the Allied tanks used by the "Desert Rats" against Rommel's Afrika Corp. 1940-1943.

I like the early armor with all of those rivets! Actually Brother Bob (Little Bro) inspired me, as he often does, with his recent Italian M13/40. I will not go into great detail as these models are quick builds but as Jack Reacher says ..."Details Matter" so I will point out certain things I think made these kits pop.

Desert Tan is the primary color which makes detailing a bit easier than a severely camouflaged model. I did use a combination of black and silver to color the tracks after which I applied touches of the Tamiya Weathering.

As usual I rely on the Tamiya Weathering Master for grit and grime, rust and soot.

A simple gentle rubbing of the rivets and other protrusions make them stand out nicely. This is the Mk II turret with the first upgrade of a short 6pdr main gun

A nice option in the instructions is the suggestion to forgo the clunky headlight parts in favor of installing wire using the mold supplied on the sprue.

Here is the initial result of bending and gluing in the wire headlight protection bars. You will see the final result later. Note the small turret above the headlight......

.....it is another of the many options in this kit. This machine gun turret was hand cranked and often removed, but I like the "dreadnought" look it gives so I used it.

There are also choices for skirts...

............ or not ......

.....as well as three turrets for the Mk II; Mk III and AA Mk III. Note the flags and antenna. The Mk III turret has a long 6pdr and the AA turret a pair of 20mm Oerlikon.

I drilled the antenna hubs so I could insert 26 gauge wire for radio and pennants. I picked up a tip online for using aluminum foil for the pennants/flags. Simply fold over with cyano for a foil sandwich, cut to shape and glue to the wire with more cyano, then paint. This works well for simple shapes and single color, but the process is also used with more complex decals (such as the Stars and Stripes) which can be glued to the foil. One more thing - the turret here is the Mk III with a spare road wheel and it has a blotch of dark green Camo that matches what I applied to the set of Mk III skirts.

Apply the Desert Rat markings (the decals are very good) and we have our Crusader Mk II. As I said before, now you can see the result of using wire for the headlight protecting shrouds.

NOW FOR PART TWO

THE M3 STUART

This is the M3 "Honey" turret of the Desert Rats. You can see the Rat decal symbol, which points out all of the components to use for the Desert Rat companion to the Crusader.

The M3 is a smaller tank so the parts are small and somewhat fiddly. Care must be used to trim the sprue attachments for the small parts to achieve proper fit. But we prevail and complete the British turret option.

I show this at the suggestion of a facebook group friend in order to demonstrate the scale of 1/56.

The track attachment is six pieces and care must taken to the order and direction of the pieces. They are tongue and groove so test fitting is important. The best order of install is the top, front, bottom and rear.

Although the Warlord kit includes an antenna installation the "rod" is too thick and out of scale so.....

......we snip it off, drill it out and insert our 26 gauge wire - better!

All of the hull components are attached and with this dry fit looking ok. Time to take the separate components to the spray booth. The tracks were already dry brushed with black as the Stuart had rubber in the tracks and wheels (which reduced vibration).

The light desert tan was applied and now the hull is glued to the carriage.

Lots of careful masking before we go back to the booth for the light gray application. I have touched up with flat black on recessed surfaces and machine guns in order to reduce the amount of final weathering needed.

Out of the booth with the gray spray; touched up and weathered and decals applied. All that is left is to paint the commander and add a pennant and we are ready for Africa!

"Well I'm bloody glad for that, it's hot as hell in here!

Once more the folded aluminum foil was used for the pennant.

I almost forgot to paint the tools on the backside! Now for the Commander.

And here he is in standard tanker garb. Black Beret with headphones and microphone. Mixed colors for skin tone and uniform. I added some patches on the sleeves, but hard to tell in this photo. The M3 'Honey' looks done and close to the instruction photo!