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It wasn't until I found the Reviresco site on the Web that I was able to fulfill this dream. The kit comes with about 25 white metal parts. Some clean-up is necessary for flash and such. Everything fit incredibly well, except the turret. I had to grind away at the turret ring as well as the inside of the turret. I even had to lightly tap the top of the turret (protected with folded rag) with a small hammer to get it to sit right.
A little putty here and there filled the gaps -- mostly where the bonnet meats the body. And sanding didn't even affect the white metal details!
The instructions call for an overall medium gray scheme. I chose neutral gray. Decals are from a set of railroad letters by Superscale.
Reviresco calls it the Strassenpanzerkraftwagen, any translations are welcomen! Everything went together well, including the turret. No mention in the instructions on painting, so I selected a dark gray. The Eisenkruze were taken from the spares box.
Kit: Emhar (1:72)
Here is Emhar’s A7V. It is a very simple and easy kit to build. It really is more like a wargame piece with all its snap-on parts. I choose to paint in a monochromatic scheme based on the Osprey book, “German Panzers 1914-18.”
Kit: Imrie-Risley (1:32)
I assembled and painted this figure as part of a non-WW1 related collection. I doubt I will do anymore OT figures, but who knows? I used several shades of olive drabs and browns from different paint manufacturers. The ground material is Bondo, and enhanced with boot-prints from the figure before I started painting it. It was painted mud-brown and glossed.
Kit: RPM (1:72)
RPM did several versions of the venerable French FT-17 light tank. I bought almost all of them before I heard rumors about how difficult they were to assemble. The six kits languished in my stash for several years before I decided to tackle them. I decided to do them all at the same time because I was concerned I would stop after I completed only one. I was right. These kits were a significant challenge. There were parts that didn’t fit, parts that were so brittle they broke into several pieces as I tried to remove them from the sprues and parts that were so small and/or fragile that I couldn’t salvage one piece – even though I had six kits to choose from. In the end, I won’t display them individually, and instead will only post a profile view of each completed kit. The dark olive one is the US Army 6-ton version, the light olive is the US Marine Corps 6-tonner. The remainder are all French with the main differences being the shape of the turret (round and octagonal) and the armament (machine gun or cannon).
This is the Emhar 1/72 British Mark IV Female tank. Like the "Male" version, the track did not meet all the way around, requiring me to use a piece of strip styrene.
The Emhar 1/72 British Mark IV Male is shown here. My biggest complaint about it is that the track did not fit all the way around. I had to add the width of one track link by using a bit of strip styrene. It's painted in Tamiya Khaki Drab.
Kit: Reviresco (1:72)
This is Reviresco's 1/72 scale white metal Schneider char d'assaut. The 16 pieces went together well. I only had to apply some putty here and there. I had to add the grill-work on the bow. I wish I had been able to find a finer mesh. I replaced some of the clunkier fittings, like the exhaust pipe, with scratched items. The paint job is extrapolated from several photographs. The colors are an educated guess.
This is Reviresco's 1/72 scale St. Chamond white metal kit. this is the second type, with the standard 75 mm cannon and no cupolas. The camouflage scheme is fictional. In what little references I found, there didn't seem to be a standard pattern, so I made one up. I used three colors of the French Air Force's five-color camouflage scheme -- a hypothetical guess that what worked on aircraft would also work on tanks. This is essentially a wargame piece that can be enhanced with some work. The interior is detailable, if you can find the right references. The hatches can be left open, including the starboard side door. The hardest part is removing the seams from the tracks.
Putting togther Emhar's 1/72 scale Whippet tank was a nice break from some of the more complicated models I've been building lately. The kit is practically viceless, with only the decals provding a challenge. They are thick and prone to silvering. I used Tamiya Khaki Drab for the main tank color.