Takom 1/35 Leopard C2 finished

I've finally finished this one that was started in July 2017, a Canadian Leopard C2;

Weathering has been kept to a minimum as the photographs I have been using show them to be fairly clean.

Takom 1/35 Leopard C2

This has been on the bench for long enough so it's time to get it done;

This will NOT be heavily weathered as from the photo's that I'm basing it on Canadian Leopards (apart from being on exercise) seemed to be relatively clean. I did want to do an actual vehicle but the marking option in the Takom kit is for an 'OPFOR' vehicle and apparently spurious plus the decals were crap anyway.
Using the reference photos from the dvd 'Canadian Leopard C1 & C2 Project which is available here Canadian Leopard C1 & C2 Project I'll finish the model as a lightly weathered vehicle.

Takom Leopard C2

While I'm in the mood for finishing stuff I applied a dark brown wash over the model a few days ago and today I painted the tools and ice cleats on the front glacis plate with Vallejo black and the canvas mantlet cover with Vallejo English Uniform.
Tonight I sprayed the model with Winsor and Newton matt acrylic varnish from their Galaria range and when dry I'll start the weathering and finally get it finished;

I was looking at the tracks earlier and the track pads need some TLC as they are far too regular and tidy so I shall attack these with a grinding tool in Dremel drill before painting them.
As to the actual model I 'was' planning on doing an actual vehicle that Takom had supplied markings for but it transpires these were fictitious ones for an OPFOR (Oppostion FORces) vehicle during an exercise. This threw me a bit as the model was already built and I had to find a picture of a Leopard with all the tools and ice cleats attached but with the minimal amount of markings. I had the Echelon decal sheet for Gagetown Leopards and the option for the C2 on the sheet features a sabretooth tigers head but I just couldn't find any reference pictures for it.
In the end I decided to do it as a generic vehicle based on what reference pictures I had so please forgive me but I had to get this model moved on.

Takom Leopard C2

I started to apply the decals today but hit a snag in that the carrier film on the kit decals had a 'milky' consistency;

Also it was pointed out by a former Canadian Leopard commander that the right-hand decal is incorrect in that the symbol represents a mechanised infantry unit rather than an armoured one.
So the two decals have been removed however it now changes my plan on doing the specific Leopard found on the Prime Portal walkaround site. Luckily I have an Echelon decal sheet for Gagetown Leopards (where crews are trained) so it will have to be in those markings instead. Bugger......
I hope the decals in other Takom kits are better!

Takom Leopard C2

I've finally finished the build of this one so it will get a wash down and when dry it's off to the paint shop.

The Leopard I want to depict didn't have the turret mounted MG fitted so the mount and ammo box holder were scratch-built from thin styrene sheet, the white thing on the turret basket is to represent the bag that is attached underneath, the tow cables are from RMG and just needed shortening by 20mm to fit and will be removed before painting.
This was my first Takom kit and it wasn't that bad really, as you can see I have tweaked the model in places but that is nothing unusual with me. I keep trying to build stuff straight out of the box but I just can't help myself!
One thing I did keep to was the use of the etch supplied in the kit only, other brass bits you see are made from sheets of brass I have in stock. Essential things you need to get for this kit are the resin exhausts, tow cables, aerials, mantlet plugs and smoke dischargers which are all available from Leopard Club here;

Leopard Club

The barrel is an item from Orange Hobby (the fiddly etch was covered in an earlier post) and although I did get the Leopard Club barrel for the 1A5, in the end I just used the boresight mirror for the end of the barrel as some of the resin parts were not concentric. The Orange Hobby item I got is actually for a Leopard 1A3 and apparently they do a barrel for the 1A5 but at the time it was not available.
The model will be washed in warm soapy water to get all the dust and crap off it, when thoroughly dry it will be primed and painted.

Takom Leopard C2

After knocking off the jerry can racks I decided to make new ones using brass completely instead of plastic as the others just fell apart. Superglue was pretty useless in the first place due to the very small mating areas so this time I thought I would have a go at soldering.
Brass sheet was cut to size for the bases (10m x 5mm) with the corners rounded off and the strip around them (1mm). Using Blu-Tak to hold things in place some flux was applied to the areas to be soldered;

I had trouble getting the solder off the coil onto my soldering iron but after a suggestion by my good modelling buddy Markus Lack I flattened out some solder and cut it into small strips for greater control (which worked beautifully);

The parts were cleaned up using a fibre glass pen and some wet and dry paper then glued to the back of the turret;

Hopefully these will look better under a coat of paint.
I suppose I should have done this in the first place as superglue never really works that well with brass and plastic, especially when you have such small areas to work with. With a bit of luck I won't knock these off again :o)

Takom Leopard C2

I've stuck on a few more parts, YAY! On the vehicle I want to model the jerrycan holders on the rear of the turret basket are empty so I attempted to make new ones from scratch using styrene strip and thin brass sheet;

They didn't look too bad until today when I broke them off. I'll rework them but use brass for the bases instead of plastic and instead of using cyano I'll solder the sides on for strength.
The barrel is now ready to fit and although I purchased a Leopard Club item I found the separate resin pieces that make up the barrel were not concentric so I'm sticking with the Orange Hobby item I bought originally. I did use the bore sight mirror and mount from the Leopard Club barrel and stuck it to the end of the Orange Hobby one as it saved me making one from scratch;

The tie down loops on the turret basket are moulded solid in the kit so these were removed and new ones made using thin copper wire;

15amp fuse wire was used for the top and bottom rails on the platforms either side of the turret basket. I *was* going to use the kit parts but I managed to break a couple when removing them from the sprue, the same for the grab handles on the turret sides.

Takom Leopard C2

I was going to use the kit barrel and add some detail to it but decided on using an aftermarket item instead from Orange Hobby that I had got for my Meng Leopard 1A5, also there is no rifling inside the kit barrel ;

As you can see it comes with two small frets of etch metal....omfg it is TINY! After the best part of 1 1/2 hours I managed to put the first two straps around the barrel;

Very frustrating! After a good couple of hours I managed to get the rest of the etch on, the four clamps proving verrrrrry tricky as the folds required were small and very awkward to do, luckily there are two etch sheets as it was very easy to lose some parts to the carpet monster;

Regarding the four clamps I replaced the rods that connect each end with sprue as the etch is obviously flat. The Orange Hobby barrel is actually for a Leopard 1A3 so I need to make the boresight mirror and mount for the end of the barrel from scratch, I would have used the kit one but it's too small.

Takom Leopard C2

In their infinite wisdom Takom moulded all the mounts for the turret spaced armour separately and although the bigger ones were OK the small ones are very fiddly. You get 34 on the sprue and you need 16 per side so after pinging three to feed the carpet monster I could see which way this was heading so ended up making a load of new ones using 1.5mm and 1mm styrene rod;

To get the alignment for these mounts I taped the side armour to the turret then used a pencil to mark where they go (don't bother using the Takom instructions for this as they useless). I had already glued two of the larger ones in place as these had locating pegs;

After a couple of days away from the bench I looked at the mounts I had made and after deciding they were crap I cut the kit ones off the sprues and after cleaning them up a different way (I didn't use tweezers this time) I managed to avoid pinging any more into the ether. I only had to use one of the home-made ones and this was put in the middle where nobody would see it.
Because I had coated the turret previously I had to use superglue to attach the parts;

The spaced armour was then glued into place and the turret has been set aside to dry.
I don't really have much more to do now so hopefully the build will be completed soon.

Takom Leopard C2

As I noted a few days ago Takom made a bit of a mess of the front part of the turret where the gun mantlet joins. Looking at reference pictures and a turret from the Meng Leopard 1A5 I decided the best thing to do was remove the shaded area;

Actually I removed more material than that as the cut was made where the bottom of the turret joins the front. This of course left a big gap to fill and after studying the Meng turret I made an 'L' shaped piece using 0.30" styrene strip;

By this time I cut off the mantlet as it was just getting in the way. Once the 'L' piece had been glued into place I then used Milliput to form a curved shape underneath like the Meng turret, shaping it by using my finger and water;

When the Milliput has cured I will give it a sand as there are two corners of plastic card still sticking out and these will be blended into the lower turret sides.
It looks a bit daunting to do this but I believe it will look much better in the end.

Takom Leopard C2

Attention has now turned to the turret with some tweaks to improve it and I've also discovered a problem. Firstly the most obvious improvement is to add springs to the loaders hatch by cutting away the kit ones;

The add-on armour on the gun mantlet features four oval holes so these were drilled to a round shape and hexagonal bolt heads were added using a punch and die set, also the rectangular plate on the left in the picture was supplied as an etched item but looking at reference pictures this is quite a thick plate so it was substituted for sheet plastic;

After fitting the mantlet and canvas cover there was a huge gap underneath and checking that I hadn't left anything off and again checking reference pictures it's apparent that Takom have messed up here;

The mantlet should actually fit OVER the bottom bit of the turret and not flush so it looks like the turret is too short. One solution is to just fill it all in and hope nobody looks too closely OR what I'm thinking of doing is removing the lower lip and rebuilding it;

As mentioned above the bottom lip should fit inside the mantlet but seeing that I've already glued bits into place it should be an interesting exercise to carry out this job without destroying anything.
And it was all going so well too........anyway here's the turret so far;

One thing I should have done is to actually check what needed gluing to the turret before spraying it with Rustoleum Terra Cotta as I had to scrape away the paint to be able to glue things to it. Apart from the hitch with the turret it shouldn't be long until I finish building this. YAY for me! :o)