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Char d'assaut St. Chamond (late model)


dutik

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Hello, Ladies and Gents!

 

Do you speak French? Not so much? Not a biggie :hi:

 

Here comes Takoms beautiful model of the French St. Chamond heavy tank, late or M2 version, of WWI fame. Got the kit for cheap from a sale. Less than 30 Euros. Nice haul! While working on Azurs Caudron I must have been infected by a french virus... :hmmm: Why not. Better than Spanish flu - another renown byproduct of WWI origin :mental:

 

The box:

 

chamond118s3p.jpg

 

A nice glossy printed cardbox with a number of tan and black colored sprues inside, together with an instruction booklet and a full color painting instruction. 4 different tanks to choose from, painted in bright colors like Richthofens Flying Circus. Grey, blue, bright green, sand, brown, black, with or without black borders, each an early Picasso, indeed. So I bought it together with a set of French WWI colors. The larger set, with all colors inside. Just to have them all at hand when I start painting. The tanker shown on the box is inside too.

 

Whats not in the box?

No French toast, no chocolat, no PE, no polycaps, no metal parts, no nasty surprises.

 

Vive la France!

- dutik

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Great purchase! A guy at my IPMS built the 'early' model and it influenced my decision to buy one because it looks rather attractive with those camouflage schemes.

 

My build stalled though, because the suspension is really complex and I needed to just take a break from it. Anyone with decent experience can build it, but damn there are a lot of parts... take your time and make sure everything's square and true before proceeding to the next step, and you should do fine.

 

These photos at SVSM were a lot of help too (apologies if you're already aware of them).

 

Mmm, now I want a glass of calvados...  :thumbsup:

 

Darren

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Starting with the upper hull. It's an easy task - the upper hull is provided as a very large shell right in the box. You only have to add front and rear plates. Voila! Fit is superior! Next are the main gun and the MGs. Done. The attachment of the gun is so-so, so I left off the "movable" option and glued it in place with some styrene from behind. Next are a dozen of roof hatches and the drivers dome. Doh! This one has more roof hatches than a BMP! Amazing that the French didn't get the idea of adding dismounts. Think about a WWI BMP charging German positions, blazing guns and unloading grenade throwing assault infantry right into the German positions :thumbsup:  It's up to you to have the hatches open or closed, but there is no interior inside, and no AM interior set available at the moment. Of course, if you want to make your own interior - they have one surviving St. Chamond in Saumur, and there are a lot of interior images available on the net. Simple google "st. chamond interior saumur".

 

Upper hull is ready! I left the exhaust off (it's running along the roof) for easy painting.

 

chamond29fscc.jpg

 

Enjoy!

- dutik

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The floor:

 

chamond339skl.jpg

 

chamond42dsuw.jpg

 

This is a multipiece affair. Anything to the left and right, above and below the large floor plate is made from single bits and pieces. Takom helps you to every possible extent to get things right. There are alignment tabs and slots, pins and holes, keyed parts. Correct alignment of every single part is crucial. Take your time to clean every part. There are small mold seams and a little bit of flash. Hard to see, but enough to derail the whole build if you don't clean up all mating surfaces. It also pays to drill all holes a (very) little bit larger and to cut all alignment tabs a little bit shorter; or to make cutouts a little bit longer. Why? The molded styrene doesn't form right angles, but more of a slight angle. Enough to prevent the perfect alignment of the parts. So - clean up, remove a little bit of styrene, dry fit. I've got it right for most of the parts, except at one side of the large double crossbars. We shall see how this might affect the alignment of the running gear or the fit of floor und hull...

 

Advice: To make the running gear supports I glued at first the T-shaped crossbars in place. Next I glued the inner support rail for the return rollers onto the floor. Alignment of the 5 return rollers and the outer support rail is a bit tricky, because you have to add all parts at once. Glued the rollers to the inner rail with very little glue, then did the fiddling. When all was in place I shot one part after the other with Tamiya super thin cement. Worked fine. The large crossbars/plates with the holes were added at last.

 

Up to the running gear now!

 

Regards

- dutik

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The St. Chamond utilized a "dozer" type suspenison with a number of bogies, lots of small wheels, coil springs and much more support braces. Time to put some braces and supports together:

 

chamond5ntskx.jpg

 

If you got bored by the braces just switch to the wheels. Lots of wheels! A hallmark of all that WW1 tank designs - a myriad of small wheels all around. Dunno if they really needed the tracks  :hmmm:  With so many wheels on the ground they should have been able to drive around without the tracks  :mental:  Guess they were not able to add a power drive to all of them, so they stayed with tracks to move the whole thing... :thumbsup: So - here come the wheels:

 

chamond6irszb.jpg

 

Be careful when cutting off the wheel parts or you risk to damage them. The sprue gates are located at the very delicate outer rim. And as always - take care of correct alignment!

Regards!
- dutik

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Darren,

 

until now things went straight. Started the build the last weekend, aka 10 days before, working on and off in the evening as I find the spare time. It's paramount to clean up all mating surfaces and to align things correct, but it is a fun build. Very relaxing. Fit, instructions, parts break down are really, really good. And I have a plan how to get the suspension together without using extra arms and hands... :whistle:

 

Regards

- dutik

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The two subassemblies are ready:

 

 

chamond7u9rp0.jpg

 

The U-shaped iron rods that hold the idler wheel  in place are somewhat too short to mate the brackets. Simply fix: I cut notches into the top of the arms/supports of the idler wheels. Done!

 

The floor part:

 

chamond8duq2j.jpg

 

 

That is where I left the instructions: I glued the springs to the floor instead to the undecarriage, using the UC for dry fit and alignment. I also left off the long thin crosswires for now.

Lets now mate both subassemblies:

 

 

chamond9z4qw5.jpg

 

Done! Fit is perfect! Added some weight and set it aside to dry overnight. The idler wheels are not in line with the track wheels (that is correct, anything will be level with the tracks on) so I adde a board to avoid twisting of the idlers.

 

Regards!

- dutik

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OK, suspension and lower body of the tank are ready!

 

Added the 6 crossbars and the two small outer plates. In hindsight it would have been wiser to add the inner u-shaped holddowns at the idler wheels at last, because one of the crossbars has ist mount below/inside that bars. OK, it is the inner side and mostly hidden, so I cut down the end plate enough to fiddle it inside the U-shaped bars and into place. Worked too. Here we go:

 

 

chamond10epsyv.jpg


Dry fitted the sponsons but left them off for the moment. Will paint the suspension first. Added a nice coat of black Citadel/ Games Workshop primer and set it aside to dry. Now I have to decide which tank I want to have before starting painting...

Regards

- dutik

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Alea iacta sunt: It will be the tank 727, named "X...?".

Started painting of the suspension. Weathering has to follow. Dryfitted the upper and lower hull. It starts to look like a tank now:

 

chamond11q8utq.jpg

 

Might be a great idea to put the tracks in place before adding the sponsons  :coolio:  So I will be busy the next days with building and painting of the tracks...


Regards

- dutik

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"X...?" is char no. 62727. Complete list of chars. Click number for image(s). Also one of the "unidentified" images shows "X...?", the one hidden camouflaged with pine branches at the front end. Will paint the name freehand, or a part of it. See below. The number ...with stencils or rub down transfers? Have to look whats available.

 

My plan to become the ruler of the world  :wicked:  is divided in two sections:

 

First step - build and paint the kit.

 

Second step - add figures and a diorama.

 

U-Models of France has releases a "WWI French tanker painting his tank", UMO409. He will be just at work painting the name of the tank onto the side, with the pipe-smoking kit figure watching him. Sounds good? I think so.

But my figure painting skills are so-so. It takes a lot of time  :tumble:  so first things first, the diorama later  :coolio: 

 

 

BTW, I am working to add something special to the model  :yahoo:  Stay tuned!

 

Regards - and Happy Easter days!

- dutik

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