Tracks, mud and earthy oils

Running gear

First of all I ensured that I had found the 8B graphite pen I had bought in early '23. Yes, I had, it was stored in a place where I could now actually find it.

I used the pen quickly on all the contact surfaces of the drive sprockets, idler- and road wheels, and then simply blended the graphite with my fingers. The idler wheels I had glued in earlier, but luckily there was enough space around them for my fingers.

From what I saw the graphite surface behaved pretty much like I expected, especially when comparing to the observations (and a healthy directoryful of reference photos) I made last summer in the Armour Museum in Parola.

These photos were actually useful, they revealed a couple of forgotten oil wash stains.

At this stage I only treated the inner loop of the tracks. I used the pen on the guiding teeth/horns and a line along the lenght just on both sides of the guides, to pretend they were worn clean by the road wheels.

Looking at my own thoroughly dirtified fingertips I thought that before washing them up, I could use them to do some soft graphite effects on the rollers. I spun those with my fingers, poked around and what got stuck, got stuck.

Installing the vinyl tracks

I started installing the tracks on the right side. Somehow I had in my mind that the vinyl track was going to be annoying to install so I had left all the roadwheels unglued. My idea was to hold them inside the track loop and then just glue all of them in one go, then finish it up with the drive sprocket.

Here I had so much space, unlike with the last tracked model, the Jagdpanzer IV, that I could actually glue them all in and just pull the track into place with the drive sprocket.

Once again using the right side's example I was quicker with the other side. As an entity the tank looked much better again. Had I glued the idler wheels last, I could've made the tracks tighter and look better, because that's how the tension was adjusted but those things were too flimsy for my comfort.

And at this point my homemade antenna finally came off with all the rotatings and whatnot. This wasn't serious damage, I'd just reglue it at a calmer moment. I had to admit that being wary of the antenna had been getting a bit old, I just didn't want to break it off on purpose.

Like I've been lamenting for a while the rear end was going to need an amount of mud to look less horrible. I was so very disappointed in this rear edge, I had difficulties comprehending it. None of this got any better with my crappy filling skills.

Vallejo weathering mud

To mess up the tracks and especially the rear end I used to different Vallejo Weathering Effects. First Mud and Grass (Environment 73826), then European Mud (Thick Mud 73807). Both had gotten a bit thick but got spreadable with a few drops of tap water.

Giving a few days of rest was a good thing for my oil washes, the shininess had gone down quite a bit. Again I took my photos in a different place, at a different time, and with natural light instead of LEDs.

The mud was pretty nasty-looking, as it was supposed to be.

I kept the front of the tank much clearer. Just in case I left the mine rollers pretty much as they were, I was way too much of an amateur with these and getting something that complicated was not something I wanted to even think of undoing of mud.

Road wheels also got off lightly, I poked some mud in to give some extra texture. There was an amount of muck in the sides of the tank's armoured tub but that wasn't going to be really visible behind the running gear.

I did try to collect some crap to the sides and the different mud traps of the roller setup. Here, too, I used the mud materials mostly for surface texture.

 

Just like that I was out of time, and had to leave the mud to dry. Thanks to life being life it took me a good long while before I could continue on the model.

Abteilung weathering oils

Well, I had a few of these weathering -themed oils, from light to dark earth and I started by mixing a bit of Light Mud (ABT125) for my tracks. Maybe I should've made this stuff really thin, to get the crevices more covered, now they just ended thickly mudded.

To go with the dry stuff I made a tiny amount of darker mud and made it wash-thin (ABT130 Dark Mud), applied it as spots here and there. This weird mix I then blended to see how it looked like in the end. Spoiler: it looked muddy.

Checking the next day the tracks looked much calmer. With some more time to dry behind us, I used the graphite pen on the edges and ridges of the tracks. No photos were taken of that.

Then I made some thin engine grease (ABT160) and used it on some of the road wheels to try to get a bit of a lubricant leak look on them. I had pretty few places I wanted to use this on, but to make those bulky boxes a bit more interesting I used the oily stuff on the little things on top.

At this point I didn't go for any dot filtering, but in my mind's eye using some buff (ABT035) on some key pieces on the top worked nicely. I tried to contain myself and applied the buff dots on the centerlines of some engine deck panels, front fenders and the upper edge of the front glacis plate.

After the first blending and an overnight drying the buffed effect was too strong for my liking. So I blended it some more to take it down a notch.

Readyish?

I started feeling that my tank was just about done now. Looking at the photos I took around the tank made me think how much of a difference had I actually made with all this tinkering. I expected to find something else to fix in addition to reattaching the antenna, painting the front shovel clamp and the light. If there wasn't anything else, the next week's post would show the completed model, but if I had enough to work on, there would be a short post in between.

Note to self: fix that grass turd hanging from the left fender

Comparison photos

The angles weren't exactly the same and the lighting conditions were also different, but you could do a bit of a side-by-side comparison. The key changes happened on the overall green, the piece details weren't that much of an important change in a way.

 

Oiling so many things

Sepia shadows

First step in my shadow business was becoming a routine: a thin Sepia (ABT002) wash first. This time my wash ended up being a bit thicker than a pin wash should be, but that didn't prove harmful earlier, either.

To keep this short and simple: I went through all the gaps, panel lines, weldlines, holes, shadow areas and whatnot on the turret and the hull. The wheels I left alone on purpose, beacuse I hadn't got enough time for everything in one run.

On the hull side I left purposefully some more and larger shadows to the area that was going to be blocked by the turret, and below the tools and boxes. For a while I was thinking if I ought to wash the boxes with this wash, but I thought that the same set's brown wash might be more suitable. Of the metallic parts I only applied this onto the engine compartment's grilles, the rest would only get rusts.

The following evening I cleaned up the overflows, in these next photos most of the biggest stains were toned down.

On the wheels I went pretty heavy with the sepia. These hadn't got much special surface details except for a couple of chips and scratches I had done earlier. I decided that before I installed these, I wasn't going to do anything more serious on them, so I didn't have to guess their angles or anything in advance for the flows (Engine Grease sounded like a thing to use here).

A small, quick brown wash

For the boxes I made a small batch of the aptly named brown wash (ABT040 Brown Wash) that I only used on the wooden parts. It showed best on the boxes and the shovel handles, the saw's two tiny handles were a bit too small to show anything. The result was that they were a bit less bright and cartoony-looking.

Dark rust

Like before, I made a wash and applied it in places. Some of the obvious first targets were the unpainted steel pieces, especially the exhaust pipes and the spare track parts. I also applied some rust on the outer arc of the mine rollers.

Maybe less obviously I used the rusty was on the chips I had made previously. The purpose of this layer was to give more life and variety to the mistreatment. I wasn't quite sure if I'd also add light rust or not.

On the first round I had enough time to add a good layer of this wash onto the outer side of the tracks. Those would definitely get a light rust layer, but I hadn't made up my mind on how it was to be done. At this moment I was considering the toothpick-spatter method for randomness.

Light rust

Before I applied the light rust wash onto select spots I blended the dark rust regions a bit, because the previous layer had ended up a bit stronger than I had envisioned. After that was done I added fresh rust to rust-deficient bits. I started with the track armour on the front glacis plate, because I had not had the time for it the previous time.

On the turret I added light bits on many of the already dark-rusted bits, only by the chippings. I tried to keep the fresh ones under tight control.

I tried out the toothpicking method on the outer mine rollers. As you could see in these next two photos, they did require some later blending especially on the left roller, but I was pretty happy with the way it looked on the rim. Like I have said numerous times already, I expected this to be the most abused area of the tank and that would also suffer most from the weather's not-so-gentle touch.

The bit that covered the joining of the lower and upper front glacis plates offered me a great place for fresh rust buildup caused by fluid flow and natural pooling.

One of the shovels had suffered more than the other. Now I just needed to fix the clasplike things.

The sole light source was decently banged up but not too abused. That steel box below it could've been made a bit rougher, but maybe it just happened to be in a fresh-ish condition. At least it didn't look like it was built two minutes ago.

I still had to clean up these grilles, this photo showed just how they had ended up after getting three different washes stippled on them.

 

Somehow I managed to apply the fresh rust on the outer side of the tracks, unevenly but so that the underlaying older rust was still visible. After a few days of drying I'd go through the insides as well, but before that I intended to try out with the roadwheels what areas were going to be constantly grinding against another steel surface. This way my graphite highlights would (or should) work out better.

These vinyl tracks still didn't excite me.

The final generic touch-up round

I used one final evening to do some general poking around. Before anything else I glued the idler wheels in place, because they were going to be what I would use to anchor the rest of the running gear and the tracks. Idlers were attached with the most flimsy axles, so they weren't really usable for dry-fitting just by pressing them in place.

Earlier I thought that my rust spatter marks were a bit too strong, so I blended them with the round blending brush. This right side one looked quite a lot better now.

Then the left outer roller was much more covered, but I could still tone it down later down the road. I got the fake-looking splotches softened up and that was the most important thing now.

I also cleaned the track armour in the front, now the fresh rust layer was a bit more relaxed.

After a bit of blending the engine deck's grille was better as well.

One evening I got to give a rust-coloured double treatment on the inner surface of the tracks. I concentrated on the outsides as the core would be pretty much constantly ground clean by the roadwheels, drive sprockets and the return rollers. In this photo here the oils were still wet, the proper look was, as always, to be seen in a day or few.

While messing things up I added more (dark) rust to the roadwheels and drive sprockets, as I had left them still a bit clean the last time. Any and all oil and lubricant leaks, like I had decided at some earlier moment, would be done after installing the tracks.

In this condition my T-34 was with some pin washes, fake shadows and rustiness applied. A part of the applications were still fresh, so the shininess was going to go down with time. Before installing the various wheels and tracks I had to let the tank sit for a good while, I was thinking of playing it safe and give it a good number of days, up to a week.