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09.10.2006 » Concepts / Intro

Armor is a little addictive I'd say. Sure I love my Gundam model kits, but AFVs are growing on me more and more. My next venture into the real world is the 1/35 JGSDF Type 74 Main Battle Tank from Tamiya. I've had to for about a year now and have finally decided to do it. I searched around for any after-market (AM) sets such as photoetch (PE) or resin upgrades. All I found was individual tracks from ModelKasten. I have them on order as I have no desire to deal with the vinyl tracks that were supplied with the kit.

I've also decided to do a detailed and well-documented build-up of this kit from construction to weathering. I have a lot of detailed Gundam builds, but nothing for armor subjects. With Bandai's new 1/35 Gundam line on the way and the fact that most of the members at my forum don't usually model these subjects, I hope that this will become a good resource for modelers new to this scale.

I'll be painting this tank the same camo scheme as my JGSDF LAV. This is an official JGSDF camo pattern and I'll probably use it later on my Type 87 and Type 82 as well. The scheme is a brown and green pattern. Tamiya makes both colors which are great right out of the bottle.

The first step was of course research. With some help, I got links to several sites full of images of the Type 74. This will help me detail some parts of the tank which are lacking and also help me with colors and weathering.

09.10.2006 » Starting Up

I read through the instructions and started building following the steps in the instructions. I started putting together some of the larger elements such as the chassis and the turret halves without glue just for photos and fit. I really like the shape of this tank design. It's squat and has that rounded older style turret that was rough cast. In fact the turret has a great texture molded into it. I will however have to sand a seam smooth and retexture along that part.

The first bad thing I noticed was a sizable gap under the fenders, but above the road-wheels. I'm not 100% sure what to do here. I could leave it, but I'd rather not. But do I fill the vertical gap or under the fenders? Or maybe both? I have more research to do apparently. There's also slots and icons for batteries molded inside the chassis. I guess this was also sold as a motorized or RC version at some point. I think it's an older kit.

As with any kit, there's the flash (A) and the sprue nubs (B) to deal with. I had flashbacks of the KV-2 and all the sanding I had to do to the roadwheels and suspension arms flash, but this kit wasn't too bad. Good thing too with 20 road-wheel halves and 10 arms! I scraped the flash off the arms with an exacto blade and then sanded smooth. For the road-wheels, I filed down the flash/nubs then sanded smooth. More in-prog info soon...

09.11.2006 » Filler and Grab Handles

A modeler by the name of Alex gave me the tips on filling in the HUGE gaps in the underside of the Type 74. First I glued on strips of styrene to the insides of the chassis. These will help support the horizontal panels I cut when glued into place.

I cut several rectangles from sheet styrene to fit between the strips and the ends of the fenders. These were glued into place filling in the hole.

Then after that set-up I cut large pieces of very thin styrene and glued them over the glued rectangles. This large pieve fills it completely and covers all the seams of the rectangles nicely. I won't even need any putty now. Very easy and will make a huge difference when the kit is all done. Thanks Alex!

Next I needed to do something about all the "tabs" that represent grab-handles. Almost every handle is a solid piece on this kit. I took verious sharp tools and removed the tabs. After sanding I drilled .024" holes at the ends of where the tabs were. Next I took .020 wire and made lots of new handles. These were made the same size by placing tape on my needlenose pliers so that I knew where to bend the wire each time.

Then I took my tweezers and pushed each bent piece of wire into its holes. Lastly I added a few drops of liquid glue to secure them into place.

09.12.2006 » Turret and Tools

Today I did a bunch to the Type 74. First up I removed the plastic tow cable rather than sand it and added one I made from wire. I took 8 thin wires (4 looped) and tied them to the end of my drill. I held the looped end on a pencil and ran the drill to twist the wire. I cut it to length and drilled holes into the ends of the "hooks" to insert the new cable into. They were then secured with super glue. I cut the cable brackets too and filed out the old plastic cable so that the new cable would slide in. Again I secured it into place with super glue. I also replaced the exhaust pipes with aluminum tube since the kit supplied ones were not hollow.

I also added the tools. These had the normal faint flash. I removed it by scraping it with a razor and with minor sanding of the sprue nubs. They were then glued into place. I add them now since the tools are generally painted the same color as the tank. I may opt to adjust their colors afterwards, but that's no problem to hand-paint. Also shown below is the top of the turret with the periscopes. These have some flash to take note of and clean-up.

Next up is the infrared sensor. This comes in many pieces and has to be glued together. You'll have to take care of the many seams afterwards. No gaps though so no worries. I'll paint it leaving the 2 front parts off to insert the clear plastic "window" afterwards. Also shown is the ammo case for the machine gun and the 2 mounts for the smoke dischargers. These both have pin-holes. You can fill these with a drop of Mr. Surfacer or thinned putty and sand later. The ammo case is hollow underneath. I filled it with styrene and will sand flat later.

I glued the 2 halves of the turret together making certain to place the lower portion of the stowage rack inbetween before glueing.

When the glue dried I sanded the seams down. I lost the texture and had a few hairline gaps. I took care of this by brushing on Mr. Surfacer. When cured I lightly sanded the edges where the surfacer meet the plastic. This leave the middle "rough" to help retain the rough cast texture.

Lastly I glued on the top part of the stowage rack. Be sure to remove the flash on this and pretty much all parts. This went on with a little difficulty as the upper bars did not hit the holes on the turret. After some putty/glue I rectified this. I also started attaching the various parts to the turret such as racks and D-rings.

09.13.2006 » Wired Up

Today I started adding all the little detailed bits to the turret. The smoke dischargers went on fairly easily with no need for modifications. The hatches went on with only a few hitches. The left hatch had one of the hinge tabs too long so I needed to trim it to fit it in level. That hatch was glued down. The right hatch above the periscopes will be displayed open since I'll have a figure in there. The inside of the hatch had a few pinholes to fill with surfacer before attaching. The IR sensor has some surfacer applied to fill some tiny hairline gaps after initial sanding of the seams. The base of the ammo box was puttied after the styrene was cut flat and the antenna bases had some pin marks too.

Next up is the headlights. In real life there's wires that come from the back of them and end up below the lights into some holes. I drilled little holes into the backs of the lights and inserted wires. The back of the light gaurd was missing a crossbar so I added them from strip styrene. I need to add one on the outside edge too still.

Finally there's a prominant cable that runs from the IR box to right behind the left smoke discharger. This wasn't included in the kit for whatever reason. I used some wire and stretched sprue to make the cable and tape to make the tabs and such. The tape was super-glued to the turret for extra hold. I love the way this turret has all this stuff tacked all over it. Very interesting looking.

09.16.2006 » Antenna Gaurds

I was working on and finished these antenna gaurds right before my wife went into labor. They were made from bent wire inserted into small drilled holes. Thin strips of styrene were then glued onto the ends to finish the look. Easy mod.

09.25.2006 » Suspension

One last part of construction is the suspension to keep the tank level, but keep the road wheels on the road. I cut all the tabs in the suspension arms like instructed in the insctructions. Then I placed a drop of glue into each hole in the chassis where the arms will be placed. I propped the tank up level and laid the tracks down. Then I began placing the suspension arms with the road wheels onto the chassis. When the glue dried I removed the supports and viola! I'll place the tracks in better obviously when it's done.

Type 74 In-Progress Sections »

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