Team Yankee - A little paint work

Another project moving slowly forward are the American AFVs from Team Yankee. One thing I learned is that I'll be going back and repainting the interior of the exposed hatches as they should be in the main body camo, so a bit more work to come on the M113s and the M106s.

Tonight I quickly painted the stowage on the M1s so that everything would be ready for the coming steps. Like the German armor these vehicles are going to get a filter and wash treatment before I apply a few decals and move on to the weathering steps.

Team Yankee - Adding some black and brown

With the green in place it was time to attempt the rest of the Nato three color camo to the accumulation of armored vehicles for Team Yankee. I'm still working with the AMMO paints and after I applied the initial NATO Green I'm quite likely them. For the next step I used A.MIG0046 Matt Black and A.MIG0085 NATO Brown.

Since I wanted to do finer work I turned down the pressure on the airbrush to about 8-9 PSI, this would allow me to have the airbrush pretty close to the model and, hopefully, not have to much overspray. The paints performed quite well at this pressure although I did add a drop of my Vallejo Airbrush thinner for this. For the brown the drop was to much and I had to add a little more brown to get a nice line.

In theory, they use templates so that the pattern is the same on every vehicle and there is a different template for each vehicle type. I couldn't fine one specific to the M106 so I just used the one for the M113. I also was not interested in masking off all of these vehicles. So my pattern is roughly similar to the actual pattern with a little modification because of the airbrush. My vehicles came out roughly similar to each other, so I'm happy with that. I feel that I lost way to much of the green on the M113s and M106s, so a I'm going to go back in with the green and re-establish it, maybe with a slightly lighter shade so it stands out more.

You can see here that I really lost way to much of the green and its actually hard to see the brown against the green, although maybe that's actually the point of the camo. I'll still go in and see if I can accentuate the green a bit more.

All of these pictures are just to dark to really get a good look at them. I'll try and remember to take some better pictures before I move on to the weathering phase.

Team Yankee - Building and prepping the Khurasan M113s

I ordered one Khurasan M113 to take a look at it when I ordered my mech infantry for Team Yankee (which reminds me that I need to get some stands for them). I was happy enough with that model to go ahead and order three more for my mech infantry platoon instead of using the ones from Battle Front.

I started to build the original M113 that I had received. If you remember I had some issues with this one off the bat that I was able to fix with the hot water trick. What I didn't notice at the time though was the seam along the side. I think this particular vehicle must have slipped in the mold somehow, however, all the other three M113s have it, just to a much, much lesser degree.

Rather than wait to try and get a replacement I decided to just fix it with Squadron Green. I completely covered both sides and part of the front glacis and then filed it down after it had dried. I don't think you will be able to tell the difference after a bit more filling and filing. I checked the other three out and they don't seem to have any issues, so it really is just a fluke that I received a bad one.

I compared these to the M106 from Battle Front. They are almost identical but the Battle Front versions stand taller. Noticeably so when they are next to each other. During a game I don't think anyone will notice.

M113s on parade well sort of. The Khurasan kit comes with a couple of options, like metal or resin tracks, along with three options for the vane in front.

I tried a partial application first

Then decided it would just be easier to do the whole side

The front, you can see the seam here. Again this is not a seam from the mold, just a casting that went wrong. Most of the front will be covered by the vane.

I added some of the components while the Squadron Green was drying. I went with the resin tracks, I liked the fit better. The hatches are pewter pieces. The front and sides have been sanded down. I just need to decide if they need another application of Squadron Green or not.

Still a little rough after using the file, but getting closer. I would follow this up with a quick rub down with a piece of fine steel wool. that really smoothed out the surfaces.

After I had finished this first M113 I went ahead and started work on the remaining three.

Here are the backs of the other three M113. The issue is the top piece where the ramp goes. The casting on the left is the best, the middle one isn't bad , but the one on the right is quite wavy. Don't panic! The resin here, at least on these three, is quite flexible and I was able to use the metal ramp casting to push everything into place. It its not flexible (i.e. doesn't move when you push it with your fnger) then you can use hot water to make the resin flexible and fix it into position after that.

I used my handy metal blocks to hold the tracks in place while the glue driec. You can see the fully finished first M113 in the upper right of the photo, this is after finally assembly and a rub down with fine steel wool.

Putting together the TCs hatch

All finished and ready to go.

I grabbed an M106 for a quick comparison. The Battle Front model is definitely taller, but is pretty close in all other respects.  If they are even a few inches apart on the table you are not likely to notice the difference in size.

The Khurasan M113 tracks are much easier to put on than the Battle Front versions. If you want the skirting use the resin tracks and if you want it without just use the metal tracks that also come with the kit.

I also spent some time finishing up the M1 Abrams models with some extra stowage both from the kit sprue and with the stowage metal stowage sprue from Khurasan. I'm still looking for some really good stowage for cold war vehicles at this scale but I'm not having much luck.

These are ready for primer now too! All of this may have paint by the end of the week, don't hold your breath on that.

Team Yankee - Prepping M1s and M106s

At this point I'm trying to work on everything at once so that I can prime everything at the same time. Overall the Team Yankee plastics for the M1 and the M113/M106 are really very clean with only a couple of spots that need some work.

On the M1s there is a seam right in front between the upper and lower hull that needs a little attention. I pulled out the Squadron Green and proceeded to fill in this small seam on all five vehicles. 

A little dab is all you need but be prepared to work fast, this stuff dries out quick.

Here you can see the seam that needs to be filled. Its a bit messy right now.

After I finished the M1s I did the same with the M106s. Again the only seam really appears on the front glacis much like on the M1. This is a bit tricky to fill because of some of the detail around it. Had I been paying attention I probably would have filled this seam first before finishing the vehicle.

I also used this opportunity to try and fix the notches in the plastic from where the sprue marks where left from my clippers. The M1s benefited from the use of my x-acto, skipping the clippers.

After the green stuff had dried, which was minutes, I filed smooth the area. I prefer to use a disposable nail file for this has its gentler on the plastic (or resin for that matter). However, I didn't have any available so I worked gently with a file. Most of the file marks are going to be covered over with primer so I didn't get to stressed out about it.

You can see the scratch marks from the metal file here, its why I prefer the disposable nail files for this kind of work. The primer should fill this in.

Looking good so far. I just need some tarps and stuff to add to the vehicles and they will be ready for some primer. I might try a modulated primer style on these just to see if it makes a difference at this scale.

Team Yankee M1 Abrams WIP - Mass Assembly

With two M1s down, I figured I would build all of three of the remaining at the same time just like I did with the M106s. Like the M106 the M1 is a pretty easy kit to build, with a couple of frustrating areas to watch for. I boldly cut out all of the parts so I could just start gluing things together! I did go back to my trusty x-acto knife to do this. In the end I had a lot less clean up to do than with my old clippers. 

Here are the parts to assembly the hull.

Tracks on. These go on quite nicely

The rear engine plate is a key component holding the upper and lower hulls together

The side skirts have nice pin locators but the rear portion of the skirt requires a rubber band to hold it in place while the glue sets.

The finished hulls.

The turret parts, or most of them anyway.

The big issue on the turrets is the storage racks. The locator "pin" is really a strip on the upper side of the turret. Not bad but not great. If you are using the short versions that don't wrap around the back this is fine and your done. With the wrap around version its easier to put on the side racks and attached the back rack to them. If you flip the side rack upside down you will see that the bottom set of bars has indentations that allegedly will fit the bottom plate of the back rack. It sort of works. Using the full wrap around storage is accurate. Team Yankee is set in 1987 and pictures of M1s from the '87 REFORGER exercise have the full wrap around.

Basic turret assembled.

Models Finished!

Team Yankee M113/M106 APC WIP - Assembly

I managed to work in a little assembly time and built one of the M106 Mortar Carriers from the box. Assembly is pretty straight forward but you can find some very good instructions on the Team Yankee website. I used clippers to remove the parts from the sprue but I think mine have gotten to old as I have a lot of clean up left to do afterwards and I'm taking chunks out of the plastic. I may go back to the knife to remove parts for the next three that need to be built.

My only real grievances are lining up the track cover plates which have no locator pins and that there is only enough four mortar crew members in the box. Unless I can find some extra crew out there each of these mortars will only be handled by one crewman. I like the looks of two crew members plus the TC much better.

Some pictures of my assembly:

Tracks attached to the hull

Rear door assembled and attached to the hull

Track covers added, you can see the damage left by my clippers here. Some cleanup will be required

Added the hinged plate to that would cover the mortar

The mortar assembled on its internal plate and the vane added to the front

The external mortar plate added

Driver's hatch added

Mortar Added

Assembling the TC's hatch

Look at all the extra weapon and hatch parts left over! With a little thought there are a couple of additional variants that could be built. It might be worth thinking about using magnets on the TC's hatch to allow some interchanging of weapons.

Assembly finished, time for some prep work!

Missed that mold line on the mortar. I will fix that and I might contemplate drilling it out as well.