Friends! Are you looking
for an escape from the ordinary, far away from the banal
zone? An elixir of youth, a medicine of monumentous proportions,
a cure-all for what ails you? Then you've come to the
wrong bloody website, haven't you?! However, if you seek
a nice relaxing small scale AFV project that is mercifully
free from the painting rigours of multitudinous road wheels,
then this might just be the kit for you.
2341 was a presentation vehicle from a Chinese businessman
and originally sported a large eye on each side of the
forward hull. In the summer of 1917, it was posted to
"F" Battalion, 36 Brigade and christened "Fly-Paper",
under the command of 2nd Lt. J. M. Oke. Later re-named
"Fantan", it participated in the Battle of Cambrai
and the battle for the village of Fontaine-notre-Dame
with Lt. H. A. Aldridge commanding.
This thing builds in a
weekend and painting couldn't be easier. There are few
parts and the quality of moulding is excellent. I wasn't
too impressed by the rubber band tracks, however I must
say I was pleasantly surprised at how well paint and cyanoacrylate
adhered to them. One of my tracks broke for some reason,
but super glued back together it even withstood the slight
stretching required to get them in place on the tank.
Emhar would have you sandwich the tracks between the hull
sides during construction, but I found it much easier
to add them after everything was together. This also gave
me a place to hold the tank during painting using a piece
of music wire sprung into place between the track runs.
I scratchbuilt the Lewis machine guns and their ball mounts
because the kit ones were quite awful, strongly resembling
miniature versions of the bongs my old roommate used to
construct from toilet paper rolls. I also rebuilt the
storage box on top from sheet plastic as the one supplied
was rather thick, and the openings for the exhaust were
close to the centre instead of well over to the left as
they should be.
My only other modifications were to cut off the moulded
towing lug at the front and scratchbuild a new one, and
drill out the vision ports, exhaust pipe and cannons.
The unditching rails were
fairly annoying to get in place and I would have liked
to have seen some kind of locating pins for them. After
finishing the model, I discovered that, as moulded by
Emhar, they are actually backwards; the right angles should
face inwards, not to the outside. Fixing this would have
meant cutting the front and rear mounts off and swapping
them to the opposite sides, a task I wouldn't have relished
anyway.
The decals weren't quite up to the quality of the ones
in the A7V.
Copious amounts of Solvaset were needed to get them to
conform to the rivets and panel lines, and even at that
there is still a bit of non-compliance happening at various
spots.
Paint is Humbrol Khaki (26) and weathering is a Dark Earth
wash and pastels. All in all, a few trivial modifications
and a couple of minor gripes, but a very easy and enjoyable
project nonetheless. Guess I'll have to build the female
version now lest this one starts to enjoy the life of
a bachelor tank. A couple of months and he'll be begging
to go back to the trenches.
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