A Tank Called Coleraine
Building the tanks
Warlord have many plastic kits in 1/56 or 28mm in their WW2 ranges, they are all of the quick build style and go together in less than a hour with no really tricky bits. To personalise my models and to give them a more battle worn look, I like to make changes to the basic kit that represent the wear and tear often seen on tanks that have been in action. A notable feature of Churchills in action is how often pieces of the Track guards/fenders go missing or get damaged; to show this I need to leave off some of the kit parts and cut a few others up. The hull top comes in one piece with the top track guards attached. After looking at reference pictures I decided which bits to cut away.
First up, measure and mark out which bit to cut away
On the underside make a lengthwise score part way through the piece to be cut away, this will allow the piece to snap cleanly off after the crosswise cuts are made
Use a razor saw to cut crosswise through to the score line, stay inside the drawn cut lines to avoid cutting off too much material
The piece can now be snapped off along the score line, this leaves a lip that needs to be removed
A combination of cutting and scraping removes the lip
After cleaning up with a file it looks like the track guard is missing the centre sectionNow the top run of track is exposed it will look odd with a big hole below it, to fix this, the open top of the sponson is blanked off with a piece of plastic card cut to size.
The other two hull tops were given a similar treatment and then the kits were assembled as per the instructions.
Due to a rush of enthusiasm I forgot to take a picture of the built kits before I started painting, so stepping out of order slightly, here is a picture of them after undercoating and base coat
Hey, I’ve heard of this project! 😀 Great work so far. Sometimes the “clunkier” tanks make the best models and miniatures. 😀 You’re really getting a sense of the Churchill’s weight here.
Thanks mate.
Yeah,the Churchill design is a bit of a throwback to WW1 tank design. The design it evolved from (the A20 by Harland & Wolf) was even more WW1esque; designed to cross ground heavily broken by artillery fire and trenches, the War Office really did believe that WW2 would be a refight of WW1.
If you drive through Carrickfergus just North of Belfast they have the ‘Carrickfergus Churchill’ on display on the sea front
Yeah, that was one of the inspirations for this build when I was researching the history of the North Irish Horse, might do a quick detour on the way home from Boot Camp to grab a few photos.
If your flying into George Best airport and driving it’s easier on the way up to Coleraine
Righto, have to see if my travelling companions would mind a quick detour on the way in, if not, My flight home isn’t until 3 PM, so don’t mind if it takes a while longer.
The reason why the crews removed those track guards is that they would buckle and jam the turret traverse leaving the track exposed
Cool, interesting nugget, thank you.