Meng M3A3 Bradly

[Edbert]

On one hand, 48 parts to build road wheels, as in not the drive the idler, or the rollers; it feels like extreme or punishment.

Until you realize, this is the PERFECT solution to painting the rubber portions!




These are the internal pistons of shock absorbers, or dampers. The outer part shipped as brass tubes that fit perfectly.



So far so good, very impressed.

 

[Pantherman]

On one hand, 48 parts to build road wheels, as in not the drive the idler, or the rollers; it feels like extreme or punishment.

Until you realize, this is the PERFECT solution to painting the rubber portions!

View attachment 121902

View attachment 121904
These are the internal pistons of shock absorbers, or dampers. The outer part shipped as brass tubes that fit perfectly.

View attachment 121905

So far so good, very impressed.

Just love meng armour, it fits nicely and usually very little flash. Pantherman

 

[Edbert]

Just love meng armour, it fits nicely and usually very little flash. Pantherman

So far it is very nice. Some internal "thingies", or maybe they are "doo-daa"s, that need to be snipped. Kinda weird, or new to a newbie, but not a problem to nip off.

 

[blakeh1]

Meng has some very nice quality kits. I picked up their 1/48 F-18 and it is impressive. The weapons loadouts are all poly-capped pressure fit so you can easily change up the loadout. And the details are great and also has very nice detailed pilots as well

Also picked up the 1/72 ornithopter and the rotors are all poseable as well as having landing gear you can swap out for in flight vs landed

Great engineering with various configuration options that are easily swapped out

 

[Edbert]

This pic is from a different kit than the above shots. But these are the thingies, they protrude to the inside hidden portions. I was leaving them be, but some of them had to be snipped to fit some parts together.

 

[blakeh1]

This pic is from a different kit than the above shots. But these are the thingies, they protrude to the inside hidden portions. I was leaving them be but they had to be snipped to fit some parts together.

View attachment 121943

Maybe, I have seen things like that on the Bandai Millennium Falcon I am building, and it turns out they were actually spacers for the part that went over it, but hard to tell here. I'd try dry fitting the parts and see if it allows things to mate properly and if not then nip them

I know Bandai instructions usually show a pair of scissors/razor blade or scissors/razor blade with a line through it on things like that showing what needs to be cut off or not

of course if there is no other part that mates to or goes over this one, then I would definitely snip them off

 

[Edbert]

Maybe, I have seen things like that on the Bandai Millennium Falcon I am building, and it turns out they were actually spacers for the part that went over it, but hard to tell here. I'd try dry fitting the parts and see if it allows things to mate properly and if not then nip them

I know Bandai instructions usually show a pair of scissors/razor blade or scissors/razor blade with a line through it on things like that showing what needs to be cut off or not

of course if there is no other part that mates to or goes over this one, then I would definitely snip them off

Me too, I was not nipping those off but when dry fitting some parts they had to come off. Others, like the ones shown above, will stay.

 

[Edbert]

So it is an interesting thing to see the size of a modern AFV compared to an old MBT.

The Pz4 is something I made in the late '80s, covered with real dust not pigments, just put there for size reference.





I'm noticing that my 1/48 F-4B is much larger than even the twin engine (yeah yeah, I know the Phantom-II is twin engine too) P-38/Me401 at the same scale.

 

[Edbert]

I'm looking for advice here. There's a small bit of clear in the little hole of the "Driver's Vision Enhancer", I have put some liquid mask in there for painting, will remove it to expose the clear bit. But I'm facing a problem. There's a small screen of PE that is supposed to go around it. Easy enough to install for paint but then getting the liquid mask out will be pretty much impossible.




E38 is not installed, W4 is the part in question. Obviously I could paint it loose and install after removing the mask, but I'm worried about scratching the paint off the brass as well as getting the glue to work on painted surface.


What would you do here?

 

[Pantherman]

I'm looking for advice here. There's a small bit of clear in the little hole of the "Driver's Vision Enhancer", I have put some liquid mask in there for painting, will remove it to expose the clear bit. But I'm facing a problem. There's a small screen of PE that is supposed to go around it. Easy enough to install for paint but then getting the liquid mask out will be pretty much impossible.

View attachment 121997

View attachment 122005
E38 is not installed, W4 is the part in question. Obviously I could paint it loose and install after removing the mask, but I'm worried about scratching the paint off the brass as well as getting the glue to work on painted surface.


What would you do here?

I would keep the mask on the clear, dry fit, prime and paint the PE when you do the main area. To fit I would remove the mask, scratch the paint on the main part back with the tip of a knife. Tiny drop of CA on the scratch each side and apply the PE. I would recommend 60 second CA just to give yourself a chance to adjust the part.

Others may have a way better idea but that's how I would do it. Pantherman

 

[Schaf]

I'm looking for advice here. There's a small bit of clear in the little hole of the "Driver's Vision Enhancer", I have put some liquid mask in there for painting, will remove it to expose the clear bit. But I'm facing a problem. There's a small screen of PE that is supposed to go around it. Easy enough to install for paint but then getting the liquid mask out will be pretty much impossible.

View attachment 121997

View attachment 122005
E38 is not installed, W4 is the part in question. Obviously I could paint it loose and install after removing the mask, but I'm worried about scratching the paint off the brass as well as getting the glue to work on painted surface.


What would you do here?

If you have some burnishing solution for metal tracks / photo etch you can treat part W4 with that for a couple minutes and then neutralize it in water. Gently wipe the part with a dry paper towel and you should be good to paint it, then attach with a small spot of PVA glue. Any excess glue can be removed with a damp brush or Q- Tip. The burnishing fluid lightly etches the surface of the photo etch so it will allow the paint to adhere rather well, also since it etches the surface it is not adding to it like a coat of primer will which can obscure the detail.

 

[Edbert]

Thanks for the tips guys!

Still working through this kit. Made one mistake in getting the wrong "lower control arms" (probably the wrong term) into the wrong spots. Will require some surgery to repair and some loss of function from the torsion bars.

But one of my favorite features of Meng is their labeling of the sprues. This is so helpful!

 

[Edbert]

I keep plugging away on the Bradley. A pretty high parts count for 1/35, at least in my limited experience. But so far the only big issues I've run into were my own mistakes.




If you count the camera as a vision port, this thing has 16 or 17 of them! I'm going to put an orange tint on them based on photos I've seen.

 

[Edbert]

I recently pulled this back out to work on, as is obvious from above that would be the turret.



Overall I found it very enjoyable, but there were lots of parts, some that I found myself fighting with in the dry-fit-phase. Then I realized those edges were not supposed to line up, the gap was meant to be filled with applique armor, plates in most cases, plates with ERA in others.

It was slow going, lost of places where I (unfamiliar with modern AFVs) had to dry-fit more than thrice. Partially because there were a lot of parts, also the instructions were very detailed overall, but some blind spots that just had to be figured out. Still went together very well.

I'm going to have to retink my method of keeping the view-ports clear, but after working on the turret I realized they are a much smaller concern. So many view-ports and clear bits, but lots of parts overall.





Did I mention lots of parts? I just went back in the destructions and using fingers on both hands counted over 200 parts not counting decals on just the turret. Almost 200 more for just the tracks.

Yup, lots of parts

 

[Edbert]

It is primer-day!




Yes I will be painting over that canopy, just using it as a mask.

 

[Si B]

Coming along very nicely Edbert

The Meng kits looks great ….I picked up the magic factory kit earlier in the year hopefully it's just as good.

 

[Rimmer]

Cracking work thus far on that Bradley - one of my favourite modern AFV.

 

[Scratchbuilder]

Those bits that are sticking out are part of the moulding process, a bit like the ejection marks left on a model where they are 'punched' out of the mould. I always cut them off, because you can guarantee you will leave one and wonder why the part does not fit (experience tells).....

 

[Edbert]

Top-coat is down, was actually about 5 coats with slightly different colors. I was not happy with any of the Tamiya XF colors out of the bottle, so when i cannot choose which color to use I use them all.



You can see the three primary colors there, 57/59/60, with some "buff" added to some of the interim stages. I think I'll color some of the ERA modules with dramatically mismatched colors later, maybe. So far there's only shading, I tried to focus on color-fading from sunshine, I'm still debating what sort of weathering I'll do. Still a bit wary of ruining another top-coat with the Tamiya XF paints, they are VERY fragile! So a gloss varnish 1st to allow panel lines to flow, then a matte to seal it is before chipping?

What I will do for sure is set this aside for a few days to let it harden or cure, lessons learned the hard way right?

Think I'll do a pinwash for some panel lines, maybe some oil washes for staining and some sponge-chipping. But will spend some time thinking about that. Also have done nothing to the tracks, they are workable but some links fall apart if you try to spin them, oh well it is a static display not a toy right?

 

[mark2]

All looking good so far