Baby’s First T-34

Next stage was to add the decals. Not sure if these are historically accurate but I think they look good! ?

Sooo …. when I was putting the decals on I might have gotten a little impatient and turned the turret on its side to put the 2nd number on when the first one was still not set….

So I ended up with this.

I’ve no idea where the 2nd 340 went to. It wasn’t on my table it wasn’t on the floor. It just seemed to disintegrate!!

So what to do next.

I didn’t use any fancy products when applying the decals – just high quality H2O as the Terrain Tutor would say. So I thought maybe I could remove the number by soaking it in water and then apply new numbers. Well that didn’t work all I managed to do is chip the paint at the corner as I was attempting to peel it off.(you can see that on the image on the left)

I did some googling and saw some videos using MicroSol to remove decals. I thought this a bit weird since Microscale advertise their MicroSet product as a decal remover. Either way I thought – sure it would be nice to have both these products in my arsenal anyway so ordered a bottle of each.

Long story short. Neither of them loosened the decal enough to remove it. I tried first with the MicroSet and then with the MicroSol. Soaking the decal in multiple coats each time. Maybe it’s just had too long to dry out.

Anyhoo- I’m now stuck with a weird looking tank with a turret number on just one side. I tried to see if Warlord sell the transfer sheet separately- they do have Soviet sheets for sale – but not one that accurately matches the one in the box.

I did some research before all this anyway and it looks like most tanks didn’t have numbers on them – and the Soviet star I’ve put on was very rare!! So … my current thought is to put some Russian writing down the blank side of the hull so it doesn’t look so weird. Might not be historically accurate but might make me feel better about making such a balls up!! ??

So this little baby has been sitting in my shelf for over a year more or less painted bar the weathering and I figured it was time to finish it off over the lockdown/holiday period.

I’ve never painted a tank before much less weathered one so I picked up a couple of new products to try out. I first stippled some dark grey chipping on then used some Vallejo oil stains and rain streak effects. The tracks got some mud and crushed grass effects and I then applied some pigment powder to help blend everything in.

Overall I’m happy enough for a first attempt. I could do a but better on the weathering but at this stage I’m happy to call it done.

Project complete.