Challenger 2 TES, Rye Field Models, 1/35

[roland66]

Hello everyone,

I don't want to withhold this build report from you either. Built in the middle of 2020. Since I translated the construction report with DeepL, I leave it in the time of 2020.

Rye Fields Challenger 2 TES will be built in 1/35th The kit is quite fresh, so here we go. The kit comes with Rye Field's own accessory set for the Slat-Armor.

And since moving pictures are nice to look at, here is a video.





This thing actually fits well together.

What bothers me are some ultra-thick sprues and mold parting lines with a slight offset. Especially with the two F casting sprues. You have to rework even the smallest parts. And this is sometimes difficult due to the offset.
The chains are easy to work with, but they are supposed to click together. They are far from that, the parts don't even hold together for 0.1 seconds. Nothing works without glue.
Despite everything, and if you glue carefully, the chain remains fully movable.

The number of chain links (87) per side is wrong, 79 links are exactly right.

And if you take a look inside the tub. The ejectors leave half of the chain in place, which isn't so bad, but that's also on the inside of the wheels, inside the headlights, etc. It's just annoying. It's just annoying.


Contrary to the instructions, I started with the tracks, which went quite quickly with the enclosed building aid. Well, you have to glue, but a chain is put together in 1.5 hours.

Then I continued as normal with the building instructions. You can convert the undercarriage to be movable, remove a few lugs on the steering knuckles and you're done.



Then I continued with the first etched parts. These are included in the kit, the slat armor will be added later.





The work of the week before last, soldering, soldering and soldering again. How quickly you forget how to do it.

The etched parts on the side armor are included in the kit.





The brackets for the side slat armor and the rear bar are from the accessory kit. The rear, upper, brackets,
which I had already fitted before, have been replaced by those from the accessory kit. They simply look better.





This week I have been working on the side grilles. I had first glued the etched parts with superglue.
Unfortunately, the glue kept coming off. So I unpacked the soldering iron again and soldered many parts.
You have to be careful when building, the instructions show the exploded view of the left side, right next to it a picture of the finished side.
Only, this is the right side, very confusing. Despite the fact that I was so careful, I used the correct numbers for the sides,
25,000 times, I ended up with the right-hand side partially upside down.

Either Rye Field had etched the creases incorrectly, or I had a not-so-bright day on my part. In some cases I had to
solder joints again and redo them.





So, that's the current state of affairs, next I'll deal with the rear grilles. Here I'm going to resort to soldering.

[kyledehart5]

Well this is magnificent so far. Looking forward to watching it move along.

[deafpanzer]

AWESOME! Those Challenger 2s have a special place in my heart because it was my first 'modern' armor build since I build WW2 stuff only until I built the Challenger 2 by Tamiya. Your work is far superior already!

[roland66]

The 3 small grilles took 1 hour of nerves.



But for play kids, movable. :bingo



Let's see when the other 3 are finished. You'll probably have to do it again then. They should already
hanging in parallel.

The work on the chassis has been completed.

However, a few problems had to be worked around.

The reactive armor on the sides is in completely the wrong place.
I had been wondering the whole time why the slat armor was only on the lower part. In the upper area there is a gap of about 1 cm.
Of course, I had relied on the fact that the holes to be drilled were correct. Unfortunately this is not the case.
I only noticed this when I wanted to attach the front corners. That somehow didn't fit at all.......

The Rye Field etched parts set is also not ideal. There is sometimes too much play between the parts. This makes it incredibly difficult to fix the parts properly.
That's why I had to replace the rear, lower part of the slat armor with the kit part. Even if you get the grilles together at right angles,
the assembly with the connectors is simply not possible. Something always gets tangled up or falls off.
There is simply a lack of weight so that the individual parts hang together correctly. In addition, the connectors have nothing to do with the original.

The plastic part simply fits better.

[roland66]

After that I got to work on the weapon station, a kit within a kit. The whole thing fits together neatly.
As I've just seen, I still have to remove a few separating seams. But only when the last glued joints are really tight.

I'm using the black glue from Mr. Hobby for the first time on this model. It sticks really well, but in photos it looks,
but the black spots often make it look messy. Perhaps I should switch to the clear Mr. Hobby glue in places.

But let's get to the pictures.







Let's move on,

Almost all parts are installed, Megatron is ready for priming.







Clean up the table and disassemble the part again.



Disassembled, cleaned, ready for paint.

[ossie262]

hi

So the correct match for the colour is Vallejo Russian green primer , I matched it against a Chally 2 Tes , Challenger 2 .CRARRV and Bulldog after they had come out of the spray shop.
great build and brings back memories of working on them .
Ossie

[chromdome35]

Dec 7, 2023 14:16:09 GMT -5 roland66 said:

After that I got to work on the weapon station, a kit within a kit. The whole thing fits together neatly.
As I've just seen, I still have to remove a few separating seams. But only when the last glued joints are really tight.

I'm using the black glue from Mr. Hobby for the first time on this model. It sticks really well, but in photos it looks,
but the black spots often make it look messy. Perhaps I should switch to the clear Mr. Hobby glue in places.

But let's get to the pictures.







Let's move on,

Almost all parts are installed, Megatron is ready for priming.







Clean up the table and disassemble the part again.



Disassembled, cleaned, ready for paint.

That is amazingly detailed, I love it!!! Very crisp PE work.

[handiabled]

Your work on all of the photo etching is perfect! This looks great without any color on it yet

[deafpanzer]

WOW! I really do enjoy seeing your stunning work. Keep it coming!

[roland66]

@all: Thank you very much.

It goes on,

after cleaning the parts I started with the primer, for this I used Vallejo Primer Olive Darb.



Then a first coat of Vallejo Modelair Bronze Green. After that was really dry, I painted some highlights and shadows.
Since I always like to try something new, I used the new Vallejo paint stencils to bring some life to the colors.



You have to be careful not to go too light, but if this happens you can easily correct it with a glazing base color.
You can see the changed color gradient in the photo above.

After some more drying time, I tried out the MIG shaders for the first time.



Mask off the panels and off you go.



It will look like this.....



.....that works so well, I immediately reordered the entire range from my dealer, Modellbau König.







In between, the wheels were painted and treated with Tamiya Panelliner black.





A tip, it is often difficult to paint the rubber parts really nice and round without masks. The Panelliner gave me an idea, or rather it was my clumsiness....
Before I start with the black paint, I let the Panelliner run around the wheel once. Once it's really dry, you can easily paint the rubber with the brush. You don't have to go right up to the edge with the brush. If some green remains, you can easily correct this at the end with the Panelliner.
The combination of Panelliner and acrylic paint is no problem here.

That's enough for me on the undercarriage for now, you won't see anything of it later anyway.

I continue with the painting of the tracks, here too I limit myself to the visible areas.

It goes on,

the varnish is finished. Then I did a pinwash with Tamiya's Panelliner black.
After everything was dry, I added the few decals.

Now the model looks like this.....







The undercarriage is already dirty.





The effect is perhaps still a little too strong for me. But it is enhanced by the camera. Let's see.....



So, now I'll get out the colored pencils.

[kyledehart5]

I mean, I am just continually blown away by the outstanding builders on this forum. That looks awesome and the shading worked out very well indeed. This is some really fantastic work going on here and I am greatly enjoying following along.