Somua S-35 Heller 1/35 - Tracks Done & Final Photos 10-14

[afvfan]

Well... I find myself posting in strange territory ... the Allied forum. The project at hand is the old Heller Somua S-35. While developed before the war, it did see combat (and other uses) pretty much throughout. This one will be modeled as one might have looked in 1939 or 1940, before serious hostilities in France began.

The kit, for those not familiar with it, is one or two steps above an RPM or Mirage model. In other words, it's a great reason to go out and buy yourself a large bottle of Ibuprofen. If you're wondering why I used this kit, it's because, sadly, it's the only game in town for this particular tank. Heller offers newer versions, but it's my understanding that they are just reboxes of the old kit.

Clean up on the parts isn't too bad. There's not a lot of flash and most of the mold seams are easily removed. The bad part is that detail is lacking in the molding and the fit is poor. There's a ton of work to do if you want to come close to a semi-accurate version.

I have a feeling the instruction booklet was used by Dragon to train their staff. All the problems are evident, vague diagrams, overlooked parts, and assembly steps out of order. After going through the build, I don't know if I can say I saw any locator pins.

I did manage to get through it. Here are a couple pics of what it looked like before the primer was added:





In case you're wondering the 47mm barrel is an aftermarket one by RB. You'll also see a couple bits of white styrene...compliments of the carpet monster.
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After it was primed, I started on the camouflage paint scheme. In doing some research I found the French used 4 basic schemes using up to 8 different colors. By the grace of the paint gods, the man this is going to only wanted a 2 color pattern. The tank was primed in black. After that the green base was laid down by airbrush. When that dried, I started hand brushing the yellow in thin coats to avoid brush marks as much as possible. Here are a few pics of the hull in the early stages:






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More to come....

[Leon]

Nice start on the camo,looking good.

[Deleted]

This is going to look great!

[Deano]

Looking good , nice clean building of the kit.

Deano

[wbill76]

Nice to see one of these get built Bob! Looking forward to more on this one.

[afvfan]

Thanks for the comments, guys. I pretty much knocked out the camo pattern. I think it turned out really good... but I'm a little biased. I'll post pics of it tomorrow.

[bullardino]

Nice start, AF

I'll follow, french tanks have such a distinctive look...

[afvfan]

Thanks Luigi. I agree, they do have a style of their own.

Camo's done. There are still a few small items to add to the hull (exhaust, lights, and tools). Here's what she looks like now:









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Next up.... possibly the biggest pain of the build, the tracks. Preliminary testing shows that the kit provided, band type, tracks are a bit too long and don't fit the main sprocket. Back to the bench....

[TRM]

Sorry about the tracks but you certainly made up for it by laying done such nice camo!! Looking great!!

[bullardino]

The camo looks great, it's such a wonderful base for weathering

Yesterday I was browsing one of my favourite online shops (yes, I did shopping yesterday too), and I saw it. I was tempted to get one... I didn't but in the future there are good chances I will.

[Leon]

Very nicely done camo AF.

[afvfan]

T - Thanks! I realized that I mis-spoke a little. Tracks are coming, but first I want to clear coat the paint. I have a feeling it's going to need a lot of protection with the amount of handling it'll take to do them.

Luigi - Glad you like it. If I ever do one again, I'm going to make sure I put the lower hull together (step 10) before I mount all the suspension and wheels.

Leon - Thanks for the compliment.

[wbill76]

Got to love the French camo patterns, the one you've chosen is perfect for the outlines. Tracks that don't fit the sprockets sounds like an interesting challenge Bob, it has to stay interesting right?

[ironhand6]

My hats off to you Sir! pulling off this type of paint job is a minor miracle in my book, but you nailed it.

[afvfan]

Bill - Yeah, the French definitely had their artistic side working with their patterns. If they had spent as much time on tactics as they did on painting, they could have been a formidable opponent for the Germans in 1940.

The tracks do pose an interesting problem. For those unfamiliar with the system, unlike most tanks the S35 (and Char B) used sprockets that engaged cleats on the track links instead of teeth inserting into a hole in the link. The usual fix of cutting off the teeth and refixing the ends in the tracks won't work. My first option will be to try and stretch the tracks to get the cleats to line up with the sprocket. Plan "B" is going to be to cut into the cleats so that the track rides where it should and cover the mess with a dirt build up.

DickyF - Thanks, I have a feeling I'm going to need it. This kit is probably a good candidate for aftermarket tracks.

Ironhand6 - Appreciate the compliment. After finishing it up, I can only say that the paint went on a lot easier than I thought it would.

Laid down a coat of Future today. When that's cured it's decal time. It hit me that the roundels will be easy as pie. Unlike anything else, you don't have to worry about getting them on straight!

[ironhand6]

Well, everyone can paint - but it takes real skill to paint at this level

[afvfan]

Why thank you, kind sir. <blush> <blush>

Decals are on. Tracks tomorrow.

[Leon]

Looking forward to seeing your next update pics Bob.

[afvfan]

Been busy at the bench. I did put the focus on this one to get it complete and out of the way. First step was the track work previously mentioned. Thankfully my "A" plan worked out. Here's a little SBS...

I managed to get the track mounted on the rear sprocket correctly by a liberal use of superglue while stretching the track into position around the sprocket. After that was done and allowed to set up overnight, I found the tracks were 1 link too long on one side, and 2 links too long on the other. This can be seen on one of the tracks in this picture (along with the track locking tab system).




The first step in cutting them down was to trim the locking tongue. It fits into a groove on the inside and needs to be shortened to still fit the channel after the extra links were removed.




Next, the offending links were removed and a new hole was cut for the locking tab to fit into.






Finally, the track ends were rejoined. The upper picture below shows how the track fit before surgery. Note the amount of slack there was going around the front idler. The lower half of the picture is after the repair. Big difference.



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Final pictures....

Before I even did most of the track work I had started with the weathering and final finish. After the tracks were completed it was just a small matter to do some final touch ups and close the book on this build. The finish is representative of an S-35 on maneuvers just before the war, or soon after it started. Here's what she ended up looking like:










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As usual, comments and critiques are most welcome.

[tonylee]

It seems to be an old war horse

Good work buddy
Tony lee

[Leon]

Bob,your track surgery turned out great and the weathering looks awesome.Very nicely done.

[pantherf]

HA!    I forgot I have one of these too! 

Thanks for the warning about the tracks... and good save too! 





Jeff

[afvfan]

Tony - Yeah, I may have overdone it a little bit. I kind of wanted a lighter touch, but like it's bigger brother, the Char B, this tank just begs to be weathered.

Leon - Thanks for the compliments. It just worked out nicely that I was able to remove full links to get the proper length.

Jeff - Now that I've gone through all the headaches of figuring out how to build this one, I'll admit I wouldn't mind doing another somewhere down the road. The next one, however, will be done with a lot more corrections and detail work, now that I know where all the weak spots of this kit are. Thanks for the comments.

[406 Silverado]

Nice work on this old dog of a kit. I had started this one a while back and shelved it. Yours looks pretty good. Might have to finish mine some day.

[pantherf]

Trumpeter is releasing some workable tracks for the R35 Light tank. 

I wonder if they will work on this too? 





Jeff

[deafpanzer]

Great work!!! I have very same kit and I was not sure if I would ever build it because its really a dog kit. But after following your build I think I will give it a shot. GREAT BUILD!!!

[afvfan]

Rob - It is a dog, isn't it? I'm sure you could do wonders with it, though.

Jeff - Sadly, no, they won't work. It's a totally different system than the S-35 uses.

Andy - What's life without a challenge? Seriously though, like I mentioned to Jeff, if you do decide to give it a go, contact me beforehand. I'll be more than happy to share what I picked up doing this one (this goes for anyone working on one).

[wbill76]

Nice save on the tracks Bob, you've whipped this one into shape despite the difficulties. Maybe one of the majors will finally get around to providing a modern tooling of this vehicle. There's hope after all considering that Hobby Boss has done some of the R35 line-up, who knows what else they might tackle next?

[afvfan]

Bill - Thanks! Yeah, it would be nice for someone to come out with a newer, better, rendition. Tamiya has a leg up on everyone right now since they already have the turret in production from their Char B (though it'd be better if they had added the cast texture).

Dicky - Thanks for the kind words. I've had to do similar track operations on a few other things I've worked on. To be honest, once I decided how I wanted to do them, these were the easiest to resize. The way they go together, I didn't have to thin down any of the links like I normally would.