WIP AFV Churchill Mk VI

[ForbesHutton]

So originally I grab this kit at the LHS on a impulse. I have wanted to do a Churchill with crew and riders. Dioramas are quickly taking up shelf space so I wanted to do more "action ON the tank" rather than around the tank.

Anyway, I thought the wheels and suspension were going to be a pain, and they were, but it was just more a matter of planning to keep springs from flying all over the place.

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I got through the wheels/suspension without too many problems and moved on with the rest of the kit. Parts seem to have twice as many sprue attachments as necessary, and some are big, there's small amounts of flash but the instructions/engineering are the real problem. Most of the parts have no defined attachment points (markings or holes) and the few holes you do get you have to drill in yourself. The majority of the big panels have no defined mounting point and with things like the panels that go over top of the tracks, you have to guess where to start and then any mistake push the remaining panels out of place as well. There's no way to dry fit the whole side's worth of panels, you just have to go for it, which in the case of the panels/front fenders has resulted in a discrepancy of about 5-6mm between how far forward the front fenders left to right. So I decided to take a break from the frustration and see if the Mini-Art figures would work (I think they were meant more for a Sherman), the crew are from Firestorm.







My suggestion is that if you have to have a Churchill, look at Tamiya, it has to be less frustrating.

Thanks to Timtamtung for recommending Citadel washes for figures!

[Demaclies]

Yes I find the Tamiya kits are more better engineered for ease of assembly. I got an AVF club Centurion , and did what I could with it. but it came out all sorts of wrong, parts would not sit properly even with sanding, or they would just disentigrate when you tried to carefully remove them from the sprue.

[ForbesHutton]

I had a couple of pieces shatter on the sprue with this. The big sprue gates don't help. And there's some photo-etch I've looked at and laughed. It's getting paint now.
Sadly, I have a AFV Centurion in the stash....