Team Yankee: Carnation Tips and Tricks #3

Doom dadoom dada doom doom...Doom...Doom dadoom dada doom doom, sa Son Son SonBae...too cold...too cold

All right stop...

Collaborate and listen.

SonBae is back with a brand new invent...article... I'm back with a brand new article.

Yeah, that's it.  This time we're going ot talk about Battlefront's 2S1 122mm Carnation Battery boxed set (TSBX07) for their Team Yankee version of Flames of War. This will be a little bit of a review and me sharing my thoughts and tricks and tips on this model.

Bottomline up front...This is a great resin kit.  This is a solid resin and metal kit where the turret and hull are resin an dthe main gun barrel and tracks are white metal.

- Flash on the Tracks and Gun Barrel.  Both of these items had a good bit of flash, especially the tracks between the road wheels. The tracks could be cleaned up easily.  There was one gun barrel that had a very nasty mold line on the top that required a good deal of work to clean up.

- Gun Placement.  The barrel has a little "nub" on the base that fits into a hole in the center front of the turret.

When placing the barrel, the barrel should have the recoil assembly (little boxes) on the top (picture below).

http://www.military-today.com/artillery/2s1_gvosdika.jpg

If you use the existing nub and hole you get a very low, direct fire gun position.

It just didnt look proper for an artillery piece to my mind. A little pinning and putty you can get a High Angle firing main gun.

Just file down the nub and drill a hole in the center where the nub was. Next drill a hole a little higher up the guns elevation slot and glue a metal pin there.

Let the pin dry and trim down to size and glue the barrel into place.  Finally, you have to fill the original hole (don't say it Luke...don't say it!) with a little plastic putty ( I said don't say it...;-) ) and clean it up once dry.

Build Plan. These are the old school resin style. Mount the gun to the turret and the tracks to the side of the hull and you are done!

Magnets. You have 2 magnets on this model and it couldn't get simpler. If you've been following along, you know my simple magnet tricks by now, but if you're new check out the article on the T72s and BMPs.

- Place the magnets on something metal so that they keep the same orientation throughout your assembly

- Mark the top of the magnet stack with a Sharpie

- Put the first magnet into the piece with the deeper hole first

- Put the second magnet so that the opposite side shows (marked/clean or clean/marked)

For the 2S1, you need to drill a little hole in center of the turret...just deep enough for the magnet to sit.  This makes it harder for the magnet to just pop off.

Turret magnet is marked and the hull magnet is unmarked

After the hole is drilled, glue the first magnet, marking the top of the magnet first as well as the next one in the stack to help you maintain polarity orientation, to the hull. We do the hull first because it is the harder f the 2 pieces to guarantee placement of the magnet.  Since the hole is deeper in the hull, the magnet could flip very easily and trying to get it out could be a pain.  If it does flip, not to worry...we can guarantee positive placement on the turret since it has a much smaller hole. So, glue the magnet into place and mark the top of the magnet stack (I cant stress marking the top of the stack each time enough).  Make sure the magnet has the opposite up from what you see on the hull magnet's top.  If the hull is marked, glue the unmarked side facing out on the turret...and if the hull magnet hasthe umarked side up, make sure the turret has the marked side facing out.

Paint Plan. I used the paint plan from the Team Yankee book (pages 116-7) as a guide.

- Vallejo Surface Primer Black

- Basecoat of Vallejo Model Air 71.017 Russian Green.

- Then I hit it with Ordnance Shade From the Team Yankee Color set.

- Then a hi lite of 75% model Vallejo Air Russian Green 25% AK Interactive Dunkelgelb Light Base coat AK-007.

- The road wheels are Vallejo Model Color Black 70.950, then a little hi lite with Vallejo Model Color Black Grey 70.862.

-  I did the tracks like the book.  A dirt brown with a metal hi lite and then an  Ordnance Wash.  Very nice way to do metal tracks.

- Glass areas/Vision Slots:  Vallejo Model Color 70.950 Black, Vallejo Model Color 70.816 Luftwaffe Uniform, Vallejo Model Color 70.943 Grey Blue

- Next the model is gloss varnished.

- Decals are now applied. Micro Sol used were appropriate to kill the edge and make the decal melt into any detail and when dry a little gloss varnish applied over the decal, ensuring this layer covers the decal and goes over the decal edges.  This helps keep those edges from coming up.

- A pin wash of Black was applied to the detail areas.  A pin wash is a very targeted wash, just to those detail area and any excess that gets on top is wiped off.  My wash is a pretty traditional "Magic Wash" of 10-20% Acrylic Floor Was (I still have a bottle of Future Floor Wax I use) then the rest distilled water.  I add a drop or two of Vallejo Model Color Black 70.950 to the mix and there you go. The Gloss coat on the model pulls the floor wax in the wash (and the rest of the wash with it) into the detail doing a lot of work for you.

- Lastly seal it all with an anti-shine spray.  I LOVE Army Painters Anti shine.  About the best I have seen. I use mine through my air brush with no issues and have never frosted a miniature as can happen with spray cans of anti shine. Don't go heavy with any anti shine...too much and can get a shine and defeat the purpose.

Jeff Flint "SonBae" has been a long time contributor to WWPD and admin on the forums. A long time gamer and painter and recently a new studio painter at Mastermind, Model and Miniatures in Huntsville, Alabama. Just trying to keep the cats herded in WWPD-South!