Emhar Mk. IV 'Male'
Friends! Are you looking for an escape from the ordinary, far away from the banal zone? An elixir of youth, a medicine of monumentous proportions, a cure-all for what ails you? Then you've come to the wrong bloody website, haven't you?! However, if you seek a nice relaxing small scale AFV project that is mercifully free from the painting rigours of multitudinous road wheels, then this might just be the kit for you.
2341 was a presentation vehicle from a chinese businessman and originally sported a large eye on each side of the forward hull. In the summer of 1917 it was posted to "F" Battalion, 36 Brigade and christened "Fly-Paper" under the command of 2nd Lt. J. M. Oke. Later re-named "Fantan", it participated in the Battle of Cambrai and the battle for the village of Fontaine-notre-Dame with Lt. H. A. Aldridge commanding.
This thing builds in a weekend and painting couldn't be easier. There are few parts and the quality of moulding is excellent. I wasn't too impressed by the rubber band tracks however I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how well paint and cyanoacrylate adhered to them. One of my tracks broke for some reason but super glued back together it even withstood the slight stretching required to get them in place on the tank. Emhar would have you sandwich the tracks between the hull sides during construction but I found it much easier to add them after everything was together. This also gave me a place to hold the tank during painting using a piece of music wire sprung into place between the track runs.
I scratchbuilt the lewis machine guns and their ball mounts because the kit ones were quite awful, strongly resembling miniature versions of the bongs my old roommate used to construct from toilet paper rolls. I also rebuilt the storage box on top from sheet plastic as the one supplied was rather thick and the openings for the exhaust were too close to the centre instead of well over to the left as they should be.
My only other modifications were to cut off the moulded towing lug at the front and scratchbuild a new one and drill out the vision ports, exhaust pipe and cannons.
The unditching rails were fairly annoying to get in place and I would have liked to have seen some kind of locating pins for them. Also the decals weren't quite up to the quality of the ones in the A7V. Copious amounts of Solvaset were needed to get them to conform to the rivets and panel lines and even at that there is still a bit of non-compliance happening at various spots.
Paint is Humbrol Khaki (26) and weathering is a dark earth wash and pastels. All in all, a few trivial modifications and a couple of minor gripes but a very easy and enjoyable project nonetheless. Guess I'll have to build the female version now lest this one starts to enjoy the life of a bachelor tank. A couple of months and he'll be begging to go back to the trenches.
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