Russian S-65 Tractor, Scratched and Dirty

[JohnTolcher]

Hi Folks
This is a kit I finished recently, it is a Trumpeter Stalinetz S-65 Tractor scale 1/35. An engine was added from LZ Models, plus a scratch canopy and some extra details to the engine bay.

It's still in several seperate pieces here, held together by gravity and sometimes very tiny spots of superglue.




The weathering effects would involve some rubbing and scratching of latter paint layers, so I wanted a good base to start.

Tamiya Surface Primer, thinned with Tamiya Lacquer thinner by eye and sprayed from my airbrush: (it took some extra effort to clean, next time I'll use a rattelcan)


This was followed with Vallejo acrylics in various shades of rust, followed by a coat of Testors Dullcote. This was then left to cure for a few days, and provided a pretty durable base for the next steps:


I had an impression in my mind of the result I was after, but it involved some new things for me, like double layer hairspray chipping. So I did some trials, on pieces of styrene sheet glued to bits of sprue for handling and support. The first few were unsuccessful but then I came up with these which were close to my goal:


The details for this technique will follow in the next post. Back soon!

[lab-dad]

That is one damn sexy tractor! Very detailed, very nicely built.
I too am looking forward to the SBS.
And welcome to the forum!
-Marty

[JohnTolcher]

Hi Marty, thanks for the welcome!

I used the hairspray technique for the scratches on this, although no hairspray was used. Instead I used this stuff:


This acts in the same way as the hairspray, providing a water soluble layer between two layers of paint. I've used this product a lot lately, and 'tweeked' it to get the best results. I've found if it's spray on too thick it forms beads causing strange results. So I thin the fluid with soapy water, 3 parts water to 2 parts of the Worn Effects Fluid. This was airbrushed onto the model, over the dullcote, in 6 very light coats, just a light mist, allowing it to just dry between coats. I'm being specific, because I wanted maximum controllabilty. A flat smooth layer of this stuff at just the right thickness gives very good results -very fine scratches and a complex chipping pattern.

Over this fluid I airbrushed Tamiya XF-12 grey thinned with a few drops of Tamiya Lacquer Thinner in several light coats. Just a thin layer is best for good chipping, so as soon as the grey is opaque, it is enough. Chipping should be done immediately before the paint fully cures.

As soon as this was touch dry, I wet the surface with a wet paint brush. After a few seconds a fine wooden toothpick was gently passed over the surface to scratch it. Then a wet paintbrush was rubbed over the surface, which opened the scratches in places and also removed random chips of paint.

When dry this was followed by the Worn Effects Fluid again and the process was repeated, except using a Tamiya green for the top coat.





Taking care with the thickness of each layer, so that they are only just thick enough yields pretty fine scratches as you can see.

More to follow soon, cheers!

[Wesleybeks]

I think 1:1 tractors will have a hard time being weathered as good as this.

Seriously stunning stuff John. I followed your build on the MIG forum and it will be a joy to follow it again.

[Malachi Constant]

Have seen your recent work elsewhere and delighted that you've signed up to share your efforts here.  Welcome aboard!  Really look forward to more ...

Cheers,
Dallas

[JohnTolcher]

Wesley, Dallas, thankyou gents! Painting a model like this is a pleasure, as is sharing the experience and recieving feedback.

The engine was painted next. It was grey with some chipping, the next thing I did was rust up some of the pipes. I did this by sponging on different shades of rust in acrylics, I'll show the details of this technique a little latter.

Then I gave it a coat of dust. This was a pale greyish tan I mixed from Vallejo acrylics, and airbrushed on very lightly. I kept the paint quite thick so it went on almost dry by the time the mist hit the model. An quick airbrushed spray like this can often accumulate mostly on the most protruding parts, I used this effect to leave some variation in the dust layer.

Then grime, oil and old fluid stains and rust stains were added with washes of oil paint. The colors were a dark rusty brown, dark grey and black, thinned with white spirit.




Thanks for following, more soon.

[JohnTolcher]

Some more progress: this photo shows the effect I was aiming for. The base colour was green or similar, however rust stains carried down from bare spots by the rain have altered the colour. First there is a pale yellow covering larger areas, plus dark red streaks in smaller areas inside the yellow.


To do this I used oil paints, deposited on some paper for an half hour or more to absorb some of the oil.


First a pale yellow was mixed with some white spirit, and applied using a fine brush. This was left for a few minutes until the white spirit had entirely evaporated. The oil paint is still not dry, but has become stiff and waxy. Then I used a course haired artists' brush, DRY, and started to rub around the edges to soften the oil paint. Easy!


The yellow was allowed to dry for a few days, then the process was repeated with a reddish brown. You really need to let the yellow dry first or the brown will just mix with it, ruining the effect.







This effect is easy to do, and if you don't like it you can remove the oil paint with some white spirit (before it fully dries). So the oils were allowed to dry for a few days before the next step.

Thanks for following, cheers.
JT

[JohnTolcher]

The canopy was painted next. I wanted to make it pretty rusty, first it was primed, and painted with Vallejo shades of rust followed by a coat or two of Dullcote. Then I mixed some Mig Productions pigments, Standard Rust, Track Brown and Fresh Rust to get a pigment more brown and less orange than standard rust.

I also made a 'pigment shaker' to evenly sprinkle a fine layer of pigment. This is a small bottle with a hole cut in the lid, with very fine mesh glue over the hole. The mesh came from an old clothes dryer filter.


Then I brushed acrylic matt varnish over the top of the canopy in a thin layer, and sprinkled pigment mostly on the horizontal part. The varnish acts as a fixer, which will be unaffected by white spirit used later.

Lastly some more varnish was mixed with the pigment to make a paste, added to the sides of the canopy in little blobs right at the edge.


When dry this was airbrushed with a light layer of Deck Tan to simulate an old cream paint that has faded with age.


This was followed by some airbrushed pale rust stains, the colour was mixed from Tamiya red, yellow and probably a little brown or black I think.


Then take some fine sandpaper, take a deep breath - and start gently sanding! Obviously take care not to go through too much paint, just expose the pigments.


More to follow, see you soon.

[JohnTolcher]

Next the frame of the canopy was painted, this was intended to be bare rusty steel with no old paint.

I used Vallejo Model Color and Panzer Aces paint, not Model Air. This is because these are thicker paints, which helps this technique. The colours used, plus a little retarder to slow down the drying process:


I mixed the red and blue to make a mauve, and the Light Rust and yellow to make an orange brown, and the Dark Rust I used on it's own. So 3 different colours were sponged on using 3 foam sponges:


Not too much paint on the sponge, I just built up the different colours mixing them a little with the sponges as the paint went on, tacky wet paint into tacky wet paint. When done I also added some oil washes to the top around the rust blisters, and there it is.






Almost done, more soon.

[JohnTolcher]

Here are the final stages. Again I airbrushed dust onto the model, mostly on the cowling, using the same technique used on the engine. However, before the paint went on I brushed a little soapy water on first and sprinkled talcum powder onto some areas using the pigment shaker shown previously. When the water dried the talc stuck long enough to mask little areas as the dust went on. The result is a layer of dust which has been disturbed and partially removed in places.


After this some pin washes and general shading were added using oil paints, plus oil stains which was just black oil paint thinned with white spirit.

The tracks were painted using the 3 sponge technique as detail above. They had a light coat of dust as well, then pigments to resemble dried mud..

The pigments were mixed with a little water and brushed on. When dry they were lightly brushed again with a dry paint brush to soften the edges and spread them out. Then an enamel Pigment Fixer was added, by dropping a fully loaded paint brush with the stuff next to the pigments and letting the fixer flow through it. Lastly they were drybrushed with some metallic paint.

So there it is.












The trunk came off a tree I have growing in my yard, as you can see the branches have a fine texture like miniature tree bark. I think it's a Melaleuca, an Australian native.

The cut off branches are fine twigs from the Melaleuca stuck into holes drilled into the trunk. The green branch was made from twisted strands of copper wire, covered with liquid putty. The needles were grass tufts from Mininatur, glued with superglue onto the branch.


I had a lot of fun with this project, I'm hoping to build the Caterpillar 60 some time, which is another conversion now available from LZ Models. But not just yet - the thought of assembling another pair of those track sets leaves me a bit numb!

Cheers
JT

[Marc988]

Hi John,

thanks a lot for the SBS and especially the details on how you did the scratches! You have really build and painted an excellent tractor

I had never heard of the AK worn effects but that is certainly something I would like to try !

I am looking forward on your attempt on the Caterpillar 60  

Regards,
Marc





PS @ Nick thanks for asking  

[Gordon Ferguson]

Hi John, thanks for the SBS, enjoyed watching your work on the MIG forum but just as enjoyable here.

I'm in the process of building a crawler at the moment and am very tempted to put a canopy on it just to practice/copy your techniques

[Bill76]

Great work. You seem to be a real crawler addict. The canopy is well done and gives more character to the crawler. Well don ! Thanks for sharing the using of these new products from AK.

Georges.

[lab-dad]

ABSOLUTELY SPLENDID!
The tractor is great - I want one now!
Great more 1:35 to do.....

As far as all the info; it is very much appreciated.
Going to save this "article" for posterity and reference!

-Marty

[finescalerr]

Wow! WOW! WOW! WOW! -- Russ