Restoring old tanks

[pawl]

Does anybody happen to know of any guides, walkthroughs or general material related to restoring old rhino chassis and their variants?

I've recently managed to get my hands on two Razorbacks (both the lascannns and auto/plasma varieties), a Vindicator, a whirlwind, a metal Predator Destructor and an all plastic Mk1 Predator.

 

For the most part they're in fairly good shape - stripping paint and removing metal pieces will be easy enough.

There is however minor bits of work that need doing that I've no experience with, and I don't want to make a mess of things. Correcting incorrectly assembled chassis halves is the big one, but removing badly placed/glued HK missiles and moving lights are two other examples.

Essentially I don't want to cut anything off and then realise that I can't get the plastic underneath to look smooth again!

[Fajita Fan]

Pics would help.  Plastic glue creates a pretty ugly spot where you remove it, usually there's bubbles where the plastic dissolved, melted, and cured.  Getting it perfectly smooth will be hard without greenstuff and sanding but your other option is to go the other direction: loaded down with equipment and camo netting!  Add all kinds of ammo boxes, extra tank tracks, vox sets, digging equipment, and cammo netting to cover up the ugly parts while extra armor plating could cover up assembly gaps. 

[pawl]

Rather than dump all the pictures in I'll leave links instead.

 

Razorback 1 - https://i.imgur.com/NCCaSBl.png

This one is actually in really good condition, don't think it needs anything other than stripping/rebuilding/repainting.

 

Vindicator - https://i.imgur.com/p64Hcef.jpg

This one is a chassis problem. I could maybe get away with trying to separate and correct it (is that actually possible?) because so much of the chassis gets covered by metal. Alternatively I could just move the bar filling the gap at the back (they used the 'tail light' bar) and replace that?

 

Razorback 2 - https://i.imgur.com/DJzimCB.jpg | https://i.imgur.com/PDFcRAO.jpg

You can see in the second photo this has a HK missile on one side that needs to go.

 

Predator 1 - https://i.imgur.com/G7g0Ak0.jpg

Would like to adjust the lights I think, other than that it's pretty much just a rebuild I reckon.

 

Whirlwind - https://i.imgur.com/NsbcB44.jpg (sorry for the picture, it's the only one I have currently)

Again you can see the horrible gap at the back being plugged. This is also missing the front metal plate (the one with the radar dish thing), and I may have to try and build a replacement.

 

Predator 2 - https://i.imgur.com/M9dhjXK.jpg

Only won this today, so it's the only one I've not had in my hand.

Lights need moving, antennae will need replacing and the top hatch will need looking at. Again, the chassis is out too, and I'm hoping the sponsons survive transport.

 

 

Think there might be a damaged dozer blade somewhere, but I can't remember without checking. There's also a couple of exhausts missing their top pipe, but the exhausts themselves are at least all present. I think.

 

 

 

The melted spot is what concerns me, as well as removing pieces (the bars covering gaps and the lights) without damaging anything, and then fixing gaps.

 

 

Edit; forgot to say that I've never been a big fan of the "loaded down with equipment" look. I find that it either looks very good or (usually) not that great.

Edited June 9, 2020 by pawl

[lhg033]

If you don't want to go loaded down with equipment an option is a thin plasticard cover for some extra armour/decoration. if you cover the whole panel (e.g the sloped front under the lights) rather than just the damaged area and mirror it on the other side etc and, if needed, use a bit of GS around the edges to blend it into the body it may work

[Fajita Fan]

Equipment or camo netting would save you a lot of time. Once you strip the paint you’ll probably be able to see more, if glued on details have a “ring” around them that means the person probably used more glue than is absolutely necessary so the bonded surfaces will look uglier after separating.

 

I guess that’s a way to save money on hobbying, I’m so anal about things I’d spend so much more time on them it’d be faster to buy new tanks :lol:

 

I’ve tried to use plastic glue to “smooth” out a bad plastic surface and it just doesn’t work well.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[pawl]

If you don't want to go loaded down with equipment an option is a thin plasticard cover for some extra armour/decoration. if you cover the whole panel (e.g the sloped front under the lights) rather than just the damaged area and mirror it on the other side etc and, if needed, use a bit of GS around the edges to blend it into the body it may work

This is something I had considered, but I'll be trying to avoid if it's at all possible. 'Original' is what I'm hoping to aim for if I can, or at least as close to it as I can get. Obviously some things (exhaust pipes etc) I won't be able to do, but I can't really avoid that.

 

 

Equipment or camo netting would save you a lot of time. Once you strip the paint you’ll probably be able to see more, if glued on details have a “ring” around them that means the person probably used more glue than is absolutely necessary so the bonded surfaces will look uglier after separating.

 

I guess that’s a way to save money on hobbying, I’m so anal about things I’d spend so much more time on them it’d be faster to buy new tanks :lol:

 

I’ve tried to use plastic glue to “smooth” out a bad plastic surface and it just doesn’t work well.

It possibly would, but it would also cover up the models, where I want to try and show them off as they are. These are tanks I've wanted to own since I was 9 years old, so 'simple' is actually a good thing

[Noserenda]

Ive done both ways and stowage/extra armour is certainly the easier option but with a lot of sanding you can get it serviceable, tbh on the non stowage covered vehicles i intended for them to look refitted mothballed or civvie versions so they are a bit idiosyncratic with odd damage and retrofits. 

One tip i found for Mk1 rhinos especially with their goddamned tracks to hull join was using gorrilla glue to fill a bit and make an much more solid bond. I had to do a bit of hull rebuilding on the last tank as 10 year old me was a muppet and that was just time and patience along with knowing some bits wont show when im done so i can be rougher with them ;) 

[Noserenda]

Aha found a picture of the finished Rhinos i did recently. These two werent so bad damage wise but one was an Immolator and one was a converted Exorcist so need a bunch of rebuilding, the exhausts were the main issue tbh and i half arsed them *exits stage left*

93856533_10158201458250797_5342654379503648768_o by Noserenda, on Flickr

[BLACK BLΠFLY]

Those look awesome !