Workin on my HL KV-1

[ShadowWolfDragon]

Well started wrkin on my kv 1 tank 2 days ago. Did airbrush some camo on it of my own design the day i started wrkin on it, Yesterday started putting the weathering and battle damage to it. The idea behind wat i am doin to it is tht it has been abadoned in some secluded area forgotten for years only to be found by some random people after years of being left behind by its valiant crew for some unknown reason.
In a secluded area of someforest, the poor piece of weaponry is forgotten in the secluded area like a forgotten solidier from the war. As the metal beast sleeps in its resting place it dreams of wen it was useful in protecting its crew and fighting of the enemy tanks that was encrouching on its homeland. The beast only thinks now of fading in time and becoming a forgotten relic of a nasty conflict in the history of the world. The great metal beast rest and thinks of the days when him and his crew would travel fields and down roads searching for the enemy combatants to eliminate. It also remembers when the men would maintain it so it may stay in its top fighting form against their enemies. It remembers when it was fired upon by a german tiger 1 and the shell from its mighty 88 ricocheted of its side space armor on the turret and left a big dent in that thick armor plus the numerous other hits by other projtiles that left scars all over it's body. It remembered the time when a explosive went off beside it and ripped open a corner on one of the tool boxes/storage boxes on its right side and another time whendebris fell on the rear right tool/storage box and left a couple of massive dents in it which made it almost unusable but its crew managed to get it to work again. As the metal beast is left to the elements of the world the forest grows up around it and and hids it from prying eyes its body starts to rust and attract dust dirt dead leaves and such while its mighty catepillar tracks begin to sink into the the forest floor. Several decades later a group of friends who are out wondering the woods exploring spot a strange lookin overgrowth ahead of them which looks pecular and not normal. They all look at it with curiosty and decide to investigate it and decide to look closer. As they do their investigation one of the friends decover something that looks like a pipe or sumthin barely sticking out of a area of the overgrowth. he calls the rest over to see if they can pull it out of the overgrowth or break thru the overgrowth. They tried pullin it out but it would not move so they decided to cut around it as they did this they find out it was attached to sumthin but couldnt go an further cuz the brush got to thick for there machetes and knives so they decided to come back the next day wit camping gear and atvs and chainsaws to cut thru this thick brush cuz now they where curious on wat they found out there in the woods they hv been thru all their lives. The next day they returned to the spot and start cutting. As the day went on the men started to get amazed at what they had discovered they had discovered a vintage still mainly intaked ww2 kv-1 heavy tank that was probably abandoned cuz of some sort of catastrophic failure but they could not find any thing to support that theory of theirs. As they explored the great war machine one of the men removed some of the moss and dirt to reveil the word valhala on its turret and valkrie on its barrel. after pain stakingly removing the tank from its resting place to one of the mens barns so they cld figure out wat to do with it next either scrap it for its metal value, restore it to working condition, or give it to the local war museum which was 30 miles away from where the man lived.

[ShadowWolfDragon]

Still a work in progress for me but i think it will work out once im done with it
lol

[Herr Dr. Professor]

Given your imaginative story of the KV-1's long abandonment, I see why you patterned the rust areas as if rubbed by branches. It would be interesting to speculate about if or how the part of the tracks in direct contact with the ground and woodland detritus might weather differently from the tracks exposed to air, branches, and leaves.

[ShadowWolfDragon]

hvnt figured how i can do tht yet gotta figure wat will wrk with the metal tracks, drive wheels, idler wheels, and the road wheels since they r all metal. So mainly focusing on its body rite now wish there was a rc tank club in calgary alberta lol.

[MrChef]

hvnt figured how i can do tht yet gotta figure wat will wrk with the metal tracks, drive wheels, idler wheels, and the road wheels since they r all metal. So mainly focusing on its body rite now wish there was a rc tank club in calgary alberta lol.

The first thing Id suggest is to remove the metal tracks and wheels, sprockets, idlers and swing arms. Then use a primer paint on the wheels and swing arms before applying any basecoat paint to them as just applying paint may work for a static model but it Will rub off the metal when operating the RC tank and ruin your effort.

Then you have 2 choices for starting the tracks. 1. prime and paint them or 2. blacken and weather them. I prefer the second method as it looks more realistic IMHO and just burnishing with a blackening agent such as a "gun blue" acts as a primer for whatever you decide to weather them with next.

[MrChef]

here is a pic of my current project that isn't quite complete yet. all metal the tracks were blackened with Brownells Oxpho-blue, gun bluing product first.