Takom 1/35 Leopard C2 finished

I’ve finally finished this one that was started in July 2017, a Canadian Leopard C2; Weathering has been kept to a minimum as the photographs I have been using show them to be fairly clean.

Takom 1/35 Leopard C2

This has been on the bench for long enough so it’s time to get it done; This will NOT be heavily weathered as from the photo’s that I’m basing it on Canadian Leopards (apart from being on exercise) seemed to be relatively clean. I did want to do an actual vehicle but the marking option

Takom Leopard C2

While I’m in the mood for finishing stuff I applied a dark brown wash over the model a few days ago and today I painted the tools and ice cleats on the front glacis plate with Vallejo black and the canvas mantlet cover with Vallejo English Uniform.Tonight I sprayed the model with Winsor and Newton

Takom Leopard C2

I started to apply the decals today but hit a snag in that the carrier film on the kit decals had a ‘milky’ consistency; Also it was pointed out by a former Canadian Leopard commander that the right-hand decal is incorrect in that the symbol represents a mechanised infantry unit rather than an armoured one.So

Takom Leopard C2

I’ve finally finished the build of this one so it will get a wash down and when dry it’s off to the paint shop. The Leopard I want to depict didn’t have the turret mounted MG fitted so the mount and ammo box holder were scratch-built from thin styrene sheet, the white thing on the

Takom Leopard C2

After knocking off the jerry can racks I decided to make new ones using brass completely instead of plastic as the others just fell apart. Superglue was pretty useless in the first place due to the very small mating areas so this time I thought I would have a go at soldering.Brass sheet was cut

Takom Leopard C2

I’ve stuck on a few more parts, YAY! On the vehicle I want to model the jerrycan holders on the rear of the turret basket are empty so I attempted to make new ones from scratch using styrene strip and thin brass sheet; They didn’t look too bad until today when I broke them off.

Takom Leopard C2

I was going to use the kit barrel and add some detail to it but decided on using an aftermarket item instead from Orange Hobby that I had got for my Meng Leopard 1A5, also there is no rifling inside the kit barrel ; As you can see it comes with two small frets of

Takom Leopard C2

In their infinite wisdom Takom moulded all the mounts for the turret spaced armour separately and although the bigger ones were OK the small ones are very fiddly. You get 34 on the sprue and you need 16 per side so after pinging three to feed the carpet monster I could see which way this

Takom Leopard C2

As I noted a few days ago Takom made a bit of a mess of the front part of the turret where the gun mantlet joins. Looking at reference pictures and a turret from the Meng Leopard 1A5 I decided the best thing to do was remove the shaded area; Actually I removed more material