Ebbles Kirchner Main Battle Tank

[kjev]

I took a break from some of the bigger projects I've been finishing up, and decided to build this little tank. It's a "near future" job from Chris Rowe at Ebbles Miniatures/Genet Models. He's been kind enough to make his older models free. You can download them from his archives here.



I decided to build this straight from the printer, and I learned...I can't. I can't build anything just like the instructions say. Everything I make ends up tweaked, adjusted, customized, fiddled with, improved (which may be a matter of opinion), or added to.

But I tried, this time, I really, really, really did.

In actuality, the only things I did "non-standard" were to reinforce the insides with cardboard, pin the gun barrels in place with a bamboo skewer and a toothpick, make a pin-and-socket "joint" under the turret, then add a cardboard disk under the turret so it could rotate.



The disk was because I got ahead of myself and decided the turret was going to rotate before I added the driver's hatch, and put the turret pin and socket in the wrong place. I should have put it about a quarter of an inch closer to the rear of the tank. To keep it from running into the driver's hatch, I had to jack it up some.

But even with all the over-engineering, it took me about a day and a half from start to finish. Well-designed model, and a lot of fun to build. It's probably the cleanest build I've made thus far.

Here is my new tank with G'nea Pyg the Tau Test Dummy, and a Jotun mecha that is in the middle of being painted.



Chris, if you ever read this, thanks for the years of hard work you've put into your models!

[Vermin_King]

Glad to see you posted here, too. I'm really, really anxious to see the Jotun finished.

[kjev]

I'm anxious to see it finished as well. My oldest is now old enough to start playing "real" Battletech instead of "Kidtech" (Really simplified rules), and we want to do a large-scale skirmish. The Jotun will be the second of my papermechs.


It's actually got magnetic joints, as well as being greeblified. My goal is to make it match the tank in color as closely as possible. I'll give it a thread when it's done.

[gotham]

These are on my 'to do' list, great to see actual builds. Nicely done.

[kjev]

Gotham, I'd love to see pictures of your builds when you do them. I have a lot of Ebbles' models that I want to build. One of my next projects is the Trilateral Union Prowler that I recolored from gray to tan to match the Kirchner. Chris was nice enough to talk me through the process of adjusting the colors so they matched, so now I have a few sheets scored and ready to cut.