17-pounder Valentine SP ("Archer")

The lower hull and suspension complete. I wouldn’t normally add the wheels before painting, but because this kit has link-and-length track, which I find a pain to install after painting, I did here and will just spray the undercarriage with a mud colour later 🙂 

Track fitted on one side. 

The gun mount more or less complete. I added some bolt heads to where the empty shell case bin will attach later, a few plates, and connecting linkage at the left top that Tamiya missed. 

The side walls and gun shield have quite a few ejector pin marks on their insides. 

The completed gun. I filled and filed the areas inside the breech where they should be flat, and also cut away a locating pin for the right-hand shield, where the pin would totally block the breech operating lever. I replaced the rod at the bottom with plastic rod, to avoid a seam in the middle. 

We’re done already! Or are we …? 

The major assemblies that were still loose in the previous photo. There’s still a good amount of work to be done, and I’ll build the upper hull separate from the lower to ease painting. 

Working on the crew. The loader comes with the kit, the gunner is under construction from Bronco parts, which are not easy to make fit in the small amount of space available. 

The gunner’s now has two arms, though the gaps still need to be filled. 

The driver is also done, from a MiniArt figure, except for filling some gaps. He’s not doing anything in particular with his hands, but that will hardly be visible when the upper hull is on. 

Armour plates added to the upper hull, with some painting done on the inside already, in places that will be hard to reach later. 

After that, the rest of the kit was quick to build. 

This is pretty much what you get straight from the box, minus some of the minor bits I’ve left off for now. However … 

Tamiya has omitted some fairly prominent details, though, like the headlight cables. I made them from copper wire and thin brass tube here. 

At the back, I also added a tail light (this was only on the right on the real thing) with its cable from copper wire and brass tube, plus some round thingamajigs from plastic inside the raised surround at the front of the engine deck. 

Connectors for the smoke dischargers added from plastic strip and thick card, as Tamiya omitted those completely. They still both need a cable added that runs to the fitting on the lower hull that I drilled out, but I can only do that after glueing the hull halves together. 

At the front, I added some more details, including a few bolts heads and a spring for the driver’s vision flap (to replace the lever I had added before, which turned out to be wrong). I also replaced the fire extinguisher with one from an Asuka Sherman, because the Tamiya one has no strap. 

The white crap on the lower hull and suspension is acrylic texture gel to replicate mud.