Noticias

Steven Van Dyck
The frame is constructed in the first building step. It's a bit complicated to analyse, but you have to get through this to get all the components ready to fit between the profiles.

Lenny Li
Looks fun with all those PE sheets!

Neuling
Looking forward here ..........

Steven Van Dyck
All welcome, I now assembled the front and 4th axles. All are movable in a steering position, but as usual you have to decide and then fix everything. Also I found that one set of wheels is not parallel, so I cut the steering arm and added a millimeter of sprue roundel. Does this not appear if they test-fit these kits, or did I make a build error?

Steven Van Dyck
All 4 axles are now added to the frame, together with the shock absorbers that I had to shorten a bit at the front axle. The torsion bars are fixed at one side so I can remove the air bellows for painting.

Steven Van Dyck
The fuel tank hoops and steps are now replaced with PE. The steps are quite hard to bend in the right order and no dimensions or angles are given to mount them.

Steven Van Dyck
The radiator is now detailed with the Voyager silver mesh. You only see the front side now, it's on both sides. When it was assembled I realised that the air horns also need a PE part. There is some warping in the sump and the top cover, I hope it isn't evident looking through the front grille later on. The air tanks must be stripped like the fuel tanks, but you get equal lengths of PE strips to attach two kinds of tank. Therefore I clipped 4 of them and redrilled the hole on the end. The assembly with the 2 tanks and the container is suspended on a single PE part that I had first bent the wrong direction, I hope it doesn't get fatigued.

Steven Van Dyck
I started the interior with some colored PE from Eduard. The Black Dog figures are assembled and also a Maim figure and two Legend armament sets were added to the project. But the Maim gunner appeared to have a large backpack, so I don't know he's feasible.

Steven Van Dyck
Continuing the interior with the seats. Also the fenders are completed, it's very important to align the bent beams that sometimes are replaced woth Voyager assemblies. It's preferable to use that, the replacements are sturdier than the originals.

Steven Van Dyck
The cabin exterior is done using some original kit PE and clearparts, but both have problems. The clearparts are not calibrated and have distortion because of this. I will be replacing the large parts with plexiglass. The kit PE is wobbly because it's not thick enough., I even had to hammer it quite a while. Then I found out Voyager does replace half of the protection kit, but not the large parts behind the doors. At least half of the creases are removed then. But Voyager messed up at the hood closing strip, providing two identical parts in stead of mirrored ones. This could be remedied with some re-riveting.

Steven Van Dyck
The pVoyager photo etch cabin roof is constructed with all its nightmarish embossing deformities corrected, the badly fitting airco module that was mosly bent the wrong way around so it broke at one instance. I replaced the 3 largest clearparts with a piece of Trumpeter 1/350 airplane set transparent box cover, that has the right thickness to be able to sand the corner roundings in it. The air purifier system is not installed completely, because that would impede the clearpart masking. So now it's down to interior painting.

gorby
Looks amazing so far!
I'm also amazed at the number of projects you have on the go and still manage to achieve such remarkable results.

Steven Van Dyck
Thanks Gorby, this was now put to wait for the Essex carriers, but as these are awaiting some last details it can go ahead now. The NATO green interior is painted after the appliance of the Eduard masking set. This replaces the kit masking set and has a cool black film, but still needs some trimming on the outside masks of the smaller windows.

Steven Van Dyck
The truck cabin is now finished with the Eduard safety straps. While fixing the roof I noticed that a small strip should pass over the rear to make the internal frame fit to the rivets in the PE.

Steven Van Dyck
The hood is dry-fit on the frame and it seemed that one fender had to be rearranged. I prepared the PE for the rear view mirrors that are quite complicated. I also built the Gecko Models pallet truck as a dio element. It's a very fine kit, there is only one pallet contrary to the image with the 4 pallets on the truck.

Steven Van Dyck
I added the Italeri 20ft container to the project as one of these is clearly visible on the Tankograd pictures. I got it from the store next door. I might cjt up the container to get a better composition on the dio and like that I can get 2 out of 1.

Guy Rump
Following. 👍

Steven Van Dyck
Welcome. I assembled the container in a few hours, an easy process if you wanted to show it closed down. But the option with open doors is incorrect and needs some changes to the locking system. I had done this with the right door, but it would make no sense to have the pallet loader blocked by the left door so I have to change that one too. I made a sketch of the design for the dio, though the cut might be more oblique to gain some volume.