Kondensator
Kommentarer
5 27 July 2019, 22:09
Steven Van DyckThanks, I corrected an error to the undercarriage and now the wheels are prepared. Lots of cutting, sanding, scraping and dry-fitting. The fitt is goed but there is flash on the wheels. I bought the Miniart '60-'70 tank crew to add at least the driver.
3 August 2019, 23:36
Steven Van DyckThanks, Chris! I just joined the sprockets with a plastic axle, I like that better than immobilizing them with glue. Cleaning the torsion bars is hard because of the thick sprue connection points.
17 August 2019, 22:28
Slavo HazuchaWow, great project! I saw this thing once years ago in a museum yard in Russia... that gun is just obscenely large... Having seen what you usualy do with your models, I am very keen on watching this evolve 👍
17 August 2019, 22:31
Steven Van DyckSlavo, I'm a bit jealous that you have seen this beautiful museum. Now I think about it, it got a few pages in one of the last SMMI issues. If anybody would have taken pictures there from unusual angles, you're very welcome... Today you can see some PE is added, although there are fitting problems inside the hull and Voyager using the wrong parts numbering.
24 August 2019, 23:53
Slavo HazuchaUnfortunately it was a many years ago, at a time when I was trying to capture artistic pics on 35mm BW film as a young man in my early 20's 😄 Nothing useful for model making purposes came out of that... 🙂
25 August 2019, 18:18
Steven Van DyckThe tracklinks are now burnished and ready to assemble with about 400 little pins.
17 November 2019, 00:24
Steven Van DyckThe tracks are assembled. Two caveats here:
- The drill holes are a fraction too narrow. If you don't rebore with a nr.71 like I did, you will break half of the resin pins (I know, it's 800 reborings, but you can expect that stuff with large tracklink counts). To have a realistic pin impression, add a metal thread centerpiece between each set.
- There is one bag of interior pins and one of outside pins, with a tiny difference on top of the head. I noticed this after inserting already half of the outside pins on both ends. Luckily, caveat 1 has made it very easy to undo one half of the inserting. I still needed glue to keep the interior pins in now, they are finer and have no flash unlike the outside ones. Only one of the 210+ links was broken, some were bent slightly but this is redressed in a second.
19 November 2019, 18:55
Slavo HazuchaWow... the work with the tracks - colossal... sort of a good summary term for the whole thing...
2 December 2019, 11:02
Steven Van DyckThanks, guys. Today a smaller update, about the cabin and the fenders that are added.
7 December 2019, 23:47
Steven Van DyckThe cabin door has some issues if you want to present it opened up. The inside has the negative details of the embossing, which is nice, but it has no lock. The outside shows the riveting used in the museumpiece to cover it off, but if youwatch closely the parade pics, you see a frame around each cabin window that isn't there. This looks more like another version in my book with smaller windows, but that has 4 embossings in stead of 3. So I decided to replace the entire door panel with brass, lining the windows with aluminium frames. To make things more complicated, Voyager erred again in its hinges, causing them to fit badly. I had to cut the hinges again and replaced the eyelets with two engraved brass tubes, conserving the movable function. The horn-and-headlight on the other hand, that's some eye-candy.
24 December 2019, 16:35
Steven Van DyckNow the driver is being installed. The chair has to be moved to the largest angle and the ladder will have to be extended to have him fit. All interior surfaces are painted olive drab.
26 December 2019, 12:06
Steven Van DyckI have some objections about this Voyager kit, though it's a bit early to judge. Today I found again six hinges that were badly dimensioned, making them unsuitable to join. That means they didn't even test-fit this set, because you see immediately that the hinge is lined out badly. What is even worse, I have now encountered a large PE part that I'll guarantee you will split over each of its embossing-lines. That is because they found it necessary to cross these lines, where the brass has only half the total PE thickness, with full-breadth locator lines on the other side. The moment you depress the brass at these lines, it rips open (picture with the scalpel). I remedied this problem by simply copying the piece and embossing it clean following a ruler. To make the last bends was a bit more complicated but I think it worked out well. Also, the instruments had to be decalled on separately to have the decal fit on the quite realistic dashboard. Wonder where they got that from, I can't find anything on the net...
27 December 2019, 22:09
Steven Van DyckThe barrel with the muzzle cover and the complicated gun cradle and breech block are constructed. This all fits very neatly, in such a way that cleanup is minimal. Most important, the barrel has no visible seam.
1 January 2020, 23:19
Steven Van DyckThe loader has been improved with the Voyager PE upgrade, even when it was going to have photo etch out of the box. The difference lies in the method to create riveting, using embossing in stead of etched detail. Even more improvement will follow when all piping is done with wires. The hydraulic cylinders of the elevation device have to be sawn off to accomodate a PE ring. This has got an overscale perforation though, 5,2mm having to fit over a 4,8 tube. I will address this with a small 5,5mm ring.
12 January 2020, 21:29
Steven Van DyckThanks, Lode! The crew has manned their stations now, I found a funny picture I want to imitate, so I repositioned one of the drivers a bit.
19 January 2020, 19:49
Steven Van DyckI found a great walkaround for the Kondensator: walkarounds.scalemod..er_1950/Kondensator/. I'm using it now to superdetail the hydraulics.
28 January 2020, 22:50
Slavo HazuchaVery much looking forward to the hydraulic superdetailing! You know your trade in this department 👍
3 February 2020, 10:44
Steven Van DyckThanks, Slavo! On these pictures from walkarounds.scalemodels.ru/ you can see what is missing on the model. I had to add some quite complicated machinery. Some of the wiring needed a lot of force to fix to the plating.
6 February 2020, 17:12
Steven Van DyckMaking flexible hoses is a time-consuming endeavour. For the wire shown, it took one hour and a half to spin the copper thread around it. I also improved the position of the brass tubes on the rammer.
15 February 2020, 23:32
Steven Van DyckSome more flexible ducts are produced, and then it's only the small details.
20 February 2020, 17:57
Steven Van DyckThe Kondensator has attended MKB Happening and won the special naked kit prize.
8 March 2020, 22:03
Slavo HazuchaCongrats Steven 👍 - no wonder it won, looking at the material blend & detail level permits no other outcome! The work on the hydraulics looks awesome!
9 March 2020, 00:15
Steven Van DyckThank you guys, now the Kondensator is completely primered, which took two evenings of spraying Tamiya flat black.
15 March 2020, 00:54
Steven Van DyckI chose Tamiya Olive Drab again. I had a problem getting out the pin that holds the barrel in place. I needed a screw to push it out without harming the frail photo etch parts. Now I'm going to spray a star on the sides.
19 March 2020, 23:19
Slavo HazuchaClose to the finish now & looking good!
Looking forward to see all that work come together completed.
20 March 2020, 09:07
TreehuggerHow long is this model from rear to tip of barrel opening? 🙂 Would be nice to know the required shelf space dimension for this kit.
20 March 2020, 12:09
Steven Van DyckKondensator | Album by StevenVD (1:35)
Thanks for the acclaim. Now I'm painting the show marks on the wheels, as you can see.
20 March 2020, 14:10
Steven Van DyckThanks, William. I've advanced the preparations to the final assembly of the gun now. Some areas on the suspension are touched up in white, three Soviet stars are painted with an allied stenciling set in two phases (don't mind the overspray, it's removed afterward) and the fenders are meticulously masked and marked white. Then, the whole junk was washed with AK for NATO wash and then thoroughly dry-brushed. Figures have also received base paint, but are not yet on photo.
24 March 2020, 07:59
Steven Van DyckPeople who want to assemble the gun later on should be advised to sand down the inside of the two flanges before inserting them in the gun cradle, which is virtually permanent because of the compression in it. They have a visible taper at the end that will obstruct a proper fit, causing a gap between the flange and the cradle. I had discovered this while one of the flanges was already blocked by the PE railing, so I had to gamble and compress the joint with a Wolfcraft vice. It did not work out fine and a gap of 1mm persisted. I had to saw off the flange and remove the excess tube, which in the end did not show, other than that elevation is now impossible. With the transport brake closed, it would have been anyway. I preferred to cut and file the clearparts out of thin plastic, because I had modified the window edges and the kit clearparts would not fit any more. The track burnishing was not sufficient in my eyes, so I added a mix of Gun Metal and NATO black, with a worn inner edge in Chrome Silver. I can now put it on the Kondensator, while the crew is testing its position.
25 March 2020, 20:38
TreehuggerSteven Van Dyck, how long is the model from rear to tip of barrel in cm's?
27 March 2020, 16:03
Steven Van DyckI measured 43 centimeters. Minimum elevation with transport brake is 12 centimeters, width almost 10 centimeters.
27 March 2020, 17:02
Steven Van DyckApparently I had reversed a large part of the gun, luckily I could pry it loose. I also wrestled with the loading crane thread, that has lost its hook mysteriously. The crew doesn't mind in their all newly weathered gear. SOme pics with the tracks on, had to remove 2 links in total so I have now about 5 spare links of whom 4 had casting damage. But they look perfect.
29 March 2020, 18:01
Steven Van DyckThanks, Ingo! I had to reproduce the winch, so I made it better. Then al could be assembled and the base plate could be fitted out with some track holding pins. I made use of this outstanding weather for the last pictures of the Kondensator, but I will have to provide a nameplate for it, so you got 1 update still coming.
10 April 2020, 19:44
Slavo HazuchaTurned out spectacular 👍 All the research & work paying off with the result!
10 April 2020, 21:51
Wim van der LuijtFantastic result Steven👍 your attention to detail has paid off once again
11 April 2020, 07:56
Steven Van DyckThanks, guys! Now to wait for an occasion to show it on a convention, might be september or later... I had to order some new jars of Olive Drab.
11 April 2020, 20:19
Steven Van DyckI almost finished the nameplate in Russian style. I had to change some details during fitting on the model, but it all turned out well. Tomorrow I plan to have the project done...
19 April 2020, 22:21
Steven Van DyckThe project is finished! But I already have another cold war behemoth in stash, that will probably show up later this year...
20 April 2020, 10:50
Slavo HazuchaThe base looks super cool with that star & title... Very Soviet indeed! 👍
It´s also enlightening to see that the Kondensator is actually one of your "smaller" models 🙂
22 April 2020, 15:50
