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Spudgun · Posted: Sat 19 Apr 2008 15:43 pm Post subject:

Right, time for an update.

I've been to my LMS and I've bought another Bofors kit. That means I'll be starting again. Now, rather than repeating myself with the build details of the second Bofors, I'll only list what I've done that's different. The first thing that'll be different is the emplacement will be changing location. It's moving from Kent to that funny little rock at the end of Spain (Those photo's have had another impact).

I'll Post a shot of the old Bofors as soon as I get my camera back (It's off doing wedding duties at the moment).

Finally (for this chapter anyway). Sgt Squarehead, can you PM me your address so I can sent you the parts you need for your GB.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Sun 20 Apr 2008 06:31 am Post subject:

As promised, here's a picture of the aborted first Bofors.

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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Ratch · Posted: Sun 20 Apr 2008 11:52 am Post subject:

Sits nicely in the pit, don't it

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Sgt.Squarehead · Posted: Sun 20 Apr 2008 15:50 pm Post subject:

Looks pretty convincing to me!

All the best
BTW - I kind of know what you mean about in-progress shots, it can be a chore to take them and doing so can interrupt the creative flow. However they do have their advantages, particularly on complex builds.....All those extra pairs of eyes to pick up on problems, often before it is too late to resolve them.

Spudgun · Posted: Sun 20 Apr 2008 19:14 pm Post subject:

Right, time for todays update. There isn't all that much to report as I've been away for a fair chunk of the weekend. However, I can tell you what my intentions are.

I've already mentioned that I'm moving the location of the emplacement, so it's out with the green and in with the sand. Mind you, since I'm going to salvage two of the figures from the first Bofors that are already painted (Ammo man and Bino man), I'm going to keep the european uniforms instead of the tropical. I may repaint the helmets though.

All I've done is to apply the first coat of H93 to the major parts of the Bofors.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

DavidM · Posted: Mon 21 Apr 2008 07:41 am Post subject:

I'll have look at mine tonight and investigate the fit issues. IIRC I left the shield off the last one I built as I was doing an early one (left off the remote power control boxes too).

It might pay to look at a few more Bofors photos as the sights changed quite a lot over time, the cartwheel type were only in use for a while, replacing (IIRC again) reflector type ones and later being replaced themselves by the much more complicate Stiffkey Stick type.

David
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David Maynard. 1962-2009. Gone too soon but not forgotten.

Spudgun · Posted: Mon 21 Apr 2008 20:10 pm Post subject:

Right, no report today as it's only a repeat of what I did to the first Bofors, but with a different colour (Namely giving the parts a second coat of paint.). Tomorrow, I'll start building the Bofors, giving priority to the fit of the shield.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Tue 22 Apr 2008 20:39 pm Post subject:

Right, things are beginning to go my way for a change.

Previously, I mentioned that I was going to build the Bofors and give priority to the fitting of the shield. This has now been done and the shield fits perfectly. Here's how it was done:

When I built the first Bofors, I built it as per the instructions. As a result, the shield didn't fit. This time, the instructions were ignored and the build sequence changed. The gun and the two supports were put on first, followed by those two gizmo's that sit directly in front of the supports. The shield was then added. The footrests, the crewmen and their seats are the parts that had their assembly sequence changed as they were the parts that caused the problems on the first Bofors.

I suspect that part of the original problem was the location of the footrests. These two parts engage into slots, rather than holes. If you get the location wrong within the slots, then it would follow that the crewmen wouldn't fit corretly either as they would be to far back, or to far forward. It's true that the shield forms the back wall of the slots when it's added, but the final location of the footrests can still be a little vague if they're fitted before the shield goes on. Now that the shield is on, it's going to be a little fiddly adding the footrests, but at least they won't ruin the fit of anything else.

Before I could do any more to the Bofors, I had to start painting the crewmen. As I've mentioned before, I'm salvaging two of the figures from the aborted first Bofors. Since these figure were already painted in European colours (H29 for the uniforms and H75 for the helmets), I'm going to paint the new crew in the same colours. Yes, OK it isn't really accurate considering the sandy colour used on the new Bofors, but repainting the old crewmen to reflect the Gibralter location for this AA position is aggro I don't need, plus I'm using a painted figure from my built-up 6pdr crew.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Wed 23 Apr 2008 20:21 pm Post subject:

Right, not a lot to report today as most of the work has been painting the gun crew (not very interesting). However, the work done on the Bofors will be of interest.

Mentioned previously, the shield was added out of sequence. Now I had to add the footrests that go in behind the shield. This turned out to be not as fiddly as first thought. I used a pair of tweezers to test fit the footrests. They (test) fitted just fine. However, the location peg on the bottom of the footrests isn't all that good (it really needs to be longer). I'm not surprised that there's build problems later. The combination of a slot and a short peg is just asking for trouble. Using a dab of superglue (my normal modelmaking adhesive) on the peg and the bar that goes across the bottom of the footrests, each footrest was added with the aid of tweezers. Now, superglue goes off dead quick, so making sure that each footrest went into the correct place at the correct angle within a couple of seconds is quite scarey. Don't forget, the combination of the slot and the short peg meant that the footrests won't stay in position unaided (They'll just fall out, or keel over).

With the footrests in position, I only did one other thing and that was to add the ammo clip that sits on top of the gun. I won't go into detail here as it was as per the instructions.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Thu 24 Apr 2008 20:21 pm Post subject:

At long last, I've caught up and reached the point where I abandoned the first Bofors. The two seated crewmen have been added. They're sat in their seats and they have both of their feet planted on the footrests.

When I abandoned the first Bofors, I was of the opinion that the crew seats were to far forward and needed to be moved back a bit. I was prooved right. What I did was to glue each of the crewmen into their seats. Then I test fitted each crewman to the Bofors. Neither of them could be fitted as intended as the locating peg for the seat was to far forward. Once this locating peg was removed, each crewman could be slotted into place. Each seat is now about 2mm further back than where Airfix intended them to go, but at least the crewmen have kept their feet!

All that needs to be done now is to add the crank handles and the sights which I kept from the first Bofors, then this section of the AA emplacement will finished. I'll do that tomorrow.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Fri 25 Apr 2008 20:09 pm Post subject:

The Bofors section of the build is now finished (Phew). Here's what happened.

The ammo loader figure was glued into position, but since the crewman in front of him has been moved back by about 2mm, the two figures ended up closer than I'd like. I had to fiddle around with the two crank handles in order to get them to fit. The locating holes were made a little bigger using a Dremel drill bit, but I still had to scrape away at the pins on the handles. As an aside, I'm not happy with the crank handles. I think they're oversized. I suppose they had to be that way in order to mould them. With the crank handles now on, it was the turn of the sights.

The sights (salvaged from the first Bofors kit with the etch brass 'sights' on it) proved to be another annoyance. There's no locating hole or peg. At best, there's a little flat surface which should butt against the area on the gun where it goes. This is rather poor. It took a couple of attempts to get the sights to sit right on the three required planes (centrally, verticaly and horizantaly). Thankfully, I was using a fresh pot of superglue, so I had a few extra seconds to make adjustments or remove the part before the glue set. When I was happy, a little extra glue was added to ensure that the part would never annoy me again.

The last task of the day was to paint the sights and to touch-up any remaining areas that I wasn't happy with. Once done, the Bofors was placed in it hole in the gun pit and left to dry.

Now I can turn my attention to the emplacement itself. More on that another day.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Sat 26 Apr 2008 17:08 pm Post subject:

I've been a bit lazy today folks. I haven't done as much as I could've. Anyhoo, let's have some buildy bits.

The first task was to finish off the filling and sanding of the base. Thankfully, it's been a warm and sunny day, so the filler went off quite quicky. Another thing I like about Humbrol filler is that it's quite soft, so it sands easily.

The next task was to add doors to the two buildings. This was done with some plasticard I had hanging about. Then I made a hole in the 'Command' bunker for the ariel that I'd taken from the old Radio Shack (Now the Ammo Bunker).

Time for some paintwork.

For the 'sunken' areas of the Emplacement, I'm going for an unpainted concrete look. I've used H28 for this. It's a nice grey with a tinge of green. The first coat is drying nicely. For the painted concrete areas, I'm going for H72 as I want some contrast to H93. The H93 is what I've painted the Bofors with and it's what I've used on the two buildings (The first coat is drying nicely).

Right, I'm off to recycle some tins, but I'll have to drink the contents first....
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Mon 28 Apr 2008 19:00 pm Post subject:

Well, I spend most of Sunday drinking the contents of certain tins, so there was no report for yesterday (even though some work was done). I've got as far as I can today, so without further ado....... Buildy bits.

I've changed the paint scheme again. The only colur that I've changed is the H72 that I was going to use for the major colour of the base. I've now gone for H94. It's fairly close to the H93 that I've used for the Bofors and the two buildings, but different enough to provide a bit of contrast. The H72 I've now used for the sandbags that are around the gun pit.

At this time, the sandbags have had 2 coats, while the base has had one. The buildings have had 2 coats. The vents on top of the building have recieved one coat of H33, so they'll be finished off tomorrow.

Things are looking good to be finished for the weekend!
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Tue 29 Apr 2008 20:02 pm Post subject:

At long last, all the principle paintwork of the emplacement is finished. The last coat of H93 went on a couple of hours ago. The last part to be painted was the ariel that got transferred from one building to the other. I've gone for a matt black 'rubber' base and a H93 whip.

The only thing that needs doing is to dirty down the emplacement and to slot in all the pre-made component parts. This entry to the AA-GB will be finished tomorrow!
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Spudgun · Posted: Wed 30 Apr 2008 17:08 pm Post subject:

It's finished!! All I had to do was to assemble the parts and dirty it down with a thin black wash.

Pics now in the gallery. They're not all that good, so I'll take some better ones at the weekend.
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Collectable kits built here. Baggies, blisters or boxed. You collect 'em, but I'll build 'em.

Ratch · Posted: Wed 30 Apr 2008 18:03 pm Post subject:

Looks great

_________________
and was Jerusalem, builded here
The new No. 2
Airfix Club 500287
IPMS 10983

DavidM · Posted: Thu 01 May 2008 07:54 am Post subject:

You cracked on with it so fast that I didn't manage to get in my suggestion about cutting a few holes in the side of the gun pit to give the crew somewhere to put their ready-use ammunition.

David
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David Maynard. 1962-2009. Gone too soon but not forgotten.

hewman100 · Posted: Thu 01 May 2008 09:40 am Post subject:

A great job there!!!!
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Hawk · Posted: Thu 01 May 2008 09:51 am Post subject:

I'll second that the Bofors position looks great

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Spudgun · Posted: Thu 01 May 2008 15:59 pm Post subject: