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stuzzar

Progress of Digs build will be placed here

Cheers

Stu

Digs · Posted: Sat 15 Dec 2007 13:25 pm Post subject:

Here's an introductory shot of my subject: the Airfix Buffalo LTV-4 amphibian & jeep. A somewhat mediocre bit of box art, a sheet of decals, several olive green sprues and one clear one for the jeep windshield. And some rather ominous looking silver tracks...

After the PE and resin extravaganza of my (so far unfinished) he 177 GB I think this one will be pretty much OOB!

Paul

Digs · Posted: Wed 26 Dec 2007 18:44 pm Post subject:

Progress - a fair amount of time spent in the workshop over Xmas. If only it were a bit warmer!

Anyway - the bulk of the assembly has been done for the Buffalo & jeep - here's a couple of pics of the carcasses. The Buffalo went together reasonably well with only a few 'fit' issues and a little filler needed. The jeep also went together OK though it's a bit basic. One sprue with the bulk of the jeep parts on had noticeably softer plastic than the rest - it felt almost like polypropylene except that it glued alright with standard cement.

The last bit of progress before being driven in to sit by the fire was to add wire grab handles. I used the moulded on ones as guides to drill holes with a 0.5 mm drill, chiseled them off and then added loops of wire bent round the right place of some pliers with tapered jaws. Four more to go: I forgot to add the downward facing loops under the top skirt and two on the back of the cabin bulkhead.

Digs · Posted: Thu 27 Dec 2007 21:48 pm Post subject:

All grab handles now added and the jeep spruced up a bit - grab handles, wing mirror, a stick and handbrake, windshield rests on the bonnet and a lamp on the nearside front fender. And a coat of primer laid down - the big thing in the photo is my tardy He177 for the heavy bomber group build!

Heinkel51 · Posted: Thu 27 Dec 2007 22:09 pm Post subject:

Lovely work there Digs, like the nice touch with the grab handles.

stuzzar · Posted: Fri 28 Dec 2007 11:01 am Post subject:

Coming along very nicely Digs

Cheers

Stu

Digs · Posted: Fri 28 Dec 2007 20:23 pm Post subject:

Some more pics - progress with painting.

I'm off for the New Year tomorrow so this is where things will rest for a while.

Happy New Year all!

Paul

Digs · Posted: Sun 06 Jan 2008 19:04 pm Post subject:

Some more progress:

Decals added. I tried using Klear for the first time and was very pleased with how it worked.

Wheels and windshield added to the jeep - the photo makes the latter look a bit u/s. I filled the HUGE ejection holes in the damn thing but it seems to need another coat of paint...

Front machine gun barrel added to the Buffalo courtesy of a syringe needle.

Now to do battle with the hideous hideous silver vinyl tracks. They're too short and I've already snapped both trying to stretch them a bit.

stuzzar · Posted: Mon 07 Jan 2008 15:51 pm Post subject:

Looking good

Considering it's age, the Jeep builds into a reasonable model.

Cheers

Stu

Digs · Posted: Thu 10 Jan 2008 23:27 pm Post subject:

More progress - fortified by an half-an-hour's reading of Merlin kit reviews I decided to tackle the tracks on the Buffalo.

They're nasty inflexible shiny grey vinyl that resists all glues known to this particular man. And they're too short. And I snapped them while trying to stretch them a bit. I may have whinged about this earlier...

So... I tried welding the lugged ends together with a soldering iron. The execrable stuff turns out to have a melting point of roughly 45°C so the first go turned out to be a bit of a disaster in which the shiny happy track ended up even shorter. I persevered though and in the end achieved two one piece tracks with small lumps a fifth of the way in. They were then sprayed overall dark earth.

Trial fits revealed that the lack of flexibility resulted in the tracks clearly having some sort of antigravity device built in - they sagged upwards between the return rollers. So I drilled holes in what's hopefully roughly appropriate places in the hull sides and superglued in chunks of pin like so:

Threading the tracks between these pins and the rollers hopefully makes it look like the track is a bit worn - most photos I found on the net showed fairly taut tracks but some examples (notably a Phillipines one) have stretched dreadfully. But then how to join the ends of the track? I wasted a chunk of time trying various adhesives that were to hand but the tracks just laughed. So in the end I drilled holes through two of the road rollers and nailed the damn thing in place with more offcuts of pins. Like so:

And yes, there's still a gap between the ends but when you flip the vehicle right side up I'm reasonably happy with the end result. One down, one to go.

Paul

Heinkel51 · Posted: Fri 11 Jan 2008 01:07 am Post subject:

Coming up a treat there, top effort.

stuzzar · Posted: Fri 11 Jan 2008 13:00 pm Post subject:

Looking good Digs. The Airfix tracks can be a bit of a swine, keep at it.

Cheers

Stu

Digs · Posted: Sat 12 Jan 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:

Finished!

This morning I:

Added the semi-circular shield for the aerial base & the aerial itself

Added handles to the side machine guns out of brass wire

Added some stowage - various jerrycans, packing cases and an oil drum from the Academy WWII Ground vehicle set, along with some coils of wire and a couple of fabric rolls (kitchen paper paited with acrylic brown and bound up with more wire).

Then treated everything to a wash of diluted brown oil paint.

Photos to follow - the other half has taken the camera off to the horse field.

Paul

Digs · Posted: Sat 12 Jan 2008 15:47 pm Post subject:

Photos now in the GB gallery