ARV having fun yet?

Incredible job on your vt-55 Joseph! What an amazing build and paint job. I thought it was 1/35 scale also til I saw the penny! Congrats on second place although I wonder what the 1st place model looked like. Stunning model !

Rich

Thank you all. The first place winner is Jim Wechsler, a true gentleman and a veteran/consistent winner at IPMS Nationals. His work, 1/35 Long Track won Best Armor this year! He told me that I should have won first place and showed me the possible area in my model that the judges may have frowned upon. The tracks on the VT-55 were not continuous. There were some small gaps (being resin) in between the links. I’ll pay attention to that area in the future. I am still happy to have placed! This was the first time I attended the IPMS Nationals. To be able to take home an award is mind blowing for me. Especially considering that there were over 2,000 model entries!

Yes I’m familiar with his work he’s amazing. I’ve never been to an IPMS national and heard they judge harshly. You definitely earned it Joseph!

Thank you very much, Richard. Much appreciated!

As I have mentioned, I will post some construction notes for this VT-55. First thing to note, at least with the kit that I got, there are some key parts that were missing, some that needed to be replaced and some to be enhanced.

Looking at my reference, which is WWP’s excellent book, T-55 in detail Special and Recovery Vehicles.

I saw that the tow eye for the rear spade is missing. Here are photos from the book, which I highly recommend.

In the above photos, labeled A and encircled, show that the cable loops inside the eye. Labeled B shows where the looped cable ends. The tow eye, at least for me, is necessary for the overall finish of the kit. I had to think of a way to build this from scratch. I have an Ace BTS-4 kit. Among the parts there is what looks like the tow eye I want to build. I will use that as a reference.

Here are the steps I took to build the tow eye from scratch.

A) Using the Ace part as reference, I bent a brass wire into the approximate shape. I also prepared a brass tube and scratchbuilt tow cable.

B) I inserted one end of the tow cable on to the tube. I then placed them inside the eye.

C) I soldered them in place.

D) Voila! I have replicated the looping tow cable inside the eye.

E) I trimmed the tube and here’s how it looks. I also filed the shape flat. Now, I will need to replicate the ribbing around the tow eye to complete the look.

F) Final step, I used EZLine and glued it around the eye. Here’s the result.

Here is the completed tow eye glued in place. In the background is the Ace tow eye that I used as reference.

Not too bad, I think. I am satisfied with the result.

BTW, here is how it looks all painted and weathered.

Until the next update, thanks for viewing.

-Joseph

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Looks awesome, great job.

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Congratulations on a job well done.
:+1: :champagne:
Especially considering the scale …

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Thanks everyone for the comments. Here is another construction note. This time, it’s about the crane hook. The kit I received did not have one so I created it from scratch. Here’s a photo showing the progression from reference picture through completed crane hook. I used brass wire for the material.

-Joseph

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Started work on another ARV, an Iraqi Type 653. The main kit is made by Armada Hobby. I will use the lower hull from Ammo of
Mig’s T-54B because I like the detail of the tracks and road wheels. Here are the two kits.


I have completed the lower hull and will mate it with the resin.




The only modification I made was to cut rear hull of the resin and glued it to the plastic hull.

Thanks!

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I spent the last weekend working on the Type 653. I made a lot of progress! Here are some construction notes.


There were a lot of air bubble that I filled up using Apoxie sculpt.

I thought that the resin engine deck needed some more details.

I like the engine deck from the Ammo of Mig T-54B.

I removed the engine deck from the T-54B.

I then shaved off the engine deck details from the resin hull.

And this is how it looks now.

When I test fitted the crane. I was not satisfied with how the PE part is flushed to resin. Following photo grid shows how a real one looks compared to the model crane.

I drilled some holes on the resin crane and inserted plastic rods. I like how it looks now.

For the rear section, I used a photo of a real Type 653 as inspiration and tried to copy it on mine. I also scratch built the U connectors to make the rear section look busy.

I used some parts from both the Ammo of Mig T-54B such as the gunner’s hatch, stowage boxes & spare tracks plus the double fuel tanks from Revell T-55 kits. Also can be seen are PE fenders from Part, OKB Grigorov’s navigation lights and a rolled tarpaulin from Value Gear.





This is how it looks so far.




Pretty surprised how far I got. Hopefully I’ll finish this soon.

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Really good detailing, even more so on that scale! :+1:

Almost done! With a few more PE parts to install, plus maybe towing cables, this Type 653 is done!




Here are some of the detail work I did on this kit. Barely visible, I added some fuel lines to the tanks.

I scratchbuilt brush guard for the crane spotlight.

The crane pulley hook was attached via 34 gauge wires.


I added some wires to “lock” the tow eyes in place.

I replaced the PE part grab handles with thin wires. The PE was overscaled and too flat.

The gunner hatch and the DsHk was from Ammo of Mig T-54B.

Finally, added brush guards to the headlights. I didn’t like how flat the PE parts were so now they look much better I think.


Getting to the finish line!

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Nice job. I love all of the little brass details that you’ve added.

Very nice work!

Type 653 is almost done. Just some more minor details and primer application will be next.
















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Absolutely incredible job there Joseph!

Apologies for the long silence. I started on other projects and put my ARVs on the sideline. But, although I did not post it. I have applied primer on the Type 653. Here’s how it looked.




Some time this week, I was able to paint and weather it. I think I will call it done before I over weather it. Here is how it is now.




I’ll post some more photos later. Let me know what you think. Thanks!!

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Maybe some bare or rusted metal on the business edge of the blade??

Thanks Robin. I thought about doing that but decided not to. The reference photos I used didn’t not have that effect.


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It’s been a while. I wanted to build another VT-55. This time it is inspired by an article in PLA Editions book, “Bear In The Sand”. I want to make a vignette about a Lamassu statue being looted. I got another one of Armada Hobby’s excellent VT-55 kit and I will use another Revell T-55 kit as a kitbash donor. I have completed the lower hull of the T-55 which I will mate with the resin upper hull of the VT-55. I am using the Revell kit because I want the later model T-55 tracks.

But wait, there’s more! I want to model my VT-55 with both the commander and driver’s hatches in open position.

Opening the hatches will take some figuring out. That cabin is one solid chunk of resin. Need to find out a way to hollow out the hatches. I will not be attaching the dozer blades, that will go to my spares bin. I will be clearing out the attachment details from the glacis. More to follow.

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Here are pictures of the PLA Editions book and the article that is the inspiration for this build.


Back to the build, since I wanted open drivers and commander’s hatches, first thing I did was to shave off the hatch details from the driver side. Then I sawed off the commander’s hatch.

I saw from my spares bin that the commander’s hatch from my Revell T-55 is a good match.

I also used the driver’s hatch opening from the hull of the Revell T-55. Here’s how the hatch openings look after I took them off the Revell parts.

Here are the plastic parts test fitted on the the resin. Looks good to me. I traced them on to the hull to serve as my guide to drill out the holes.

Close up of the dry fitted part on the resin.

Here is how the hatch openings look after I have drilled them out.

The plastic parts should fit in the openings.

Here is the commander’s hatch opening with the Revell part glued in place.

And here is the driver’s hatch opening in place.

The open hatch problem has been solved. New problem is how to detail the hatch covers! The plot thickens!

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