Building the Takom Weasel as I’ve been fascinated by the building and restoration of the full size item by Portrayal press on you tube, Always wanted to make a Weasel, so here’s my first one, the standard M29. The later C version was amphibious with floats for and aft, may have a go at one if it comes out, but for now lets see how this build comes together.
The C version I mentioned earlier was used a lot in Vietnam by the French, they lost quite a few until they started to learn how to use them more effectively. You can see the integral floatation fore and aft of the Vehicles in this shot in Vietnam.The french called them Crabs.
alignment of the bogie wheels is a challenge to say the least, but gentle persuasion, rather than brute force is the way forward here, and plenty of breaks for a cup of tea, just to let my frustration cool off.
the only way to make them look anywhere near good enough was to bond them directly to the track section, which at this stage of assembly wasn’t practical, but will be necessary later on down the line when I’m ready to assemble the link and length and know where the bottom length lays.
Thanks for the positive comments Guys, 1812, I watched the video build of flop goes the Weasel and found it very helpful, the guy felt the kit fought him at every turn, but he eventually made an ok build out of it, but I’ll learn from it. We all know some kits are challenging and some just fall together.
in the flop video, he mentions the terrible engine deck to side wall fit, I can see how following the instructions would lead to that, but the guide lugs are quite helpful in determining location.
Deck top to hull side, out of sequence, early in fact, but to avoid what he did, I took his advice.
I’ve built Takom kits before and they are very accurate, fit wise. I can see if you are not forewarned about this kit, you may fall into the trap of expecting it to fall together, and find yourself in a mess. We are all forewarned because of his honest video.
coming along in leaps and bounds now. It is very well detailed, and despite the difficult build, I applaud Tokom producing something we haven’t seen for a while, rather than another Tiger or Spitfire.
probably the oddest thing about this kit, as pointed out in flop, are the tracks, these would have been better made in the old fashioned way as “Rubber Band” type, maybe made up like the real rubber track, it reminds me of the M5 Halftrack track, a one piece nightmare to fit, on the real thing. Here we have hard link and length, so you have to build in, the gaps created when the tracks stretch when they are at maximum load around the Sprocket and idler wheels.
