Matt, those tracks impress me as a “keyboard warrior design”.
It’s the sort of lame mess a person with very little time spent building models but a whole lot of CAD design seat time concocted. There’s probably a small chance the tracks are designed to help model burned out vehicles or maintenance.
In anycase, its just too time intensive and unfun for me to build.
Doing a set of less fiddly Model-Kasten Tiger 1 tracks with 5 parts took me ~14.5 hours. I could see these 9 part tracks clock in at ~35+ hours. The repetitive nature of grinding through a ~1,500+ part assembly of the same 9 parts has zero appeal or interest.
That’s enough time for me to build THREE Das Takom Werk’s SuperBlitz Late Panther G kits.
3 model builds vs 1 set of tracks?
In my book, Ryefield nailed the 1/35 plastic working individual link design with their KV-1 and Pz IV links nearly perfect. However, these are fiddly for some modelers etc.
One of the Pacific Rim manufacturers will one day put something like QuickTracks in these modern AFV kits and score a home run.
The task is to make a 1/32 toylike body into something that looks more realistic and can pass for 1/35 scale. As the “kit” I started with was just a body, into the scrap box I went for a variety of parts and evergreen, to make up a chassis, and naturally it needs to be a 4x4, dually, with posable steering. And the body has required a lot of work:
As this is indeed a 1/32 scale body, I decided not to use the kit bed, and will make it a flatbed. I did this because the huge (to scale) bed was a dead giveaway that it was not 1/35 scale. So, making it a flatbed, “allows” it to look big, but in (hopefully) a convincing way. The front tires were WWII era, and simply looked too skinny, so I cut them in half, and added to their width which helped a lot.
This comparison is helpful, as the F350 is a big truck too, and I think the 1/32 truck now looks like a Ford F-450! Which is just fine for me -
@Tank_1812 Hey Ryan, wow, looking really good! Have you clear coated it yet? It already looks nice and shiny Once you are done wet sending, you might think of giving it a light polish, then adding a few coast of clear - and will look like a mirror!
Yes indeed @Tank_1812- I agree with @Stickframe - the green is looking ace- a nice deep color just like an automotive finish. Should be very eye catching!
Thanks, it is a good looking color and I think works for this VW. Wish I didn’t have the issues earlier as the results would be slightly better. I see the side tail gate really needed more putty work but that is something to work on for next project.
Thanks Al, gonna go with red and blue coiled. I just have to check and see how the suzies pass through/over the front end crossmember on the M870 frame. This’ll probably be the final step in the build after the tiedowns and I’m looking forward to the next project. (M125, trailer and loads).
My only update is there is no update between work and my dog having her second ACL surgery (third knee surgery in all) the only thing visiting my bench is dust. Hopefully she recovers quick and I can back too it.
Thank you she is part psychopath and now has more titanium in her than most airplanes. She should be unstoppable and I would hope so as we have about $14,000 invested in her back legs.
It was raining hard all day yesterday, and work was slow - and, I worked on this - and, then today, it was cold but sunny, so onto the bike I went and took a ride along the shoreline, got home and two clients called, and they want to start up again, so, I decided to speed up on this model and finish up a cab interior:
As I started with a 1/32 body, I needed to cobble something together, so a variety of extra parts - the steering column and wheel is from an M1083, dash and part of the floor from a Zil 131, and seats, well, they were used in some 1/24 kit, so cut way down - it might have been easier to just make a bench seat from scratch, and lots of evergreen. For this I started with a base sheet that fit in the cab space, then went began adding accordingly. The first step was to make up the basic structure, then:
All things considered, not bad. Next, I’ll fake in some door cards. I want these to basically look right, but can’t make them too thick or the insert won’t fit, so, I foresee, more carving, cutting and filing in my future -