SPA Modeler

And today's build update... last night after family business and before bed I finished painting up the tracks. Dry brushed Testors Flat Steel on the grouser road contact surfaces and then Floquil Weathered Black on the Track Pads


Then this morning the final stages of construction began. I glued on the idler and sprocket wheels and placed the tracks on as well. As you can see they were a bit a springy and loose fitting





then I added some brass wire pins into holed that I had pre drilled to tamp down the upper track runs





then I added the side laminate armor plates. Once those had set I began to add the final detail parts as well





exhaust pipe



right side grab handle/step


left side grab handle/step


smoke grenade launchers


pioneer tool shovel and spare track shoe mounting bolts


pioeer tool pick mattock head and handle


pioneer tool axe, tankers bar, and maching gun tripod.. I also added a bit of strip styrene to teh shovel mount to make a proper bracket instead of having it free floating on the upper side


and a couple of overall views




I have puttied up where the side laminate armor joins the rear plate and am waiting for that to dry to sand it later and then I can begin final painting...

very nice, Stik. You'll need a bigger engine to get her off the ground, though. When are you going to attach the wings?

Yep. That's one heavily armed Mars rover.

Well done on getting the tracks down onto the wheels. A little bit of this should be seen with the skirts on. You are rather close to get this one finished!

BB my friend,it is one heavily armed recreational vehicle

Thomas, you can indeed see just a bit of the top track run on this. Yesterday I got on the base coat of white, and today I did some of the detail painting. I will try to get some photos up tomorrow before work. I have had a busy past couple of days here.

Stikpusher wrote:BB my friend,it is one heavily armed recreational vehicle

I knew you'd get the reference, Sgt. Hulka.

Well, on Sunday I did as advertised above- I began the final painting. An overall coat of Tamiya Flat White, followed by a coat of Gloss White. The Gloss White did not turn out quite as well as I had hoped on the vertical surfaces, so I will need to use some Future there before the decals are applied. But here is how she looked overall Sunday midday before it was time for me to go to work.





on Monday I begain detail painting with enamels- I came across a few nice shots of Malay K-200s in Bosnia, and they did indeed show the ramp inner face was still green, and the surrounding area, when the ramp is closed stayed that color too. I used Dark Green 34079. I also used flat black on the rubber portion of the cover for the commo wire hook up box the the right of the ramp


then it was time for top deck details. Humbrol Gun Metal for the tripod & tankers bar, Humbrol Dark Green 34079 on the pioneer tools, Testors Gun metal on the antenna base spring, and Humbrol Flat Black on the rubber stops for the TC, Gunner, and Cargo hatches.




I also painted the rubber bore covers for the smoke grenade launchers in Humbrol Flat Black


Then it was time for me to go to work and no more time to get to my work bench until I had a few minutes before work on Wednesday. On that session I painted the spare track shoes in Humbrol Satin Black, which is how they look when new when the protective coating is still on those things


and I painted the tow cable Humbrol Gun Metal with the end portions in Dark Green 34079, again based off of the photos that I found


and that is where it stands now as I am about to go aout and do the final bits of detail painting in a bit here...

Looks mighty fine, sir. Hope all is well in spite of recent events.

Nah, just a busy man here, no real excitement in my life outside of work. And as usual for this time of year, lots seems to be going on with family, cutting in to my bench time...

I have finished up the detail painting and will be doing the declas here soon after a break...