Trumpeter 1/35 BTR-60

[RangerNeil]

And - the suspension and drive system is complete now. Next step is to hook up the airbrush and apply primer then colour. I am thinking the fit should be good enough that I can complete the upper and lower hulls and separate entities and then join after painting - we shall see.....

A word of caution for anyone considering taking this kit on - the 8 drive shafts are hair thin and as brittle as hell. I had all 8 in and set to the required angle, - and in working on the suspension parts today I literally just brushed two of them with a finger tip and they snapped in half!! Luckily both broken parts fell on the table so with some jiggery pokery I repaired them.

[digger303]

[Stokesy44]

Getting there nicely

[RangerNeil]

A bit more done today.... The lower hull is in 4BO green and the black for the rubber gaiters and bump stops is applied. The resin wheels are assembled and drilled out to take the Trumpeter stub axles., I've started painting the tyres, front and rear faces are done and drying. Tomorrow I'll crack on with the treads and hubs.
Finally I made a start on the outer upper hull.

I still need to find a decent CA dissolver to move the filter ahead of the driver forwards and down before the upper and lower hulls can be joined.

[Stokesy44]

Some nice detail coming in on the upper hull

[BigWall]

It's looking nice Neil!

[digger303]

[RangerNeil]

Cheers guys - getting near the end run now.
And to be honest the part I am dreading the most - putting the white parade lines on. I find acrylic white never covers properly and needs numerous coats to look even half decent. Might get some enamel for that job.

[digger303]

Cheers guys - getting near the end run now.
And to be honest the part I am dreading the most - putting the white parade lines on. I find acrylic white never covers properly and needs numerous coats to look even half decent. Might get some enamel for that job.

Paint lines black first or grey.
This guy isn't bad to listen to .

[Kevthemodeller]

Coming along very nicely there Neil

[RangerNeil]

As you may remember I had a problem joining the upper and lower hulls as a PE part was stuck too high. The CA debonder came today and worked a treat. A quick dab on the join area and the PE part popped straight off. No damage to the plastic and minimal damage to the paint. Once the part was off I used a cotton bud rolled back and forth to remove any excess debonder.

[digger303]

Another tool for the tool box. It's great when these things work straight off as advertised.

[RangerNeil]

Yesterday was a fun day - NOT. Had a load of PE to add and my usual method is to squeeze some CA onto a bit of card and use a tooth pick to put the adhesive where I want it. I went to squeeze the CA on the card - and the top/nozzle popped off its theads sending CA everywhere - including my fingers! Fortunately not on the kit. Had to offer a quick prayer of thanks to any passing deity that I'd got the debonder the day before !!

Once the mess was cleaned up the next nightmare began. There were 12 little brackets, 6 a side, maybe4mm long bent into an "L" shape. Too small for fingers and the tweezers were pinging them every where. I actually lost one for a while then as I was putting the Templars in the box for the night I found it stuck to the belly of one of the horses. I also assembled and added the two radio antena bases, the guard on the front access hatch followed by the plastic side rungs. Doesn't look much in the photos but thats 6 hours work in there.......


This one is before the 6 little brackets went on.


There is a PE upgrade kit that came in addition to the kits PE and I've been using that too. But some of the parts on there I can't even see properly. Even with a magnifier - they are barely 1.00 to 1.50 mm dia....

[digger303]

Your doing a great job putting all those PE bits on. Definitely worth it from a visual view point. Although as you point out some are so small they are more trouble than they contribute to the kit not to mention almost impossible to manipulate.
Good to see this progressing again.

[RangerNeil]

Bit more done - hours of work but little to show for it. Basically I assembled the searchlight - which on Soviet vehicles is I/R, not white light and bent up the PE bracket that carries it, assembled the PE and the plastic and then mouted it on the hull. I gave the area a quick dab of 4BO prior to assembly as after it would be inaccessible. I also gave the area on the front of the turret that will lay behind the armour plate that covers it - alnost the last part on the instruction sheet. And I'm dreading be cause the part in the kit is dead smooth whilst the part in the upgrade has the requisite 4 bolts - which are seperate, minescule, pieces....

[digger303]

Nice .....I'm sure you can get those bolts on. Varnish can be as effective as Ca on those small bits and it gives some time to float them into position. The turret basket is looking good too.

[RangerNeil]

Primer arrived today so the upper hull is now primed. Now I need to find those damned airbrushes to get the green on.

[ForeverPlasticKits]

It's a very great kit and you build it well! It's a pleasure to follow it, the quality and the details are awesome!

[RangerNeil]

It's a very great kit and you build it well! It's a pleasure to follow it, the quality and the details are awesome!

Thank you. When I get these group builds over I might get a chance to finish it!

[digger303]

It's a very great kit and you build it well! It's a pleasure to follow it, the quality and the details are awesome!

Thank you. When I get these group builds over I might get a chance to finish it!

I know what you mean they sometimes get in the way of what you want to build. Can be a bit tricky trying to get both goals lined up......all good fun though.

[RangerNeil]

So..... Its back to the BTR now the group builds are finished. As I left it the next job was the water drive at the rear. First step was to create the new drive tunnel from the supplied after-market PE. This comprised a ring that had to be formed and a central spider that the kits prop attaches to. Folding the strip of PE into a tube the right dia was, I have to say, a right PITA. But nowhere near as bad as thinning out the kits carrier piece to take that tube - 2 HOURS of filing carefully with a half-round.....
I now have the tube fitted and flush on the front face of the carrier, just needs filing down at the rear so that the carrier plate fits onto the rear of the BTR correctly. Then I get to make up a pair of PE rudders and carriers - then work out how they fit in relation go the clamshell doors that close of the tunnel when its not in use.

[digger303]

You did a good job of getting it to fit well and forming the pe up...well done I'm sure I would have had gaps and had it out of round.

[BigWall]

Nice. I'm looking forward to seeing this one come along

[RangerNeil]

First off tonight the upper and lower hulls were joined:


Then - I can honestly say PE is driving me nuts!!!
According to the instructions the fence containing the propeller goes into a groove in the middle of the formed tube sitting in the carrier.. Then two plate/brackets go top and bottom to carry the rudders. Brackets fit nicely but the rudders foul the prop moving the fence & prop to the back of the tube, flush against the back of the BTR just about makes it possible to fit the rudders:


Getting to this point was a nightmare by itself - but then I moved onto the assembly of the jerry cans. For some reason there are 2 different types that look both the same.... The PE instructions require a plate put in between the two plastic halves. By itself not a problem - but the makers of the PE saw fit to put the 3 teeny weeny parts of the can assembly in the middle of the plates. I now have a pot with these parts in (bar 1 that pinged as I cut it and seemingly fell on the floor - where I can't find it....






So to build the dented mojo up a bit - heres the BTR dry fitted with its wheels!!

[digger303]

Looks good mate. I feel your pain when it comes to parts not fitting proper or pinging off the tweezers. Bain of my life that is.
Could it be that the housing ( round shell ) is meant to protrude out the back a little. That would give more room for the prop and the rudders ?
I can thoroughly recommend the addition of some VMS track brown ( 7....fine or zero) to the muffler. Apply the fixer to the muffler, spread some pigment out on some paper and then blow it onto the fixer using AB dialled down. Makes a mess and goes everywhere, but it cleans off.
Doing good work and can't wait to see it finished.

[RangerNeil]

Thans Digger. Will bear that trick with the VMS track brown in mind. Theres a heat shield that covers the muffler (MORE of that PE!!) so I'll see how much is visible through that first. There are 6 pages of PE instuctions and I'm about halfway through Page 3 right now so still aways to go!

[ForeverPlasticKits]

Very nice result for this full detailed kit , but the rims paint seems to be different from the body ?

[RangerNeil]

Very nice result for this full detailed kit , but the rims paint seems to be different from the body ?

Errr - yes - I used the wrong bottle.... They need a top coat of 4BO Green to match the hull.....

Meantime tonight I spent over 2 hours tonight trying to assemble the filler caps for the jerry cans and had to admit defeat. Every time I tried to bend the tabs on one part they pinged apart!! In the end I gave up - I think I need something like extra-thin CA to hold it together whilst doing the bending.




So I moved on to the heat shields for the exhausts. The silencer ones formed easily, less so the ones for the pipes. I found a drill the right dia and used that to form the covers but they ook - odd! Obviously need some more work. They are dry fitted in the photos:

[ForeverPlasticKits]

These pe parts look great and give a higher level to your kit!

[digger303]

Pe looks great.

[Quax]

yes the pe does look great and you've done a fantastic job with it so far - it really lifts the details up

Paul

[BigWall]

Great PE work. It really adds a nice level of detail

[DRUMS01]

While I feel your pain regarding PE on model builds (in some cases), you sure can't argue with your fine results. Keep it up, it looks really good. Can't wait to see it all picked out in paint.

Ben (DRUMS01)

[RangerNeil]

Got the wheel hubs sorted tonight. Then picked up the hull to see how they looked, forgetting the heatshields were only resting in place - and the smallest of the 4 fell into the hull.
I can hear it - bit I cannot see it so it looks like I am going to have to split the upper and lower hulls.
To quote the Lord Blackadder - B*GG*R!!!!

[RangerNeil]

Amazingly all went well!! I manage to get the upper and lower hulls to seperate without damage and, as expected, the missing heat shield fell out from beneath the cabin floor. There was ONE place the damn thing could have gone through and it speaks volumes to my damn luck that not only did it find that place it found it in the only orientation it could have possibly have gone through!!
Anyways - everything is back together - which was another pain because the spots the clamps were holding on first time now have parts in that place. Still - its done and the heat shields have been primed ready for top-coating and fitting.

[digger303]

Amazingly all went well!! I manage to get the upper and lower hulls to seperate without damage and, as expected, the missing heat shield fell out from beneath the cabin floor. There was ONE place the damn thing could have gone through and it speaks volumes to my damn luck that not only did it find that place it found it in the only orientation it could have possibly have gone through!!
Anyways - everything is back together - which was another pain because the spots the clamps were holding on first time now have parts in that place. Still - its done and the heat shields have been primed ready for top-coating and fitting.

Well done fixing that without any damage. Look foraward to the finishing touches.

[RangerNeil]

Second phase of today saw work resume on the BTR. The issues caused by splitting the hulls had to be remedied by judicious use of filler. May still need to do a little more but I need to see it in daylight. Heat shields are now painted and fitted.
Moved onto finishing the upper deck that required 5 TINY little lifting eyes to snipped from the sprue, have the nib sanded off and then positioned and stuck with a dab of TET. Cue todays panic be cause Trumpeter like to use multiple identical sprues for things and in this case there should be 2 x Sprue F. I could only find one.... Looked everywhere and no sign of it - was just working out how to stretch sprue when the eureka moment hit and I had a look in a stack of instruction sheets - bingo!! The second sprue was stuck to one of them.
So we now have 5 lifting eyes installed. Next up was the snatch block that sits on the upper rear. For some reason Trumpeter made this in 5 parts. Plus a PE retaining bracket that needed folding up and is currently sitting in grey primer. Last part of the rear deck area was a mesh cover that sits over the upper two access hatches. I used the Trumper frame and the PE add-on for the mesh cover. Lastly the mantlet shield on the turret was added and painted. Currently sitting in clamps overnight.
Next job on the turret is making up the KVPT and PKT as these are metal add-ons.

[ForeverPlasticKits]

Very good work on this kit, the paint is really impressive!

[RangerNeil]

Work continues - at a snails pace! Did I mention I'm beginning to hate PE?

Tonight - literally nearly all night was devoted to trying to assemble the main and coax guns. The PKT was simple - instructions said drill a 0.5mm hole but I looked at it and thought "hmm - looks the same", tried it and it was a perfect fit! So that was the coax weapon sorted. Just needs painting now.

The main gun - the KVPT - ohh - that was a different story!! First the cooling jacket had to be slid over the barrel. Sounds simple, took 15 minutes - and that was the easy bit! It went downhill from there... First operation was make the barrel handle. 1 piece of brass, 2 pieces of resin for the grips. I made the mistake of seperating them before sanding them down to half the original thickness. Net result was one piece snapped in half, the flying piece never to be seen again. I managed to get the other piece down to size so used that on the underside to act as a former to bend the PE. I used the broken piece at one end of the top and a dollop of filler the replace the missing peice that will be sanded to shape once its dried over night. So far - so bad.... Next job was the two clamps around the cooling sleeve for the carry handle. First one actually went well. Second one far less so - it ended up.breaking into many bits. Luckily there was a spare and equally luckily that one went well. Then came the clip to retain the flash eliminator - imagine a piece of brass as thin as a second hand on a watch that needs to be bent into a complex shape. First one yet again pinged into oblivion and I gave up on the 2nd after half an hour of getting no where fast. The mesh deck cover had dried nicely - also needs painting before being permanently fitted. That was it for the day - I'd had enough so I switched to the Battle for a while.

[digger303]

You need to be a master in origami to bend those tiny pe strips and then perfectly attach without actually sticking them to the tweezers or having the tweezers fling them further than a Olympic athlete.

[Garion77]

Those mg are indeed lots of work to assemble, at least to me. Have real trouble with almost everything that's PE. But the MG are worth the effort !

[RangerNeil]

You need to be a master in origami to bend those tiny pe strips and then perfectly attach without actually sticking them to the tweezers or having the tweezers fling them further than a Olympic athlete.

Tell me about it!! The larger pieces definitely add to the model, I am in 2 minds about these minute parts. You need a magnifying glass to see some of them......

Those mg are indeed lots of work to assemble, at least to me. Have real trouble with almost everything that's PE. But the MG are worth the effort !

Its true. The replacement KVPT is SO much better than the plastic of the kit. Oddly though the PE does not include the clamp that holds the barrel of the KVPT to the carrier!

[digger303]

You need to be a master in origami to bend those tiny pe strips and then perfectly attach without actually sticking them to the tweezers or having the tweezers fling them further than a Olympic athlete.

Tell me about it!! The larger pieces definitely add to the model, I am in 2 minds about these minute parts. You need a magnifying glass to see some of them......

Those mg are indeed lots of work to assemble, at least to me. Have real trouble with almost everything that's PE. But the MG are worth the effort !

Its true. The replacement KVPT is SO much better than the plastic of the kit. Oddly though the PE does not include the clamp that holds the barrel of the KVPT to the carrier!

Those tiny bits of pe make 3d printed parts very appealing.

[RangerNeil]

Very!!!!

Work continued today - you can see in the photos below the results of over 4 hours - most of which was spent turning the air blue!!! But at the end of it I had managed to get the flask eliminator retainer on the KVPT done, the carry handle for the barrel more of less finished and fitted.
The plastic moulded bracket on the underside of the carrier trough trimmed off, the PE replacement bent and fitted and - fanfare please!! - the barrel clamp constructed from PE.
This comprised 3 PE parts:
* The main body - easy to do.
*The clamp strap - Nightmare!! First the hinge pins had to go into the holes in the main body, then the strap formed around the barrel of the gun in such a way the forked end ended up in line with the opposite side of the main body.
* Finally the representation of the clamp bolt - Nightmare to the nth degree. A tiny piece of PE barely 2mm long that none of my tweezers would grip properly had to have hinge pins fitted into holes I could barely see in the main body and then held there whilst the body was closed.

By the end of it I was wishing I had 3 hands.....
Just got to prime then paint the guns, assemble the KVPT and fit both onto the mantlet and the turret will be 100% done.
The completed parts


Flash eliminator retainer


Carrier trough


KVPT barrel with carry handle


Barrel clamp

[digger303]

You did well.
Whilst looking at your work though I had a small thought ( never one for the really big ones ) that if a strip of 1mm masking tap was used. By placing the part on the tape and then using the tape to hold it on the barrel then adding glue. The barrel would have to be held in a vise though. Would this work do you think ? I haven't tried doing it this way.

Keep up the good work I can see it will be worth it once the paint is on..

[RangerNeil]

You did well.
Whilst looking at your work though I had a small thought ( never one for the really big ones ) that if a strip of 1mm masking tap was used. By placing the part on the tape and then using the tape to hold it on the barrel then adding glue. The barrel would have to be held in a vise though. Would this work do you think ? I haven't tried doing it this way.

Keep up the good work I can see it will be worth it once the paint is on..

Good thought. At the moment though I am missing the vice component!
Its on my wish list - but I just got hit with a £6,000 bill for the repairs (replacement of) the garage roof ao ma y things are on indefefinite hold.....

[digger303]

You did well.
Whilst looking at your work though I had a small thought ( never one for the really big ones ) that if a strip of 1mm masking tap was used. By placing the part on the tape and then using the tape to hold it on the barrel then adding glue. The barrel would have to be held in a vise though. Would this work do you think ? I haven't tried doing it this way.

Keep up the good work I can see it will be worth it once the paint is on..

Good thought. At the moment though I am missing the vice component!
Its on my wish list - but I just got hit with a £6,000 bill for the repairs (replacement of) the garage roof ao ma y things are on indefefinite hold.....

Damn that's seems to be a lot just for a garage....is it hand made slate from the wilds of Scotland transported on the backs of gnomes and goblins.

[RangerNeil]

No - its a rubberised coating to replace the bodge-job tarmac the alleged "master roofer" who lived here before us put onto a literally flat roof. So we need to have one side raised as well to put a "fall" on it for drainage....

[digger303]

No - its a rubberised coating to replace the bodge-job tarmac the alleged "master roofer" who lived here before us put onto a literally flat roof. So we need to have one side raised as well to put a "fall" on it for drainage....

I see a partial demolition followed by a rebuild and tip fee's. Never been keen on flat roof's I like to see the water run off a good slope.
I can feel your pain. Best of luck with it.

[RangerNeil]

No - its a rubberised coating to replace the bodge-job tarmac the alleged "master roofer" who lived here before us put onto a literally flat roof. So we need to have one side raised as well to put a "fall" on it for drainage....

I see a partial demolition followed by a rebuild and tip fee's. Never been keen on flat roof's I like to see the water run off a good slope.
I can feel your pain. Best of luck with it.

Cheers Digger - they can't do much at the moment as the winds are so high they'd rip any roof work to shreds.

Didn't get much done today as the OH decided to to go out most of the day so pretty much all I've done is prime the gun barrels and support trough.