V2 - Vengeance From Above

[Guest]

Allen your attention to detail is amazing truly remarkable work! What do you think how long will it take to complete the project? Regards Danny

[Steve Jones]

Can this build get any better! Really enjoying your updates mate. Glad to hear the weather is cooling a bit. Keep it comin mate

[Allen Dewire]

Evening Fellow Rocketeers,

Another small update is in order as yesterday was a holiday (Maria Himmelfahrt) here in the Fatherland. Today, I had a long drive all over southern Germany, so there was no table time as I am beat!!! So,

Greg - Thank you buddy as you keep me so motivated to keep going. I'm glad you like it...

Danny - Thanks and that is half of my problem. I see something new in the ref pictures and I have to add it. It's a disease I think. I hope to have this finished before you start your massive U boot project, fingers crossed!!!

Stevie - Thanks too my friend, but the weather took a turn and it is again hot as hell. Today it was just 36° C at 1530 with tomorrow being even warmer. Same holds true for the weekend too!!!

Yesterday I spent a lot of time at the table and again, it seems like you don't get anything done. For example, I remade the storage box under the right side and it finally looks right (I hope). I might redo the latches with etch as they look shabby in plastic. I then played with some etch chains for the caps on the back of the switch cabinet. I just need to trim, bend them and CA them in place. I also need to add the last oval plug on the bottom right of it...
[ATTACH]311604[/ATTACH]
I then moved on to the battery storage cabinet and added the gage and a switch knob. Yea, it ain't a whole lot, but getting the gage circle drilled out and keeping it round was a real PITA!!! There is also a box(?) on the left side of the switch cabinet and attached to the right side of the battery cabinet too. It has a little roof on it and was made from part of a 38T fuel tank and sheet plastic...
[ATTACH]311612[/ATTACH]
Sorry for the blurry pic folks. Last up was not as bad a I had thought it would be (so far). I made the base latches for the battery cabinet. According to my photos there were two (or more) slightly different cabinets. One had 16 latches and another cabinet shows only 14 latches. Seeing as I only had 14 pieces of etch for them, I went for the latter. Each piece is about 1.5mm big and needs to have 2 bends in it for the latch handle. Only one actually pinged off and after 10 minutes on the hands and knees, I found the little puppy under the table. They look like this...
[ATTACH]311613[/ATTACH]
Dang, another blurry pic. I used the iPad and I guess it doesn't do macro so good. The little wing nut looking end goes on the door and the latch handles will be attached to the bent pieces. At least it should look pretty good in the end (yea, right)……..I just don't have enough of the same etch pieces to make the handles, but I have a master plan to do it. Here is how they look in reality...
[ATTACH]311614[/ATTACH]
And here is what the little box on the 2 cabinets looks like. Just under the roof on the right side. As you can see, it has it's own little roof too...
[ATTACH]311617[/ATTACH]
That's all for now folks. The whole project is pretty straight forward as far as kits are concerned. With the resin wheels, the 2 Hanomags and the Italeri Opel blitz tankwagen are OOB builds. The Meillerwagen needs plumbing for brakes and fueling as well as resin tires which I'll get in October. The LOX trailer is pretty much OOB too as is the Opel T-Stoff tanker. This baby had to be scratched from almost the ground up, so I went with it first to get it out of my hair along with the pump trailer which is up next.
Ok, enough Blah-Blah for now. I do hope to get a lot further over the weekend. Please stay tuned to this station for more boring exciting updates. Have a great evening and stay cool everyone!!!

Prost
Allen

[Mickc1440]

More great work Allen, keep it going.

[Allen Dewire]

Good late Evening Fine Folks,

Driving on is the words of the day as the Steyr ain't gonna build itself. It is a tad cooler in our neck of the woods so,

Mick - Thanks for the vote of confidence Sir. If you thought the earlier scratchy was wild, take a look below and please send a care package to my room 113 in the ward. It's right next to JR and the other Rabble's rooms. Thanks again!!!

Ok, so I have built the storage box 3 times and glued all 5 chains for the covers on the switch cabinet. I went to bend and trim the etch chains and POW!!! I pinged three of them off. Luckily I had them in the tweezers so they didn't fly away. These 3 are done and I just have to add the 2 smaller ones. I also added the last oval socket on the lower right. I then stripped off the plastic shabby looking hinges and added 2 pieces of etch and the storage box looks 100% better in my eyes...
[ATTACH]311801[/ATTACH]
I then moved on to the fun part of the whole thing. The making of the handles for the latches of the battery cabinet. I went back to the 35 leftover grab handles on the etch fret from the SWS. Nipped off 14 and let the games begin!!! Each one had to be folded in the middle and then glued to the latch bases. After a few hours and lots of blue words in the air, we arrived at this point...
[ATTACH]311811[/ATTACH]
14 latches for the battery box!!! Yea, they are not 100% perfect, but they don't look too bad. Luckily, I only pinged 2 pieces off into the unknown out of the 6 or 7 that did fly out of the tweezers and they were not base pieces. Thank God for small favors as I only have 14 base pieces. They are tiny and did cost a few nerves though. I must be mad or insane and here's why...
[ATTACH]311821[/ATTACH]
YUP, they tiny!!! I now just have to get them glued on the cabinet. Fun, fun, joy, joy and a whole lot of profanities are in order!!! Oh, and a steady hand would help too...

Sling lots of glue and paint around good people and I wish you all a super weekend!!! They might let me out of the rubber room for 20 minutes tomorrow. Fingers crossed…………....

Prost
Allen

[JR]

Dude.1
My God, there's some work going on there on the box alone. Top rate stuff mate, how you have managed to continue in the heat before I don't know. Even here the TET didn't seem to work, realised as you said it was drying out. As for those small parts …..... words would fly . great
work buddy.


Hope the weather cools down and stays .
Dude 2

[Steve Jones]

Stunning work Allen. You are a brave man to put all those latches together at once. With my big arms I would lean over the bench and crush the whole lot knowing me:smiling3:

[Mini Me]

Allen,
lay off the "brewskis and caffeine" long enough to get that lot sorted out!
Have a joy joy happy happy day,
Rick H.:thumb2:

[Allen Dewire]

Morning Rocketeers,

Sorry for my lack of posting over the past week or so. Had a bad bout of the big black dog and it sort of put things on hold. I took 4 days off from work to try and catch up on this project. It seems to have helped and the Mojovation is once again on track. So...

Dude 2 - Thanks my friend. The weather has finally cooled and it even rained a bit last night. No bad words were spoken while attaching the latches to the cabinet.

Stevie - I was really surprised that I got them all together and none of them disappeared into the unknown. Thanks Buddy and see the rest of the story below!

Rick - Trust me Sir, the work went a whole lot better than I ever expected. No beverages were consumed during this action! Thanks too for keeping me on the right track.

Now with 14 latches to glue (CA) onto the cabinet, One needed to have a clear head and a steady hand. You also need a CA that doesn't dry in a second and gives you a little wiggle time. The MXBON CA worked a dream and is cheap. With tiny tipped tweezers in hand and a little puddle of CA, we went at it...
[ATTACH]312862[/ATTACH]
I could not believe how quickly the whole shebang went. All 14 latches attached and the piece set aside to dry properly. It took about 8 minutes total. I moved on to the switch cabinet and finished up the backside with covers for the oval plugs. I added the roof supports to it and set that aside to dry too...
[ATTACH]312863[/ATTACH]
Moving back to the Steyr itself, I had to fix the rear deck as it looked horrible. I cut out the the offending piece and replaced it with sheet. Since this pic, I have puttied it over to fill the gaps. Just need to sand it down a bit...[ATTACH]312864[/ATTACH]
The more I looked at the rear wheel wells made of thin sheet, the more they got on my nerves. I removed them, cleaned up the frame some more. I modified the kit parts that I had cut off and will use them. Again, I should have done that from the beginning, DOH!!!...
[ATTACH]312865[/ATTACH]
Then going back to the switch cabinet, it was time to glue on the roof. A test fit showed that I am not good at measurements for such things...
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The piece in the middle is what I had to cut out of the roof as it was way too long, Ooops!!! I added a handle and scribed a drawer into the battery cabinet base as shown? in the reference piccies. I also added the box to the side of the switch cabinet and CA'd the roof on it. Gotta check out why it looks crooked and leaning downwards to the right...
[ATTACH]312868[/ATTACH]
The front view...
[ATTACH]312869[/ATTACH]
Now here, the roof looks straight. Maybe it's an optical illusion or my eyes are crooked. I see other parts the are not 100% straight either. Let's chalk it up to a senior moment or two or more!!! The ragged oval socket on the bottom right will be filled with a plug that goes to the generator. The socket on the left will also be filled with the main power cable from the regulator. On the mat you can see the 2 PE brackets for holding the cable to the floor. More on that when we get that far folks!!!

Next up is getting the cable reels fitted into the trunk and while the weather remains cooler, maybe some paint slinging is in order. Thanks for your patience and support.

Prost
Allen

[rtfoe]

Hi Allen, great stuff and progress. Some advise...If you have a set of set squares or steel ruler you can check against the parts if you have cut them at right angles at 90 degrees. Your second last picture shows that the top and bottom of the switch cabinet isn't at right angles or off glued slightly. Unless it's supposed to be that way to fit with the rest of the assemblies.

Cheers,
Richard

[scottie3158]

Allen,
Great work so far, enjoying this build immensely .

[minitnkr]

Allen-BRAVOSTUPENDO! Your prose is equal to your modeling skills. Most excellent blog. PaulE

[Peter Gillson]

Loverly level of details ing. a joy to follow your build

Peter

[JR]

Dude 1
Stand with your head on one side and all will be right :upside::upside:.
Quite honestly that power unit is superb. I couldn't see anything amiss . I use those metal bars to try to keep things either upright or square if you don't have a set square as Richard suggests.
Dude 2

[BigGreg]

ALLEN.....FANTASTICO I LOVE IT AND THE DETAILS ARE STUNNING