SimonT - 1/35 SU-122

[JR]

Thanks Simon, thought It might be some Black art !
Hope all is well with Dad.
John.

[Allen Dewire]

Morn Simon,

Just caught up with this and I see you are up to your magic again. Those fuel tank mounts look very fragile. I imagine you must be careful when handling the upper hull.

I also hope you bring this one to the end. Do the master club tracks have 2 different pin sizes like their panzer IV tracks?

Prost
Allen

[Si Benson]

Morning Mr T,

Clever idea with the fuel pod brackets...very logical :nerd: Grab rails look fantastic too:thumb2:

[Jim R]

Hi Simon
Hope Dad is OK.
All looking good - typical Simon T multi media approach :smiling2: Clever way to make the fuel pod brackets. Did you consider making one and resin casting the rest?
Jim

[Guest]

Simon,
Very, very impressive work, no need to rush, for quality work like this we can wait in anticipation.
Hope your Dad is well.
Cheers,
Mike.

[PJR]

Enjoying this piece very much. If anyone is interested there is a pretty good book by Vasiliy Krysov called Panzer Destroyer-he crewed one of these in The Great Patriotic War. It's a very good read.
(for informational purposes only)

[monica]

real nice,work,with this,one,do like the added detailing and scratch work,
just adds so much to a build,the engine deck louvres ,look real good,
were did you find the eyelets for the railing,that I,do real like,
keep up the great work with this one,:hungry:

[SimonT]

John - no, nothing clever. Dad currently as well as can be expected ta

Allen - I have caught the brackets a few times but luckily the plastic card just bent rather than breaking. The brackets will be stiffened up once I get their top plates on. The track pins are just single size on these

Si - cheers

Jim - thanks. A lot less messing about to just make them in this case

Mike - thanks

Paul - cheers

Monica - thanks. The eyelets for the rails are made from brass wire that has been flattened with smooth jaw pliers


[ATTACH]320830[/ATTACH]
as is usual with Eduard etch they only provide an indication of where rivets/bolt heads need to go (either by etching a hole or an engraved circle) so I added all the missing rivet heads - and that was all I got done apart from cleaning up more track links

[Steve Jones]

Best tip you ever gave me about PE and rivets. It makes it look so much better:thumb2:

[SimonT]

There are a lot of builds get done with etch that is devoid of the rivets/bolt heads

If you look on the etch fret Steve you will usually find a series of holes - they are provided so you can mould your own rivets/bolt heads if you don't have punch and die sets

Heat up the end of a length of sprue and push it against the fret then slice off the resulting bumps and glue to the etch

[minitnkr]

Now that's a tip I've not seen before. Always learn something reading your blogs. Thank you. PaulE

[BigGreg]

What a fantastic level of details...

[scottie3158]

Simon great work as always. A great idea about forming a block of the individual items to get them the same.

[SimonT]

Paul - no problem

Greg - ta

Scottie - cheers. Have used that method a lot over the years - generally works quite well. Need to take care when sanding to keep things square otherwise you will end up with one end thicker than the other

Morning all, a small amount of progress to report:

[ATTACH]321467[/ATTACH]
plastic cables cut off, ends drilled out and twisted copper wire CA'd in place

[ATTACH]321463[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]321464[/ATTACH]
main stowage box had the lock and hinge blobs removed and the sides scraped to square them up

new locks and hinges made up then end mounting plates added from pewter and punched disks

[ATTACH]321465[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]321466[/ATTACH]
the smaller box got similar treatment plus a complete lid from pewter

the track link clean up is also continuing - nearly done now so then I get to drill out all the holes for the link pins

[Tim Marlow]

Hi Simon
Nice tip on the etch rivets. Always surprises me that military model based etch doesn’t follow the convention established at least thirty years ago for railway kit. With quality railway stuff the rivet locations are half etched on the rear of the piece so they can be pushed through to the working face with a rivet punch or blunt scriber, so embossing the rivet.
To be clear, to a railway scratchbuilder (who usually works in brass or nickel silver) a rivet punch is an embossing tool, not a punch and die tool such as plastic modellers use... don’t use your expensive die set to emboss rivets on etch because you will probably ruin both....