Saddam’s Brolly

[Jim R]

Hi Alistair
Your doing a great job on a kit that may well have been better left in the box. The pericopes, hatch hinges, welds etc are bringing this up to standard that's for sure.
Jim

[Steve Jones]

Seats have run out so I will stand and watch from the back. A terrific subject to kick off with. Nice work so far.

[Road of Bones]

Good to see so many of you taking the time to look in - some familiar faces, too! (Steve, Si, Jimbo, John R, Scottie, Mr T- I hadn’t quite realised how much I missed you all until now!)

I had one of the placement students raid the spare conference room for some more chairs, and I filched a small heater from the Engineers’ workshop, so it should warm up a bit soon. I hope someone fetches some biscuits though, my tin appears bereft...

Onwards with the build revisit then! I carried on adding more missing details to the Skif canvas, mainly grab handles, hatch-locking handles, bolt heads and rivets, as well as the co-driver’s MG turret (which I found on the sprue, though it wasn’t called out in the instructions). Most of the additions were made with punched card, purée tube and brass wire:




To address those appalling tracks, I invested in a set of Fruils (for the Gvodzika SPG), and disciplined myself to put together a short run at each bench session. They came with metal Sprockets, so I used them too. Unlike Mr T, I kept the kit wheels, as they didn’t seem all that bad:


Got to love a cheeky dry-fit!

More later, thanks for looking.

Alistair☠️

[Road of Bones]

Moving on...

There are a couple of fuel filler caps (I think that’s what they are, anyway) on the port flank of the MT-LB, which have 3-legged frames over them, according to my ref pics. I bent some brass wire around the handle of a needle file, and soldered them thus:

here they are in situ:

Next up there are a couple of exhaust vent cover flaps just to the rear of the engine louvres which are absent in the Skif kit. Once again, I leaned on my ref pics, and leftover purée tube & spare PE hinges to knock up a facsimile:

I was never quite sure how accurate these were, but then I took the view that they were a field mod knocked up in a Baghdad machine shop made of old washing machines or somesuch...
More to follow later...
Alistair☠️

[scottie3158]

Al,
Great additions

[Road of Bones]

Thanks Scottie! I see your builds are going the same way these days:nerd:

[Steve Jones]

Another nice update Alistair. Wonderful attention to detail.

[Jim R]

Hi Alistair
You're sorting all the kits short comings. Looks great.
Jim

[Road of Bones]

Jim, Steve- thanks muchly gents!

The next instalment then...

The forward vision port covers were the copper PE ones from the kit fret, plus some plastic kit hinges. I made the rain gullies that surround the port covers out of old PE fret:

Moving on to the side of the thing, I added the hinged teardrop-shaped pistol port covers made from card, as well as the kit blanking plate, and then detailed the lower bow plate with some PE locking bars with some Meng bolt heads.

There is a raised vent with a grille on the engine cover, which I made from card and a bit of leftover PE from the D9R build- very satisfying to put together!

The driver has a single wing-mirror on the Iraqi version, and I made one by soldering a tripod of brass wire, and adding a mirror plate from more spare PE and card:

That’ll do for tonight’s instalment, I think!
Alistair☠️

[scottie3158]

Cracking detail

[Si Benson]

I’m dribbling....:thumb2::smiling4::smiling4:

[Guest]

I’m dribbling....:thumb2::smiling4::smiling4:

You dribble naturally, I've seen you....:sleeping2:
Mike.

[Road of Bones]

Scottie, Si, Mike- cheers chaps! I’ll have to try and keep the unwarranted expectoration to a minimum, shall I?

Moving on to the rear access doors, I remodelled the hatch hinges, and added the pistol port covers. I also scratched up some rear fender mounting brackets (though I never intended to fit the fenders themselves:

The driver’s hatch was fitted, and the hinge brackets were made from spare PE handles. I had to rectify a short mould on the hatch rim with some green stuff:

The Iraqi pattern headlight clusters are very different to the Soviet ones provided in the kit. I had to make new mounting brackets from card first, and mount the headlights and indicators:

I then mounted these on the hull, after grinding off the Soviet-version mounting blocks:

These have very fiddly wire guards over them, but I was only going to fit them once I had re-made the fenders- coming to the next instalment!

Alistair☠️

[Jim R]

Hi Alistair
Great progress. Superb detailing on a well researched build.
Jim

[Steven000]

Exellent work on those details Alistair :thumb2:
Steven