Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update July 27, 2014

Updated with more work on weathering and stowage. Stowage is dry fitted, or attached, need straps and some more stowage parts in progress.

This has been done since the first of July. I put it on the shelf for a break before I go back at it again.

In the meantime I have been poking at something else for a diversion..

Same model from same time, different picture treatments.

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update June 29, 2014

A couple of little details painted, and the last bit of paint before I clear coat in order to start the weathering.
I painted the wheel wells Khaki Drab overall first, then shot it with Buff on the highlites, the back drop is then more brown than green for the areas not covered, simulating old dirt.

So far... First shot with old camera on the workbench with left side wheels dry fitted. They have been painted and weathered with light brown oil, then pigments over all that, each - 9 times including spare...

Second shot in the light tent with new camera.

Next is a coat of Future, then filters, washes with oil paints, and anything else.

To be continued.....

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update June 21, 2014

Details, Details, Details

I hadn't worked on this since April. May was busy at home with renovations, busy at work with trips, and the flu.

June and school is winding down and I got a chance to put some work into the details of this one.

Painting all the little detail parts: lights, tools (not attached yet), TBar antenna leads, lift hooks, recognition wedge and color modulation on some of the prominent details, add-on armor bolts, (anything that sticks up really).
I have it almost ready to clear coat to start weathering. Just going to let the paint gas out for a few days.

Here is what it looks like today.

Oh Yeah, I got a new camera and gear. New to me, Nikon D60. Chris upgraded to a 7100, and I took the D60.

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update April 22, 2014

PAINTED!!!

Base coat is on, and threw a few accessories on for color.

It took about an hour to paint, standing in the sunshine of the shed door, to make sure every nook and cranny was covered.

Painting the primer flat black was genius, thanks Chris. The coverage was just the right dark shade.
I had left some panels the primer grey, and those popped out lighter, perfect for a bit of modulation.

Next steps would be to paint on the markings (not much, just fist sized black maple leafs - I have a stencil for that). Then to place the light lenses, front and back - Clear, Orange and Red.

Then I can move on to the weathering.. gloss coat the entire thing, and go with the filters, washes and mud/dust.

It is not turning out too bad. I thought this would be  monumental undertaking, and it has, but pacing myself and concentrating on 1 piece at a time has worked out well for me. You know, east the Elephant 1 bite at a time..

Some progress shots..

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update April 13, 2014

PRIMED!!

For me, Sunday April 13 was the first day of Spring.
It was the first day of the year that it was warm enough to go to the shed and spray Enamel and Lacquer paint! I can spray acrylic in the house using alcohol and the smell goes away quick, but I have been banished before for spraying Enamel and Lacquer in the house! I have a paint booth, but it doesn't help with Enamel or Lacquer.

Finished off the last few parts, and primed with my standard Model Master Grey Primer.

I will let this stand for a week to gas out, and by next weekend be ready to do the base coat.

Based on some advice from Chris I will start with flat black (I use Tamiya XF paints). I will then use XF67 NATO Green overall, but I will need to lighten it with either Dark Yellow or Medium Grey,because of the black pre-shading. This would represent the base coat, there is no camouflage pattern for this one.

I was wondering why Chris recommended Black instead of going straight to NATO green, but I think it will help with the modulation of the nooks and crannies. I just won't pay much attention to those areas with the NATO Green, and they will give a much better shadow appearance.

After that I will lighten the NATO Green gradually and hit the upper panels in whole, lighten again and go after smaller panels, and finally lighten again and hit the raised details.

That is the plan anyway....

The individual parts to be glued/placed later, ready for priming. Yes, that is a resin Coleman Cooler there in the middle. It will be painted either red/white or blue/white with International Distress Orange on the cover to act as aircraft recognition, and be placed in the rear turret basket.

Also primed two aircraft I have worked on since Dec.

More shots to come as the painting starts in earnest!!

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update March 29, 2014

I got real intense with this one back January, but I seemed to tail off in Feb and March, a lot of little photo etch parts, a lot of research, I had to take a break.

I went back at it again this week with a renewed enthusiasm and made some progress. Not quite done yet. I still have the lights, light guard, rear view mirrors and a few other plastic things to do, but I think the lions share of the photo etch is complete.

And I stuck my fingers together, finally.

I have posted some pictures from today down below to show current state.

Also included in the pictures is a picture of a new addition to my work bench. We had a 32" LED TV left over from an upgrade for one of the boys for Christmas, so I set it up in the basement on a new section of my bench. With an old laptop connected to the screen, networked to the home network, I have access to my recorded TV shows, my research material, and online instruction sets, and anything I need. Works out well for me.

One other thing I made, especially for this model, was a turn stable/stand, it allows me to rotate the kit without touching it. Touching is a very sensitive subject with this one, with so much photo etch and CA glue, it doesn't take much for small parts to come flying off onto the work bench or floor. I got the hardware from, were else, the hardware store.. It is the Lazy Susan hardware, basically two thin sheets of steel with a ball bearing mechanism between. You can buy them in 3" and 4" sizes, this one is the 3 inch. It cost about $5.00. I cut two circles out of 1/2 inch MDF board, and screwed it in pace with 3/4 inch #8 screws. I then took some kitchen no-skid matting that you would use in the cupboard for putting dishes on, cut it to fit and white glued it down to the wood, so the kit doesn't slide. Works for me!

Until next time..

Bench

Turn Table

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update February 14, 2014

Photo Etch - daunting yes, working OK so far? Yeah, but let's not jinx it!

If I thought there was going to be one huge challenge to this build, it would be the turret baskets. I have no idea how to go about it, the conversion kit did not have any instructions, but I did see a lot of reference photos of other builds and Prime Portal has an excellent Walk Around.

I figured I would try to tackle it now, instead of get further down the road and abandon it after I put a lot of work into it.

So looking at finished products, I worked backwards. I started with the rear basket, it looked the easiest, relatively speaking. After a lot of tweaking, cutting, filing, bending (Thanks to the Etch Mate!), ripping apart and rebuilding (CA Glue and Photo Etch CAN be unbuilt without too much damage).

All I had was no reference to what should be some photo etch (200 pieces on 5 sprues) for the frame supports and mesh sides and bottoms, and some lengths of 1 mm brass wire. And a resin template for the wire bends. So looking at the pictures, and looking and dry fitting a hundred times, and 4 hours, I got the rear basket completed and attached. Not perfect, but looks good to me. I have lots of accessories to fill that basket.

Today was a vacation day, so with me feeling pretty good about myself and the new rear basket, I attempted the side baskets. Using the same methodology and building both at the same time, again, I amazed myself and did what I thought was an acceptable job. Again, lots of things to put in those baskets to cover up any glaring flubs.

Taking a break... If you are keeping track, I never glued my fingers together yet.

Here are some progress pics.
Yes, some tie downs from the other night...  SMALL...patience! Those squares on the cutting mat are 1/2 inch (12 cm).

Foreground left, Resin template for basket tube frames.. Thanks Miroslav!

I set up the top rail first with the photo etch supports as a guide. The rest had to fit that to remain square. The bottom of the basket has Photo etch mesh as the floor and lower sides so the rations and water didn't fall out. Spare photo etch sprue frames acted as basket supports and mesh reinforcement. Its on the real thing!

There!

Side basket construction.

More of the same but doubles. This is a redo, had to take the frame supports off, one of the rails stuck out too far.. didn.t dry fit enough :(

Et Voila!

Another Angle .. Basket Weaver!!!!!!!!!!!

Canadian LAV III Afghanistan - Update February 10, 2014

I have been carefully preparing this for build, my most ambitious to date. As I mentioned, I did about 2 weeks of research and was, and still am, sure of what I want to do.

I started working on the resin pieces getting rid of the mold blocks and sanding where required. I wanted to get that out of the way first off so I could go right to dry fitting. All while wearing my trusty respirator. (Resin baaaad!))

The first fit I went after was the rear bulkhead, which was a donor kit piece which glues to the rear of the vehicle. The top half of the hull is resin, the bottom half of the hulk is plastic. So the bulkhead mates the two on the rear.

The fit is not exact. The AFV rear bulkhead needs to be trimmed on the top edges to match the contour of the top of the LAV hull, which is not the same as a Stryker. The Stryker is squared edges, the LAV has bevelled edges. The resin hull sides do not go back far enough, so I had to use some Evergreen 40 thou by 10 thou strips to extend the upper sides, which you can see in white, with white Squadron putty filling the seams. This took a few days of careful dry fitting and trimming.

I am using Testors tube cement and liquid cement on the styrene to styrene fits, and using thick CA glue for the resin to plastic fits (and everything else as well, like metal photo etch to resin or plastic).

The next big step was to articulate the front wheels to pose it as if making a turn. The undercarriage for the AFV kit is fixed forward, but I wanted a turned look for this one. Both front wheels turn so I have to do the same operation twice. The wheels mounts are posts set into the roof of the wheel well. The swing arms hold the posts to the chassis, and the posts can turn until they are glued. The challenging part was to cut the steering linkage apart to make it articulate like the real one. I used a razor saw for this. I carefully cut off the pitman arms from the tie rods and center link. I then used a small drill to drill out the ends of each. I glued Evergreen rod in to the pitman arm holes and let it dry. I dry fitted the tie rods and pitman arms to the model, and put the center link in place. I did the rear first, in an understated turn, then did the same for the front, using a slightly increased turn, just like the real thing. When everything looked right I glued everything in pace, all the ends of the tie rods to the pitman arms and wheel posts, and the center links to the pitman arms. While the glue was setting, I posed the wheel posts exactly where I wanted, then I glued the swing arms to the posts with liquid glue. All of this set over night.

The next day I dry fitted wheels to the wheel posts to check to make sure it was right. I think it looks OK.

After that it was some plastic handles, and other parts from the donor kit. The instructions are very busy and it took a lot of focus to see which little parts were needed and what were resin. I will go over it again to see if there are any parts missing but I have the rest of them in a bin and will put them on before painting. It takes a while to remove sprue marks and mold seams. Very tiny parts, AFV is getting like Dragon in the detail. I will be doing a lot on handling as I put on the photo-etch, so I will be leaving those parts off for now, and there is a lot of photo-etch!

So the next step was to start laying in some photo-etch. I am sure that photo-etch gives most modellers the creeps every now and then, and if the pieces are large enough to work with that is fine. There are some VERY small pieces in this set. I cringe when I think of the little attachments for tie down straps. I have to put the maximum magnification on my goggles. Try doing this with Super Glue and not sticking your fingers together! Keep the debonder close by!

So this is pretty much where I am now, the front drivers hatch is on, with a nifty black plastic/rubber cover over the rear so garbage, water and hot casings don't drop on the drivers neck as he opens his hatch. A start tot he photo-etch pieces but will let is sit for a day or so to dry and bond completely.

Stay tuned.