05-21-2005
Better known as RSO with PAK-40
I've always wanted to do this kit-because it's an odd little vehicle but also I got all three sets of the Aber accuratizing sets and I really wanted to play around soldering those together.
I also have a Tamiya PAK 40 (bought long before the latest generation from AFV Club and DML became available :angry: ) and Friulmodel replacement tracks.
here is a little link to some music from Rammstein that I was listening to as I was doing this work today. Click on it and listen along as you read.
With basically five kits involved here (3 Aber, the Tamiya PAK 40, and the base Italeri kit), and never having built this kit I was a little unsure how to proceed as the various aspects of this build will need to fit together in the end. So after looking at all the various instruction sheets I decided that the Aber Vol. 2 set about would be a good place to begin.
This set is focused on the drivers cabin.
I started simply at first-bending the left and right seating floor plates first. I used a Mission Models Etchmate for this task, I find it better for actual bending of PE. I use the Hold & Fold I have mainly as a vise to aid in clean up the tiny metal attachment points on the PE parts.
there is a massive amount of brass ahead of me so I wanted to warm up a bit...
next comes the frame that all the othe parts will attach to. There is some tricky bending here but nothing too hard, even for me
like here there is a little jog in the frame that is a little difficult but totally doable if tweezers are used. I don't just use the Etchmate to fold PE - sometime plyer tweezers-fingers.
next the attachment of the floor plate to the frame- this took many tries and the best part of the afternoon to do as there seems to be a differancce in width of the channel forms on one side to the other.
next the side walls of the interior that cover the engine came next. Care should be taken when attaching these various PE parts - tacking things in place allows some correction far easier than soaking the joints with solder before everything gets properly lined up to everything else. The metal needs to be annealed (heated to red hot or so) to take some of the spring out tof the metal.It seems to curve the wrong way if not done, making attachment more difficult.
Here the two engine case plates are in place
in this shot you can see that there seems to be a slight difference in the width of the channels on the bottom of the frame.
next up I needed to fold up the cab surround and attach it.
here the seat flooring plate is added to one side already with the other yet to be installed
back veiw with the cab walls in place
and a 3D version
for reference I do have a couple of items...
this book from MK Editions of France
one of the main reasons that the Aber replacement cab is useful is that Italeri have portrayed the sides of the cab as being perpendicular but in fact there is a slight angle to the sides. This drawing from the basic set (ABER 35 049) shows the surgery required should one choose to use the kits cab.
I did a couple of smaller items- the air filter and the battery,
plus I made the steering systems mount. I will be replacing the Aber version of the cylindrical air filter with a scratched version made from plastic tube. PE is really not suited to make cylinders.
here is a couple of shots showing the steering bits.
next a fun little item, the engine cover
there are a few different angles to this piece but was able to bend it up nicely using the Etchmate and the shape template that comes with the Aber set.
this Aber stuff is detailed!. Here just to check for alignment I have used a piece of wire to make sure the holes for the "bolts" line up.
soldered in place
next comes the small access hatches, made up of 10 parts!
