Afternoon Rocketeers (and Prairie Dogs around the world),
I'm a bit behind here as work has been crazy. After driving 515 miles for a delivery, you just want to go home and chill, but you end up dozing off into lala land and forget about hobby time. Tomorrow looks like another 500 mile drive too and then weekend!!!.....So,
Dude 2 - It's the end of the week and I'm still waiting to know! Done or not?
Ron - Thanks Sir, But it's all done with mirrors to make it look neat. Your scratch probably looks a lot better...
Brad - Not too shabby buddy! Kratzer are scratches (like in paint), Kratzen could work, but in German, most say selbstbau. (made myself). Glad you like it...
Jim B - So true My friend. back then the American's took care of the scientists and the Russians used them for all they could and them isolated them from the project. Many had visions of travelling into outer space and even landing on the moon. I don't think they realized how many people died as forced labor for the production of the V2. It was many times higher than the number of people the V2 actually killed in use. Very sad indeed…..
Wouter - Yea buddy, we'll just leave it and keep on scratching on. Please don't look too closely, Ok??? Thanks....
Greg - Ok Dude Now there are 10,003 comedians out of work!!! Really though, You had me busting out laughing with this one. I hope Steve saw it too. Lucky for me, I wasn't drinking anything at the time of it would have flown everywhere!!! Thanks for that and I'll try harder...
Simon - Thanks my friend. I have been digging high and low and in a lot of German archives. Very time consuming to say the least and not too easy to find what you're looking for. Sometimes I do get lucky though. BTW, I found killer reference pics for 3 or 4 more pieces of V2 equipment, but they would have to be scratched for the most part...…...…..
A small update is in order as I had three days to play a bit earlier this week. Going against my better judgement, but with Paul E's great suggestion, I raided the Dragon 88mm Flak 37, 3n1 kit for these……….
I modified the 3 reel mount legs in the middle with a piece of plastic with a pin to hold them up. I also wound some old wire on the first one, but the wire is too thick. The black twine came with the kit too. Gonna try it next to see if I can get 8 rows of wire across on the reel. I then remembered that this whole shebang had to fit into the trunk of the Steyr...………….
Yea Baby, got lucky on this one. It should fit like a glove in the trunk when the time comes. I also cleaned the edges of the back plate to fit to the side panels. Work was then stopped on the Steyr as I still haven't heard from Leadwarrior about the generator for the interior. I need to see if it fits how I need it to fit behind the driver's seat. I have also been pondering how to make the vented panel on the side for the generator. I do have some sheet pewter that might work if I am careful enough.
So, Moving on, We went to work on the radio van body from the Italeri Opel Blitz Tankwagen to fit on the Maultier chassis. This body housed big reels of wire for the electrical hook ups between power source and V2. It doesn't have a roof or a floor in the kit. The roof is an easy scratch from sheet plastic and we'll use the floor from the Maultier, but...……………..
We have to narrow the floor as it is too wide. No Biggie and it only took 10 minutes to do. Now we have to compare the 2 bodies to make the radio van body look like this one...…………………..
(For Discussion Purposes Only)
That meant filling a lot of holes on the panels that aren't needed for this version. You can see one of the large reels in the window and the storage locker built into the wheel wells with padlock and chain. The 2 rear flaps are where the cable comes out and the 4 poles with screw ends are grounding anchors. We started stretching sprue over the tealight candle and came up with this……………..
These were put aside to dry and we went to work on the main item here. The Opel Maultier itself……………………………….
This is an older kit from Italeri and does require a bit of clean up. After the clean up, the parts actually fit together well and the whole chassis is level and square. At the top of the pic is 2 diffs. The kit diff in tan and the diff from my built Maultier in grey. This kit does not give you the axle cover for the diff like the one in grey. It's nowhere to be found on the sprues. The destructions show it on the sprocket, but it isn't there. Pretty crazy!!! Luckily, my diff was not glued too tight on my built Maultier, so I'll use it here. I also will use the tracks as they have a good join and won't come apart when handled. The resin road wheels look good too!
Ok, enough blah-blah for now. Thanks for dropping in and following my madness. More scratchy scratchy to come as well as other thangs!!!
Prost
Allen Allen Allen