M29C Water Weasel

Jim R

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Hi Jakko
That pe front shield thing - I reckon your solution was the best and your only choice. The rear is straightforward because of the overlap.
Certainly a testing kit but you have it sorted now.
Jim
 

Jakko

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Can you take that piece off, anneal it then bend it to fit the profile of the resin.
It’s not glued on, the Blu-Tack was all that was holding it in place :smiling3: Annealing may help with getting the bends right, but that won’t solve the problem of the gaps between the shield and the floatation cell :sad:

Certainly a testing kit but you have it sorted now.
I wish I was that confident that this is the last difficult bit :smiling3:
 

Tim Marlow

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not convinced by the etched piece anyway Jakko. It doesn’t show the top edge beading or the join in the middle.
 

Jakko

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I had observed that too. The etched part had a thin raised line along the top edge (as do the bits on the side) which I think is supposed to represent the beading. I intended to glue some thin copper wire or plastic rod along them anyway, as well as add the reinforcing strip in the middle and other bits that are missing. Might as well scratchbuild the whole thing ;)
 

Tim Marlow

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I had observed that too. The etched part had a thin raised line along the top edge (as do the bits on the side) which I think is supposed to represent the beading. I intended to glue some thin copper wire or plastic rod along them anyway, as well as add the reinforcing strip in the middle and other bits that are missing. Might as well scratchbuild the whole thing ;)
The thin raised line could well be the etched cusp left behind when the part is made. It used to be quite common on poorly etched parts back in the day. It usually happens because the etch acid is spent and should be changed, so is cutting more slowly. Remember, etch acid cuts a curve through the part. The slower it cuts then the longer it is in the etch bath and the more sideways it cuts. The etcher was probably squeezing out a few more parts to save money before changing the acid. Basically poor quality control.
 
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Jakko

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No, this line is definitely meant to be there :smiling3: The part has half its depth etched away for most of its surface, so that two little fittings on the front and the line at the top remain. You can see them in this picture:

f1e10285-741b-4701-bf9f-ae402bb00b7b-jpeg.439813
 
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GerryW

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Caught up on this.
Looks as though it's a right PITA, but you're doing a wonderful job, overcoming all obstacles and creating a silk purse from a sows ear.
 

JR

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Seems it some sort of lip ? or have I missed the point. Normally Mirror Models are good at PE, that's a shame in this case.
 

Jakko

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The little etched ridge, you mean? I think that’s what it’s supposed to represent, or at least the rounded edge that’s there on the real thing. My idea is that it would have been better to cast it in resin together with the bow, though that would have made it thicker, of course, and probably tricker to cast.
 

Jakko

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I continued work on the rear floatation cell first, by trimming and filing the plastic card to shape:

0430F76D-2A29-49E5-A314-0A6033314477.jpeg

The curve on the underside is slightly bigger than on the resin part, to avoid having an odd step there instead. Then all that remained (for now) was to stick it to the rear of the hull:

12026DE2-0640-4F94-B34D-F0B4E40048CE.jpeg

At the front, I taped a piece of paper tight over the bow, like I said I was going to try:

66B9444E-69BE-4AB1-BCAE-235EDE78526F.jpeg

It’s angled so it sits flat against the lower part of the bow and so extends its line upward. Then the problem of how to transfer the shape needed to the paper. If you use a pencil, your line will end up just a little bit above/inside the material, meaning you would then have to guess how much to compensate by. Spraying paint at the join line would work very well, but I don’t like cleaning airbrushes and didn’t have anything else I want to spray either right now (killing two birds with one stone, so to speak), so I hit on trying the same with a brush:

318C5DBC-6229-4221-911E-632B07EE9F84.jpeg

I had to press the paper against the model from behind when doing this, and had little paint on the brush so it wouldn’t run, but it worked very well:

287861B4-B0FE-4599-81AC-C915EACD76AB.jpeg

The next step will probably be to scan this, trace over it in Adobe Illustrator, draw the upper part as well, and then print it out so I can paste it to plastic card and cut the shape I need. But as my computer still isn’t usable, that will have to wait a bit, I guess :sad:
 

Jim R

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Hi Jakko
Certainly inventive. Looks like it has worked and hopefully you'll end up with front shield that fits.
Jim
 

Jakko

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I certainly hope so :smiling3: A handy thing about tracing it on a computer and printing it, is that if I still make it wrong, I can easily print out a new one for a second attempt without needing to make a whole new template from the beginning.
 

Jakko

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Almost two years on, let’s continue redo this from the start! :smiling3:

IMG_0311.jpeg

That’s a Takom Weasel kit as well as another example of the LZ kit that started this thread — here’s proof, in case anyone needs it:

IMG_0313.jpeg

The upper box is the one from the previous photo, the lower one is from the part-built model standing next to them, which is of course the one from previously in this thread. Nothing has been done to that since the last message showing it, above.

The plan here is to build the Takom plastic model but convert it to an M29C with the necessary resin and etched parts from the LZ kit. Since the kit I had was too far built to do it with that one, I decided to buy another (cheaply: normally, this kit would cost something like €60+, but this one cost me €29.50, all of €2 more than the Takom one — probably because the shop knew it won’t shift it at all anymore now there’s a plastic kit). Also, I am aware that Takom announced a plastic M29C the other week, but I hatched this plan before they did, so I’m proceeding with it :smiling3:

I know, I must be crazy building another Takom Weasel right after the last one that went together so well … but I want to apply the lessons learned from that one before I half-forget them again. If you read that other thread, you’ll get a very good idea of the kit’s pitfalls.

So in that vein, I deviated from the instructions right from the start:

IMG_0312.jpeg

That’s the lower hull with idlers and drive sprockets as well as the bump stops attached, but nothing else, and the bogies built without their wheels. This now all needs to thoroughly dry before I can proceed, though.
 

Jakko

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You may recall the wheels from my other Weasel:

IMG_0159.jpeg

To try and avoid “wobbly wheel syndrome” this time round, I’ve decided to approach them a bit differently. The kit instructions tell you to glue the wheels to the axles, as you’d expect. The problem, though, is that this means you’ve got two shallow discs on an axle, and neither of the two is a tight fit, so if one of them ends up at an angle, it will push the other one along with it.

My attempt to prevent that involved making a simple jig:

IMG_0314.jpeg

Just a small block of wood that I drilled a hole of about 4 mm (exact diameter unimportant) all the way through, and then drilled that out to 5.9 mm for a short length, maybe half a centimetre or so. The reason for the 5.9 mm is because the kit wheels are 5.7 mm, give or take, and they need to fit fairly tightly into the hole — that, and 5.9 mm was the largest drill in the set I had at hand :smiling3: TBH, slightly larger might have been better, but they fit.

What I did is push one wheel into the jig, put a drop of cement into the middle of it and add the other wheel on top, firmly pressing down with a tool that doesn’t damage the hub (in my case, round-nosed tweezers, as that lets me push on both sides; a bit of tube might be better, though). I then used the cocktail stick to push the wheel out again, which is why the smaller hole goes all the way through. Be sure to hold a finger over the hole, though, to avoid the wheel going places :smiling3:

I made one wheel as a test, and once it had dried, fit it to an axle. As I hoped, it went on straight much more easily, because now it’s a deeper hole for the axle than the single wheels provide, and it’s impossible for one wheel to skew the other. So I then proceeded to do fifteen more, but I’m not sure yet if I want to do both sides or if I’ll leave off the outer row of wheels until after painting.
 

Jakko

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Thanks, I came up with the basic idea while still working on the other one, but was debating how best to make the jig — can’t use plastic tube, as you’ll stick the wheels to it if the glue goes where you don’t want it. Then it dawned on me that wood plus drills is much easier than trying to find metal tube the right diameter :smiling3:
 

Jim R

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That's a very clever and successful solution to the problem Jakko.
 

Jakko

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Thanks :smiling3: Simple solutions are often the best, I find.

The alternative way to building the track I had in mind, seems to work … I first glued the three links to the drive sprocket, because they’re the only ones with positive locations (due to the teeth):

IMG_0315.jpeg

Once the glue had dried, I put the top run on without glue so I could also correctly position the three links around the idler:

IMG_0316.jpeg

Again, when that had dried, I removed the top run. iIt will get in the way for building the rest of the suspension, and I don’t need it in any case, because there will be a plate completely covering it in the M29C.

I also fitted the springs to four of the bogies. These are supposed to click in place, but most don’t want to — and worse, some give the impression that they have, but in fact you may have stripped the locating pins from the bogies :sad: What I did was cut a small channel into the spring, to the hole for the pin, so it slipped on more easily. I may make a little drawing and post that to illustrate what I mean :smiling3: That done, I also glued the inner wheel of the outer pair to these bogies, taking care to get it straight and not wonky.

By the way, the bogies may look symmetrical once assembled, but they have an inside and an outside. The inside is the side that the small part that traps the suspension arms.

The next step was to glue the remaining track parts together (paying attention to get them in the right order) and leave the glue to dry for a short while — about as long as it took to glue the front and rear bogies on, on one side of the vehicle. Then I could glue the still-flexible track to the links on the idler and drive sprocket, lower the bogies down to their correct positions, and then finally glue them to the track:

IMG_0317.jpeg

This is fiddly and tricky, but everything together, it’s easier to line up the wheels with the track than the other way around, because this way, at least the track will fit properly. No chance of having it too long, for example.

The other side remains to be done, but I’m waiting for the glue to dry on this side first, as I don’t want to risk bumping it and throwing everything out of line after all.
 
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Jakko

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After completing the suspension (minus the bits that will be out of sight on the finished model), I added most of the upper hull parts:

IMG_0324.jpeg

A lesson I learned from the previous Weasel is that by leaving the left side off, it’s much easier to fit the handles etc. in the driver’s area. I also painted bits that will be hard to reach with the airbrush later, though the driver’s area still needs to be done here.

Then I also put the left side and the decks on:

IMG_0325.jpeg

I closed the little hatch over the radiator, which is why the radiator itself isn’t installed in the previous photo. I did replace its etched brass handles by some plastic strip, as that’s simply easier.
 

Jakko

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Now we’re finally getting to the conversion:

IMG_0327.jpeg

This is just dryfitting the LZ parts to the Takom hull (see the blobs of Blu-Tack :smiling3: ) to see what work will be needed. The front pontoon fits quite well:

IMG_0328.jpeg

In fact, better than on the LZ hull, as here, the little plates will overlap the hull on the corners as they should, whereas on the original attempt I had to cut them off and add a new piece of plastic card to each side so they would overlap the hull corners, as you can see if you read back through this thread.

The rear pontoon, though:

IMG_0330.jpeg

This is about 2 mm too wide and also doesn’t overlap the corners as it should. To be fair, it also doesn’t overlap if you stick it to an LZ hull, of course :smiling3: I’m still debating how best to narrow it, though. It won’t be easy sawing 1 mm off each side, but I don’t see another way to realistically take that little off.
 
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