M29C Water Weasel

[Jakko]

What a piece of good fortune and all credit to the museum for being so helpful.

It probably helps that I actually know the president/founder The museum’s workshop is restoring the Sherman that serves a monument at Westkapelle (also see here) and I’ve been helping them with getting markings and other details right. The other day, he phoned me up because there was some confusion over the markings, so I went down to the workshop yesterday to clarify things.

From that, the next stop was the museum itself, which I had been to before but not since it was greatly expanded a few years ago. I didn’t know they had a Weasel, and it turns out they have two — this one doesn’t run, the other does. However, it’s apparently on loan to the Netherlands Military Museum.

And you now have a great set of reference photos and some work saved when back at the bench.

Yes, it definitely was a bit of luck I now also understand why Weasels have two sets of double wheels on each axle: the outer wheel has a rubber tyre, the inner wheel is entirely steel, as you can just see in the photo of the suspension I posted above.

stripping the vehicle down like that is something else.

Wel, it was really just taking out two of those hooked catches like in the photo plus a split pin at the front and rear, and the skirt flips up (and stays up by itself, I hadn’t expected that).

Of course, it was fun that one of museum guides came up to see what the knocking sound was, and WTF we were doing. When we explained who got us the tools we were using, all was OK

 

[Graeme C.]

Nice to have friends in high places Jakko! The build looks tricky, but you seem to be getting along with it.

 

[Jakko]

Now I just need to actually continue building … I have about four weeks left before I want it done.

 

[Jakko]

The fixed idler wheel compared to the best-cast one in the kit:



I drilled open the holes with a drill slightly smaller than the holes should be, then cut them to the size and shape needed with a sharp knife. This while the wheel was still on the whole bit of plastic card. Only then did I cut it out of that, by making seven or eight straight cuts along the wheel rather than trying to follow its rim. That way, you can then trim much of the excess off with more straight cuts and finally, file down the remaining plastic to be flush with the rim. This is far simpler than trying to cut it round in one go.

It’s not perfect, but then, none of the four halves were exactly free of casting defects, and in any case most will be hidden behind the side skirts anyway. I’ll just have to make sure the least-bad sides are on show

I also glued the bogies to the leaf springs, like this:



A glass plate, Blu-Tack (not visible) underneath the hull to get it to the right height and then slip all eight bogies into place without glue. This required a fair degree of care and two tools to line them out: a sculpting tool with a square handle behind the wheels (because there is only limited room between the wheels and the blob of Blu-Tack) and a ruler in front.

Once all eight were in place and lined out, I flowed thin superglue into the joints with a sharpened cocktail stick, ensured they were still lined up correctly, and left it well alone for the glue to dry

Before doing any of this, by the way, I removed the return roller brackets from the hull because they’ll be hardly visible at all, so I don’t see a need to have them on at all. They may come in handy for something else in future (I kind of doubt it, but hey, maybe someone will release a good, plastic Weasel at some point, for example ).

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Quite a few challenges being thrown up with this. That DIY jig for fitting the bogies is clever. Without that you would stand little chance of getting them in line.
Jim

 

[Jakko]

The instructions recommend making a spacer of a certain thickness from some spare material, but don’t tell you how to line everything up correctly. The way I did it wasn’t perfect, but far better than trying to do it by eye. At first I tried lining them up with just the ruler on the outside, but the doesn’t work because there is no positive location for the bogies at all — you have to slip the outer end of the leaf spring through a gap in the bogie and … that’s it. The bogie can move all the way along the spring until it hits the etched bit above it, and there is nothing to indicate how far along it should go. A quick rummage produced that square-handled sculpting tool that I could use to push the wheels outward with, which helped a lot.

 

[Jakko]

To strengthen the suspension, I glued a piece of plastic strip behind the tops of the bogies and then added supports between the strip and the hull:



All of this should end up hidden behind the side skirts — or so I hope

I also added the idler wheel mounts. How these fit is not very clear from the instructions, nor from the pictures I took of the real vehicle, so for anyone else attempting this in future, here is how they should go:



And then with the idler wheels on as well:



To attach both the idler mounts and the wheels themselves, I drilled holes and inserted plastic rod as pins, else it would have been butt joins all around, which are not overly strong.

 

[Jakko]

The tracks are great fun too. They come as a short and a long length for each side, the idea being that the short one goes on top while the long length curves around the idler and sprocket wheels. Since the skirts will obscure the top run, I only used the long part, using a hair dryer to soften one end of it and bending it around the jig provided in the kit. After that I repeated with the other end, then dry-fitted and found I had to bend some more but now around the wheels — which the kit instructions also point out, by the way.

After that there was much fun removing the tiny guide horns from their sprues, cleaning them up and glueing them to the track. Here’s one with and one without:



The easiest way to glue them is to out a drop of superglue onto something where it will keep for a bit (I used baking paper), dip the link into it with non-pointed tweezers and then sticking it onto the track. If you use pointed tweezers, you’ll find them poking through the holes in the track, making it had to remove the tweezers without taking the guide horn along (guess how I know ). Switching to tweezers with rounded jaws made the job much easier.

And then, when I had two done, I of course went to install them on the hull. That again isn’t a quick or easy job, either …



I ended up using three self-locking tweezers to clamp the roadwheels to the lower run of track, then flowing superglue between wheels and track on both sides using a sharpened cocktail stick. I left the front and last roadwheels without glue, and also the sprocket and idler, so I can still manipulate the track a bit after this dries, because neither side really fits as well as I would like yet.

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
This is really taking shape.

 

[Jakko]

I wish the majority of the kit’s parts still remain to be fitted, and most of them are tiny (and bigger) etched brass …

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Each stage so far has required extra thought to devise a method to get it together. It's building up fine and there must be a certain satisfaction in over coming issues.
All part of this great hobby
Jim

 

[Jakko]

I just wish it would go a bit faster, really … But I have to finish the suspension before I can fit the upper hull, and it turns out the suspension can only be worked on one side at a time, so that very much limits the rate at which this model can proceed. Sure, it’s superglue, so it sets fairly quickly — but it would be better if I could do both sides and leave them to dry overnight

 

[adt70hk]

Coming on nicely Jakko.

Saw one of these at Bovington but not sure if I took any pictures but I assume you got more than enough from your visit to the museum your side of if the North Sea?

 

[Tim Marlow]

Slowly does it Jakko. Looking very nice though, despite the work involved.

 

[Jakko]

Saw one of these at Bovington but not sure if I took any pictures but I assume you got more than enough from your visit to the museum your side of if the North Sea?

Probably, but if you want to post them here, feel free — they can only help

Slowly does it Jakko.

That’s true, but I’m going rather slower than I would like. This has a number of reasons, one of them being I have other stuff to work on that’s more important than this model, but also that I’m not overly enjoying this one so I don’t feel like working on it Hopefully that should improve once I get past this suspension …

Looking very nice though, despite the work involved.

Thanks

 

[outrunner]

Looking great Jakko, seems a bit fiddly in places.

Andy.

 

[Jakko]

I take it that’s British understatement … I said it before, but the text “suitable for advanced modellers” on the box front is not an exaggeration. Don’t buy this if you have a few Tamiya kits under your belt and think you’re a skilled modeller now

But I’m glad to report real progress being made on the suspension now:



I glued the other track on like the first, though now by putting glue on the undersides of the roadwheels first rather than flowing it in there after the track was on. I felt confident doing this because of having gotten a feel for how it fits when I installed the other track.

Next, once that had dried, I took a soldering iron and used it to carefully heat the track only where I needed to bend it some more, by holding the model over the iron until the track was soft enough. Then I bent it into shape, held it until it cooled, and flowed more superglue between wheel and track using a cocktail stick again.

All this appears to have worked well. I’ll leave it to dry overnight before giving it a coat of black primer, to make sure no resin will remain visible there after painting the whole model.

 

[Graeme C.]

Despite all the difficulties, your doing well Jakko, it is one fiddly model.

 

[Jakko]

It definitely is. The build is slightly stalled for now, as I have some other things (non-modelling) to finish over the next few days, but hopefully I can then continue on this model. And if I’m lucky with a bit more speed than until now, despite the fiddliness

 

[adt70hk]

Rather you than me Jakko! Keep up the good work.

Andrew