Rooikat

[Jakko]

As I mentioned the other day, my next build after the duo of Sherman Crabs will be straight from the box, as a change of pace from the heavy converting and scratchbuilding necessary there. Initially, I wanted to start the Bronco Ram cruiser tank, but I discovered that kit has a lot of not-so-minor problems, so I shelved that plan. Instead, I decided on the Trumpeter Rooikat.

This is a big, South African, eight-wheeled armoured car developed specifically for the kind of terrain and warfare in southern Africa. First deliveries were around 1990, and it is only used by the South African National Defense Force, which had about 240 of them at one point. It has a crew of four (commander, driver, gunner and loader) and is armed with a Denel GT4 76 mm high-velocity gun and two MG4 machine guns, which are modernised M1919 Brownings. The name translates as caracal (literally as “red cat” — and not, as Dutch-speakers like me tend to read it, “reap-cat” ) and is pronounced /ˈrɔːj.kat/ or /ˈroːj.kat/.

Here are some shots of the kit:



You get two A sprues and four B sprues (the two small ones in the first sprue photo) and eight rubber tyres. Everything else shown above is included only once (other than the ruler, which is mine and there to show how big this thing is ). Instructions are in black and white, and look to be the usual Trumpeter style (that is, clear and easy to follow) while the painting instructions are in full colour. One option is the camouflaged version shown above, the other two are plain brown overall.

 

[Jim R]

hi Jakko
Looks a nice kit. I have not heard of the Rooikat. At 21cm it must be a big beast in real life.
Jim

 

[Road of Bones]

Always fancied one of these Jakko! Will watch with great interest

 

[Jakko]

This one isn’t going to be anything special, though — in fact I kind of hope to finish it before my primer arrives

 

[PaulTRose]

nice looking kit

 

[Jakko]

I began with following the instructions, which means building the lower hull and suspension first. These are okay, but need some work to make them fit properly. Also, two of the springs cracked when I forced them over their locating pins, because either the pins are too thick or the hole in the spring is too narrow (see the one on the top left, below). You can turn them so it doesn’t show, though, and even if it is at the front, they’ll be behind the wheel, so I wasn’t bothered. Another tip is that you only need to do the awkward cleanup on one side of the springs, because you can just turn the other side towards the hull



If you’re also building this kit, then you may note I didn’t add the suspension arms to like Trumpeter tells you to. I found it much better to leave them off until I added the spring assembly to the hull, because some needed a little widening of the notches for the locating pins so that everything would fit together. Similarly, Trumpeter would have you add some kind of arms (parts B14, off the top of my head) to the hullsides in step 1, but you’re better off only attaching them just before the springs, so you can make sure everything lines up. I had to cut locating pins off the arms so they wouldn’t interfere with the springs. Again, this is all more or less hidden, so I’m not bothered.

Almost everything in place, except for the steering linkages:



I didn’t install the linkages yet because I haven’t decided whether to have the wheels forward or at an angle. The linkages only allow them to be straight, but the wheels do steer otherwise, as you can see in the photo.

The springs seem to be too long, though: the shock absorbers don’t fit into their locating holes but hang just below them. Cutting about a millimetre off the bottom (open) ends of the springs should solve that, but probably means the suspension arms won’t line up anymore … again, though, it’ll be out of sight for the most part.

With all that, I wasn’t exactly expecting the suspension to line up properly.



Imagine my surprise! The other side is also nicely in line, though I couldn’t check like this if they’re both in the same plane, of course.

 

[papa 695]

Never seen this before, I’ve just pulled up my chair.

 

[Graeme C.]

Looks interesting Jakko, Chair pulled up.

 

[yak face]

Very interesting looking vehicle jakko , nice work sorting the little niggles with the suspension , if you decide to angle the wheels is it just the front two or front four?

 

[Jakko]

Only the front four, the rear ones don’t steer. I decided to angle them a bit, and though you can do this without glueing the steering linkages on, they would mean they’re only glued to the model at one point (the side of the hull) and probably end up hovering over the suspension arms somewhere. So I decided to glue the hub in place, slightly steered to the right, the first set of wheels more than the second.

This isn’t a bad kit, but don’t expect a shake-the-box type of model. You need to work many of the parts a little to get them to fit right, there’s a small amount of flash on some parts, moulding isn’t really up to the state of the art, etc. — but nothing a below-average modeller shouldn’t be able to handle, in my opinion.

One really odd thing about this model, though, is that it includes headlights:



Okay, fine, of course. I wondered initially why the kit has a clear sprue but the headlights and indicators are moulded in grey. The reason became obvious when I test-fitted the front plate:



Yes, the lights are entirely hidden … the real thing has hatches to protect the lights, but on the kit these are moulded shut I pulled the lights out again and chucked them into the spares box.

By now I have the hull complete, except for the etched parts and wing mirrors, and the driver’s hatch is still loose:



Fit of the upper and lower parts is okay, but needs some tape, glue clamps and a little filler to get everything lined up. Here are some close-ups of the front and rear, before I put the tow shackles on:



I still need to scrape the mould part lines off most of the grab handles. This is intentional: I find this much easier to do with a sharp knife when a tiny handle is on the model with the glue dry rather than if I have to hold it between my fingers.

And I made a start on the turret:



Builders of this kit, note that parts A17 (the pivots for the gun trunnions) only fit one way — if you try to put them in front to back, they won’t. This is only obvious when you take a close look at their locating tabs, however.

 

[Steven000]

Moving fast, looks good
Steven

 

[Jakko]

It’s not a very complex kit, other than the suspension being a fair amount of work. Deciding to not add any details also helps a lot in speeding up the build

 

[Jakko]

… aaaaaaand we’re done!



All the hatches are still loose and the wheel hubs are on the sprues for ease of painting, but other than that, this is now a complete, out-of-the-box Rooikat. I thought I’ll paint it tomorrow, but then remembered that the etched brass will need priming, and the whole reason I started this kit is because my primer ran out so I couldn’t continue on the Sherman Crabs I’ll see if I still have some car primer or something, though.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Well considering it is completely built "as Trumpeter intended" and very quickly it looks very good. Details look rather nice - the rear end for example with the moulded on tools.
Jim

 

[Jakko]

The kit is pretty good, though it has some flash and minor fit problems, especially with the guards over the smoke launchers. Having now built this kit, I think I need to say it’s too expensive for what you get. I paid €59.95 for it last December, and though it includes rubber tyres and some etched bits, in terms of overall quality I would have expected it to only cost about half that, perhaps a little more.

The tools on the hull rear, by the way, are not moulded on — they’re all separate and need to be glued in place, then the retaining brackets glued over them.

As a general tip for anyone wanting to build this kit too, I would advise to not follow the instructions too closely. Trumpeter would have you add all the details to the lower and upper hulls before joining them, which is just silly. Far better to put the hull top, bottom, front and rear plates together and only then add all the details. You can add the suspension after that too, with probably very little trouble, but it’s sturdy enough that you don’t need to add it afterwards. All the grab handles and things, though …

The next step is masking the driver’s periscopes (I already did the commander’s vision ring, before fitting it) and then I’ll probably spray some automotive primer over the grilles tonight so I can spray the rest of the model brown tomorrow.

 

[Jakko]

I gave the model a base coat of paint last week, but due to not feeling overly great these last few days (not Covid-related, I assure you ) it took me until just now to continue. My normal way of painting is to do the basic colours and then weather over that, but for this one I decided to try a more artistic approach again, which I’ve done a few times before but not that often.

I started with some automotive primer over the etched parts, and that showed me why I stopped using that particular brand/type for my models … but for this one, it did the job.

Next, I wanted to apply an overall coat of the South African light sand colour that Trumpeter would have you mix from Gunze-Sangyo paints. I had bought a suitable bottle of airbrush-ready paint for this shortly after the kit, but when I came to paint the model, [syndrome=“advanced modeller”]I couldn’t find it anymore — that’s to say, I was looking at some of my sand-coloured paints and couldn’t remember which one I’d bought for this model[/syndrome] I had to look it up online to discover that the bottle of Hataka A253 MRG Stone is the one I wanted. Anyway, with that problem resolved, I turned the model from grey to sand with a kind of greenish hue to it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a photo of it in that state.

Next, this afternoon I put some more of that paint into my airbrush and mixed in about an equal amount of LifeColor UA 225 Light Stone 61, on the basis that I might just discover a use for this brand after all. I then proceeded to add lighter patches in the middle of most panels, as well as the top of the gun barrel, to highlight the model. After that I also sprayed some of that LifeColor paint straight to add even stronger highlights. The last step was to mix some Hataka MRG Stone with a drop of Vallejo 71.139 US Field Drab to produce a somewhat darker shade, which I airbrushed onto all the horizontal and many sloping surfaces on the underside, as well as around the edges of panels around the lower sides and the front plate, to create the same effect as on the top, but coming from the other side (shading the edges rather than highlighting the middle parts).



Ignore the hull bottom — I use that to test colour, paint thickness, whether the airbrush is even spraying at all, etc.

 

[Jakko]

I followed up with an overall wash of Revell dark earth to add shadows in and around detail, which turned a bit more orange than I had expected when I thinned it, but that’s okay, it doesn’t look too bad. (It also turned out to be pretty much spot-on for weathering the M70 Krueger MBT that I’ve put on hold for the time being.)



After that had dried, I drybrushed the model first with Army Painter skeleton bone, which was surprisingly difficult to drybrush, being far too wet. I then searched through my paint collection for another suitable one out of the bottle/tin, and tried White Ensign portland stone enamel, but that had exactly the same problem. I then settled on lightening the Hataka paint I had used for the base, with Vallejo white. This worked fine, and I should just have gone for that right away



I also painted the covers around the gun openings olive drab, but not done any other detail painting yet.

 

[Steven000]

Looking good
Steven

 

[Road of Bones]

Looks like it’s more fun to paint than to build Jakko! Nice work so far- assume you’re not tackling the camo scheme then?

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko

The tools on the hull rear, by the way, are not moulded on — they’re all separate and need to be glued in place, then the retaining brackets glued over them.

I looked really carefully at the back end photo and as I couldn't see any glue marks I came to the conclusion that the tools were moulded on. So my comment should have been to say you're a very neat worker
paint job is looking very good. I like the variation.
Jim