Trumpeter 1:35 Rooikat

[Jakko]

I’m calling this one done — decided against doing any weathering, partly because paint rubs off the tyres rather too easily



I had to guess at the antenna length, settling on 4 cm, because it’s not mentioned in the instructions and I couldn’t find anything on South African antenna lengths that didn’t seem to eventually link to radio telescopes instead of military vehicle communications. They’re made of 0.3 mm spring steel, by the way.

Trumpeter would have you paint the caps of the smoke launchers and the round cans behind them with black. This is correct for the launchers, but it looks like they’re often painted with the vehicle in practice, so I left them like that. The other cans appear not to have rubber caps at all, so this looks like an error in the instructions. Also, whoever decided to put the sprue attachment point for the transparent part of the gunner’s sight at the front probably had had a long day at the office already …

On the whole, this is a pretty good kit. It requires a bit of work, but nothing a mediocre modeller shouldn’t be able to manage. My main complaint about it, as I’ve said before, is that it costs too much — or to put it another way, I don’t think you’re getting value for money with it. The kit is simple, with relatively few parts and just a small amount of photoetch (for parts where it does make a difference) so I don’t see anything that justifies paying €60 for it

 

[Steven000]

Nice model

 

[yak face]

Great job jakko , I like this a lot. Its a refreshing change to see armour in factory fresh condition too !, cheers tony

 

[Jakko]

Thanks, guys. I prefer weathered vehicles, if I’m honest, but I’m never really sure how to do that on a sand-coloured vehicle without the dirt and dust mostly disappearing against the paint

 

[scottie3158]

That's a very nice build mate.

 

[adt70hk]

Jakko

Looking really good. Well done.

Andrew

 

[SimonT]

Very nice

A dusting of brown pastel chalk would weather the tyres nicely - it sticks better than modelling pigments and unless you are going to keep picking it up by the wheels it won't rub off

 

[Jakko]

There is that, of course — it’s up on a cupboard so it won’t be handled much, so maybe I should go back and add some mud in the tyre thread.

 

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
That's a great result. Paint job has worked well.
Jim

 

[outrunner]

I like that Jakko, you can not beat a lot of wheels.

Andy.

 

[Jakko]

Thanks. The paint job has worked fairly well, enough that I’ll go ahead and try much the same on the M70A2, and as for the wheels, I’m not sure I agree I did manage to get most of these lined up without even trying, though oddly, the No. 2 wheel on each side is about a millimetre off the ground while all the other six are nicely on it, when I put the model on a pane of glass.