Hi everyone,
It's my entry. I start work on my model.

Thanks John. Read about that UV treatment too, so hopefully that gets to fix it.

I planned to do thin, squiggly green and brown lines as camo for my schwimm, so I sprayed on some paint yesterday. Well, having a basic AB didn't do any good, so I had to redo the base coat again. Will do some masks after it gets completely dry.

Cheers,

Tat

I have fond memories of that Monogram Weasel kit. I built it many decades ago before I started painting models.

Gary and Tat,
Looks like you're making good progress. Keep it up guys.

I've just about completed my weasel. I'm trying to resurrect the yellowed decals by trying the trick of placing them in a sunny window for a few days. Apparently the UV from the sunlight will counteract the yellowing. Doesn't hurt to try. I can't believe it but I have very few spare US decals in my stash right now. I'll get some pictures of my progress up soon.
Thanks guys
John

Removed the suspension arms from the sprues and cleaned them up. I dry-fit one of the water propulsion units to the lower hull. It was harder than I thought. At one point I thought I had it but had put the shutter inside the crew compartment rather then outside the hull. I think I have it right now but we shall see.

I came across one more anomaly with this kit. The vision blocks are solid for the driver and vehicle commander but the turret has them cut out with no clear parts provided. I assume there was a bit of screaming at Tamiya when they noticed. I'll probably add some sheet styrene and give it the same treatment as the driver's and commander's cupolas.

I hope to actually glue some parts together in a day or two and take some pictures.

Hello,

Sprayed on the base coat from a rattle can -- Tamiya Light Sand.

Thanks. I will see if it matches the Tamiya (for laughs) and wil probably use what you provided. The paints arrived today.

No huge amount of progress but I did get some work done. I think I have one more session of sanding on the cab before I attach the forward plate/windows and blend that in. I plan on cutting out and opening the two top hatches. Since I’m putting a full interior I want to be able to show it off.


I hope this is helpful for your LVTP7A1 MERDC scheme. It is from AAVP-7A1 LVTP-7A1 Full Detail.

Two minor hiccups have cropped up. First is the fit between the upper and lower hull. The walls of the hull lean in. Lining up the two pieces on the right side leaves this along the left.



I might add scrap sprues to fix the spacing in the lower hull, or I might just get it to fit (it's quite a struggle) and glue it together.

The other hiccup is the lack of the starboard view of the MERDC camouflage. There is only 1 view of that on the cover. Since no one coming to my apartment even knows what MERDC is (or even what a LVTP7A1 is), I think I can wing it. I will just replace the brown in that view with white.

The paints should arrive in the next few days.

I'm liking all the AmTracs! I need to get off my duff and make headway with my LVT. Couple other builds jumped ahead in line but I plan on getting some time in on my LVT4 this week.

Going against my better judgement, I will attempt a build of Tamiya's 1/35 LVTP7A1 for this campaign. It will be built OOB in a winter camouflage. It looks simple enough to achieve but it will be the first time doing a camouflage pattern with my airbrush. I haven't done a camouflage pattern since I built an Airfix 1/72 Pe-2 several decades ago. The paints for the camouflage are on order.

The Plan

- Put everything together except for wheels, tracks,and the fenders.
- Paint the camouflage (hull, wheels, fenders)
- Paint hull details, tires, tracks
- Gloss coat (hull)
- Apply decals
- Apply clear flat coat (hull, wheels, fenders, track)
- Add wheels, tracks, fenders to hull
- Paint clear areas (Periscopes, lights)
- Add antennas

We shall see how Reality affects the plan.

Thanks Tat. I'll give it a try.

Thank John. Indeed, seams are a pain, dimples even more. I don't rely on pure putty to fill gaps. If possible I force bits of styrene, and sand to shape. I'll just put putty as the final seal. For dimples I'd drill a hole and stick a rod in, sand, then putty. A bit tedious but I get better results compared to doing several putty + sanding sessions. Cheers, Tat

Het Guys,
That LVTP-7 looks great. Sal and Tat, you're making great progress. I finally got a little bench time in this weekend to work on my weasel. Real straight forward build. This is an old kit though. The decals are yellow and curled so I'll be robbing my parts bin for some stars and registration numbers. I've got some jeep instrument decals from archer I'm hoping I can use. I've left the engine cover off to make it easier to mount the decals.

I bought the kit used off ebay. The window for the windshield is missing. I can cut another from clear styrene or I'm thinking of maybe putting a canvas covering on the windshield or removing it altogether. I've found several period photos to support all the options.





This photo shows my build so far.



This shows my major issue so far. The kit hull comes in left/right sides which leaves a long join seam when glued together. I've been putting in a lot of time to putty and sand to get it smooth.



Here it is with a coat of primer. More work to do on the join seam. Also noticed slight dimples in the seat cushions. I'm thinking of using this vehicle in a dio transporting wounded so I'm not sure how much effort I'll put into the seats at the moment. Depends on what seated figures I can find to fit. Also I don't plan on installing a radio.

Comments welcome
John

Made some progress and found a Dragon figure to be the Commander

The tracks for this kit are the worst pieces of $*it i have ever seend

Hello,

Had a change of plans -- decided to finish this one with the canvas / tarp down. That said, I thought of improving the look of the interior, especially the seats. Interior pics I've seen have some thin seat cushions though am not sure if such were historically correct. Nonetheless I thought it would help spruce up the otherwise plain interior so I went with some half-rounds to depict it.




Sanded it down, still a bit on the lumpy side -- but it'll do

Cheers,

Tat

Congrats on your finish G!

Of all places to get a dimple



Anyways I've plugged it up and did a bit of sanding. Here's where I am so far:



The build's quite straightforward. Had to weigh down the upper and lower hull halves for a good fit -- no major issues encountered nonetheless.

The interior is quite bare, so I plan to finish this with the canvas roof on. It has clear parts for the headlamps -- will put that on towards the end.

Cheers,

Tat

well made more progress today, and finished up my build!

It dawned on me after I uploaded the pictures that I didn't take one of the other side being decaled up. Regardless, thanks for letting me be part of the build.

Made some more progress tonight, for whatever reason my labtop will no longer read and accecpt my SD card from my digital camera, so I had to use my trusty old Iphone 6 plus. Not too bad of a picture though.

Tomorrow I should be able to wetsand and then get the gloss coat down for the decals.

Hello,

My start pics:




More to come.

Cheers,

Tat

well I was able to finally finish construction today, now it's time to roll it into the paint barn. I may get that done today or this weekend, we will have to see what time will allow.

Thanks for looking.

Started to build my entry ZBD-05 Amphibious IFV.

My progress


Off to primer then I need to work on the tracks. Instructions say not to use glue Yeah right ill have 196 track links all over the place

made some more progress throughout today, pretty straight forward Tamiya kit.

This kit has been alot of fun so far, and I think I will end up pulling the trigger on the legend stowage for it. Which I was on the fence about.

Thanks for looking!

looking forward to this one for sure!