Axel's corner

 Here's another update on the Einheitsdiesel Kfz. 61. Work is continuing slowly. In the meantime I've finished the engine of the truck and have been working some more on the chassis, mainly the suspension. As I'm progessing through this build I'm more and more convinced that this isn't a kit for beginners. Several parts have no distinguishable locating pins/holes and the instructions are sometimes vague to not helpful at all. It's quite an undertaking. Although this is my first AFV build in many many years, I wouldn't call myself inexperienced or a beginner. But I've had some head-scratching moments along the way. And I'm seriously doubting whether the suspension parts have been constructed correctly by me. Problem is that the instructions are no help whatsoever and leave me with a lot of guesswork along the build. For an out of the box build, it's keeping me more than occupied... Let's start with the engine. The engine halves don't have

 It's been a long time since I did any work on this particular kit (or project for that matter). Odd really, as the Einheitsdiesel will be the most "out of the box" built of this dio. So progress should have been swift as there's no scratchbuilding to be done. Well, at least that was the plan. But more on that later in this post. As I'm assembling the kit though, there are a few things I've noticed. And it starts with the instructions. What is immediately apparent is that there are almost no paint call-outs. Only late into the build the required colors are mentioned. Not something I'm used to. Another thing that caught my eye is the fact that the instructions for the most part are concerned with the building of the chassis of the truck. The chassis which is very detailed I must say. Of the 29 building steps, 15 steps are dedicated to the building of the chassis... Sadly, most of this detail won't be seen once construction is complete. Which is not so b

Slowly slowly I continu with this project. One of the very obvious things I noticed when looking at my reference pictures is that the co-driver (Patrick Pivato) sits very low in the car compared to Francois Duval. Something that's not too hard to simulate in the model. To that end I made a hole in the floor of the insert for the interior of the car. It looks a bit ragged, but I don't think it will be visible once everything is stuck together... The floor of the car itself keeps giving me slight worries. In the previous part I showed that I had straightened the part with heat from a hair dryer (and cooling the plastic immediately afterwards with cold tap water). After a few days (okay, months, in the meantime) of rest I have the feeling that the plastic is trying to return to it's bent shape. At least it seems as if the floor is not so straight anymore as I remembered... Maybe I need to have another go with the hair dryer to sort it out. To liven up the interior I decided t

As happens too frequently, my blog it seems has gone into an early hibernation. Not that I don't have modelling on my mind. But with vacations, work and too many other distractions, modelling has been condemned to the backseat... I hope to change that soon though. But before I continue with the current builds I'd like to present a new gadget. Recently, browsing through the internet, I stumbled upon a seemingly handy tool for (especially) car modellers. Originally the tool is used for holding PCB's to aid with the soldering of the connections. But on the internet someone used the same tool to hold the underbody of a car model. And I immediately thought, that's something that could come in very handy. A third hand, but than differently. Aliexpress to the rescue. And some 2 months later (...) the item (after travelling the globe 3 times it seems) is finally in my hands. I think it was worth the wait though. Looks sturdy enough and can easily hold a 1/24 car underbody.

Now that I'm installed in my new hobby room I can pick up the pace a bit. First the parts that needed some extra attention were tended to. I noticed a mould line still visible on the body, and as mentioned in the previous update, the indents for the parking sensors and the boot lid needed some extra attention. But that didn't stop me from adding color to parts that didn't need some extra attention. I started off with white primer for the license plates and the engine cover, as they needed to be painted white anyway. For this I used white surface primer from Tamiya (decanted from the spray can). For some reasong the primer didn't really give a good coverage. For the engine cover that's no problem. The license plates will be getting some X-2 gloss white next. When painting the engine cover I noticed that I've been very sloppy in cleaning the part. But as the hood will be closed anyway I won't bother about that... The parts that will get a chrome coat were pain

Work is continuing to prepare this kit for primer. As mentioned in the previous part, several modifications needed to be done. I started with the new position for the exhaust. With the aid of a reference picture and the decalsheet from Renaissance I sketched the position of the new exhaust with a pencil. After double checking the position I went to work and made the cutout for the new exhaust. Using plastic sheet and putty I closed up the old opening for the exhaust. When determining the new position for the exhaust I taped the rear bumper to the body. Which resulted in some gaps here and there. The moulding really isn't that great from Heller. Some filling and sanding will be needed to get this area to look right. I started off with putty, but in hindsight I'd better filled the gaps with pieces of sheet and than sand it flush... Next up were the stubs with the brake discs. I separated the discs from the stubs with a PE saw and glued the stubs inside the inner part of the