Bandsaw Steve

Yep- still a fair way to go. Track covers over the front and rear tracks. A lot more work on the rear then painting, markings, machine gun, hand tools (shovels and so-forth), weathering and a base. So, should be finished by about 2030…

Tracks From the start the most worrying and - I think - interesting aspect of this project has been how to scratch-build and then fit the tracks. I'm very happy, and a little bit relieved, to say that this part of the build is now successfully concluded. Here are the last few steps. Undercoat the tracks just the same as you might for any other styrene part. Give them a rough dry-fit to ensure that there are no major surprises. Give them a lick of paint , in this case I've chosen Tamiya XF-84 'dark iron' applied with a flat hairy stick in several very diluted coats. Dry brush with some acrylic metallic silver. Pick out the rubber pads with some Tamiya NATO black acrylic. This paint is very good for representing rubber as it's dead matt and actually a very dark grey shade rather than absolute black. Note that I've used the same paint on the roadwheels. All of which leaves an effect like this. The top return run of the tracks does not require painting as it will be covered with shielding and will never be seen. Now dry-fit the wheels and check that the slots where the track teeth will sit all line up nicely. Here I’ve fitted a ruler into the slot just to check. Due to some careless work earlier on, one or two slots did not line up perfectly and had to be widened. Dry fit again, making sure that everything fits together and that all of the teeth fit into the slots that have been cut for them in each wheel. Starting with the rearmost wheel use two-part epoxy glue to fix each wheel in turn while constantly ensuring that the track teeth sit correctly in their slots. Which should - once the side armour is taped in place - leave you with this... Note that the front drive sprocket is still not fitted. That's been intentionally left till last. The drive sprocket is left till last is because it's the only wheel where the track teeth do not have to sit within a very tight slot. The gap between the inner and outer sprocket is about 1.5cm wide so there's much more wriggle room when wrestling this final wheel into place. In the image below you can see the drive sprocket in-place and engaging with the articulations on the outer edge of the track. They were all specifically designed to fit together and in the end - much to my surprise - they did! Here are a handful of photos, with the side skirts temporarily fitted, to show the final effect. Given that at the start of this project I had no idea how I would make the tracks and for the last few weeks have been very worried about whether I can fit them without wrecking something I can say that I am very pleased with this outcome. This is a major milestone for this project and I think I am justified in saying that I think this is now under control. Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

What a beautiful model!

Yep - that’s how it’s normally done. WIP and RFI are two separate but linked entities.

Touché

Great subject and looking good.

Fantastic work! Welcome aboard.

That looks brilliant!

I know , It’s like watching ‘Star Wars’ up to: ’Lock S-foils in attack position’ and then the screen goes blank…

Hello @Ray S Just ‘cause I’ve taken 4 years to draw up a set of plans for Xantho doesn’t give you any excuse to have a break from this one… Any progress?

What a great looking model!

Yessir!

In my view rule number four needs to be promoted to number one!

Yep! I am aware that the camouflage pattern is standardised. The Black and Tan that’s on there now is just a random sample to check that the colours look OK. Those patches will need to be over-painted. The Meng 1/35 plans are available on-line and given the exceptional quality of that kit I think that their paint guides will be reliable. That’s what I’m planning on using as a pattern reference.

Finalized Plans Hello Xantho Fans This is a very important post because this marks the finalization of plans for this model. As you may have noticed almost a year has passed since the last substantial post on this project. There was a good reason for this delay; principally that there was a suggestion from a third party (in no-way related to Britmodeller BTW) that a set of plans for Xantho did in-fact exist but had been incorrectly labelled and catalogued in a certain collection of plans. This claim has been investigated and we (Ross and I) have now discounted it on the basis that hull from the alternative set of plans is listed as built from wood not iron and hence could not have been the Xantho. So, having investigated that particular line of enquiry I have decided to revert to building the Shadlow 2021 interpretation. Importantly - that's all that this model will be - a model of a particular person's / team’s interpretation of information available at a particular time. If more information ever comes to light then that's fine. If someone else has another view - then that is also fine. Here are the profile and plan views that I will be building (you have seen these before). In order to assist me with accurately reading these plans and in order to generate a 3D view of the hull form I have drawn up the following. The profile view is a centerline section derived from these drawings that clarifies one or two uncertainties in my reading of the plans above. The plan view below includes 'the' interpreted waterline. And here are sectional views of the frames that I have drawn up based on the plan and waterline views on a best guess basis. These are very similar to the sectional views that I used to make the maquette on pages 7 and 8 of this thread, except I have put a small amount of 'rise' either side of the keel so that the bottom of the ship is no longer dead flat. (BTW don't worry if the frames don't look exactly symmetrical in these drawings as these are photographs and not scans, and the camera is not dead square to the paper.) Hmmmm, these ones look a bit smudgy... Might have to tidy these up a bit. Anyway - that's the bulk of the research done and the basic plans finalized (at least for this interpretation). Despite the fact that the final drawings are mostly derived from Ross's expert pen I really want to thank everyone who has contributed any thoughts or information on this thread. The ideas and discussions in here and the interest shown have kept me going on what has proven to be a rather long-winded research journey. I would especially like to acknowledge @Dave Swindell who's very incisive points have informed many of the discussions that I've had with Ross and have gone a long way toward helping me trick Ross into thinking that I actually know something about this subject. So - now to phase two. For better or worse I'm going to build this thing as shown above. But don't expect lightning fast progress. Right now my model building priority is to finish the PZH 2000 that you can see documented on the armour pages, once that is done this project will get some serious attention. Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve.

Going Green Initially my intention with this model was to finish it in German colors as deployed in Afghanistan and as shown immediately below. Unfortunate recent events in Eastern Europe have now made me change my mind. This model will now be finished in a temperate camouflage scheme similar to that shown below, but probably with a small Ukrainian flag or coat-of-arms in place of the Bundeswehr cross. For the last twenty years or so I've used acrylic paints of various brands but recently I had the opportunity to use SMS (Scale Modellers Supply) acrylic lacquers and have decided that these are now my airbrushing paint of choice. These come 'airbrush ready' - no dilution with any thinners required - and they run through the airbrush like a dream. With paints like these even I might be able to get a half decent finish. Here's my best guess as to the correct colors for this scheme. Here goes the green going onto the wheel hubs. And the turret getting the treatment. The side armored skirts. So far so good... but the paint on the turret is still a bit thin and needs another coat. Give the hull a quick squirt... and end up with this. As you can see I've applied a small area of black and tan to see how the colors work together. I think that they look about right and will get dulled down a little bit with some weathering in due course. So that's it for now. Next I have to paint the tracks and the roadwheel tyres and then fit all the running gear and the tracks to the model. This could prove challenging but I think I have worked out a method. Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve

Top-notch work and beautifully displayed.

Ok. Will continue to watch with interest.

Looks good - but won’t 1/16 scale be far too big?

Sorry about the delay to reply. Yes. Some more progress made. Although my main focus at the moment is to finish my PZH 2000 you should expect another Xantho post within the next week or so.

A fabulous piece of work. Congratulations.

When I was a kid my dad was always building models and I was bought up with ‘remember - that’s not a toy’ from day one. The distinction became even clearer once dad started scratchbuilding. The thought that something that dad had taken months to build by hand from bits and pieces could be considered a ‘toy’ never crossed my mind.

Tracks and Wheels When I started this project I figured that the tracks and the wheels would be the most challenging aspects of the whole thing. So far that has turned out to be the case but only because I really did not know how to make the tracks and tried many different methods before I hit on the simple and practical 'steaming' method discussed previously. Now I need to start on the next tricky part; getting the tracks and the wheels to assemble together correctly. This post will cover the start of that process. Back on Page 8 of this thread under 'Teething Problems' I made a strip of triangular track teeth to go on the inside center of the tracks. I now need to trim the sharp triangular point off each of these teeth as shown below. This is for two reasons: Firstly, It will make the model more accurate, because on the real thing each tooth is actually blunt. Secondly, the shorter the teeth are the easier it will be to slip the tracks over the wheels and into position. In order to prevent the teeth from clashing with the wheels, each wheel must have a slot cut in it. Of course on the real thing the slot is just a gap between two narrow wheels joined together but I'm too lazy to do it that way. Here you can see the basic idea. The teeth are now attached to the inside of the track run and will sit in the slots cut in the roadwheels and rear idlers. Here's a close-up view of the assembly coming together. Note however that this photo was taken before the slots were cut in all of the wheels, hence the awkward 'sit' of the closest three. At about this point I realized just how rough the construction of some of these wheels were, in particular the enormous gap between the resin hub and outer wheel-rim. This was easily fixed with some Vallejo filler on each wheel. Before all of this can go together there is a great deal of paint-work that must be completed. So primer goes onto the wheels in readiness. As the PZH 2000 has recently been prominent in the news it seems appropriate for this model to be completed in Ukrainian colors, rather than the German army Afghanistan colors originally intended. In the next post expect to see some green paint. Till then, stay safe and very best regards, Bandsaw Steve

That Mig 21 number ‘322’ in the quoted article seems to have a suspiciously ‘full-bodied’ dorsal spine for a 1960 model.

Oh well. In that case I guess you will find all my models very ‘lively’. FWIW I do agree that an imperfect model often shows a bit more ‘spirted’ approach to modelling than does a picture-perfect replica. It’s evidence that the modeller was pushing his / her own limits.