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Evening All, I been lurking on the forum for some time and thought it's about time I started to contribute. So here we are with my first ever build log. Yay! I started this project several months ago. There will therefore be an initial rash of posts to summarise my progress so far, but updates thereafter will be infrequent (as I work at a snails pace - an especially slow snail at that). We're dealing with the Zvezda L 4500 A, which to be honest is pretty good, but we always like to have some aftermarket trinkets don't we. Inevitably some etch and replacement wheels therefore also make an appearance... I won't include sprue shots, mainly because I'm lazy, but also because reviews can readily be found elsewhere, e.g. https://armorama.kitmaker.net/modules.php?op=modload&name=Reviews&file=index&req=showcontent&id=3951 A review for the replacement wheel set is available on our favorite modelling site... I'll start posting progress updates very shortly. Cheers, and thanks for looking.

I started building my L4500 a year ago and although it reached the primer stage in March this year it has set idle since. I was recently inspired by some war time pics of columns of German vehicles abandoned during the retreat to the Seine in Aug 45. This led me to sketch up an idea of a small dio that involved a couple of vehicles which had been driven/pushed into a ditch at the side of the road. I will also add a few GI's inspecting the booty. As I already had a few candidates already built and some in primer I set about choosing two which could work together. The Zvezda 1/35 AWD L4500A has no tilt cover in the kit so I could display hastily thrown in loads, partially fallen out of both vehicles. With that idea in mind, I also decided to compliment the Mercedes with the ancient Azimut resin cargo trailer. Although not stated on the box or in the instructions its military designation being Anhänger (Mehrachs) mit geschlossenem Aufbau. This was already built but as it had required a whole bunch of surgery on one side to cover a glaring gap it had also been left on the shelf of doom. You would think you couldn’t really go wrong with essentially a simple square boxy design, but the French company did 🙄 With essentially only one side visible, as both vehicles would be tilted at an angle in the ditch and butted up against a thick hedge, the trailer could be utilised without further work. This decision also determined the direction both vehicles would be displayed. This was also fortunate as I had modelled the L4500 load bed cargo bin door open with items hanging out on the same visible side. I won’t include a build log or build step pics as member Lummox is recently in the process of a detailed build of the L4500 where he scratch-builds many items and adds photo etch. He also addresses the shortfalls and addresses the issue of some inadequately moulded parts and missing components. Apart from being a little creative in the cab by adding a few additional items including a fire extinguisher and adding rudimentary cooling pipes to the engine my kit is pretty much built out of the box. What was essential to address was the strange tyres included with the kit. As they are moulded with the hubs an aftermarket set was purchased. As both vehicles were likely to have had camo applied in the field, I was happy to create my own patterns. I started with the trailer which was Dunkelgelb base coated then lightly colour modulated. After a few attempts I was finally happy with this artistic pattern. Although I didn't copy this from any ref pic, it does have a fleeting similarity with the box art, although that has been long since binned. The details on the rear door exteriors are extremely crude and there are no details on the inside faces. As both doors will be displayed open, and the exterior features hidden it gave me a chance to add them back to front. A few missing hinge plates were added along with some interior details like side rails. A door mechanism catch plate on the floor was also added. To fill the void at the back of the interior some old rubber tyres and containers from the spares box were attached to a piece of card that was cut out to locate behind and between the wheel arches. This could be dry fitted and would form the basis of the visible load which would be complimented with more items that will be added fallen over and out of the back. These will be painted and added at a later stage. The trailer was then weathered in the following steps which occasionally required going back and forth and repeating to create a layered effect. Step one was some oil mapping and fading. Raised areas were also treated with a highlight colour of the base coat and shadows with a darker shade. This was then sealed with a coat of Tamiya semi clear gloss mixed with Clear yellow to bring back the colour tone and protect it from further steps. Oils were used again to create a pin wash and create faint streaking and chipping. The next step was a sprinkling of rust and dirt-coloured oils. These were flicked over the trailer from a distance along with some mud splatter marks carefully added closer behind the wheels and at the front where it would have attracted a lot of dirt build up. Any un-realistic larger spots were blended in to ensure a scale friendly appearance. I then felt it then required an opaquer layer of dust around the lower areas, so a dust-coloured acrylic mix was created with Tamiya flat brown, German grey and Buff. This was lightly blown over the lower areas with an airbrush. Finally, some small, selected areas of exposed metalwork were treated to rusty stains where the paint had chipped off. Although the trailer wheels are more oval shape than circular, they have been improved and will be employed and dry fitted for now. I am still searching ref pics (which there are very few) so see if any alternative wheels and tyres may be suitable. The load item parts will all be painted and weathered as I move onto positioning the vehicles on the groundworks so for now, we can move on to the L4500

Hi Pals, today I would like to share with everyone, this model in the WIP section, instead of the RIP, although it is already finished. The reason for this is that it was one of the first ones I did, when I resumed my hobby after many years, and I was not yet a member of the forum, and did not even notice, that I could document the assembly, or share the result afterwards ... Although not bad, IMHO, if we consider that it may be the 4th or 5th model that after about 20 years without touching the hobby, still did not have many resources or utilities of new generation, and new techniques, was still discovering them. The kit, is a ZVEZDA, and should really be an Oldie, because if at the time (about 15 years) that "sleep" in a closet, you add what probably had been packaged since its manufacture ... It was made of light gray plastic, and since most of the kits I had kept, the halves of the hull, were somewhat crooked, so I had a hard time straightening them and keeping them aligned. Some pieces were also broken in the process, although I could fix them. What really annoyed me, is that at the time of making the cannon, were all the pieces, except the cannon, damn ... In that moment of beginning of the hobby, the metal cannons for me were an unknown totals, besides being very difficult to obtain. It occurred to me how to fix it with the means at my disposal, namely, in the box of spare parts, I had a 76mm gun of the Sherman of Italeri, already mounted and kept "centuries" of a kit become pieces. Since there was a staple where the missing piece had to be, there was a perfect gap between one end and the other, so I just had to cut the Sherman's cannon "tailor-made" and adjust it. I modestly believe that the result was good, feet their measurements I checked them by doing scale conversion calculations. The point that certainly was, and is not the last time that happened to me (ISU-152 same case), are the tracks that brought the kit, extremely little detailed and with a very rigid and unnatural plastic. With this issue, the same as with the metal cannons, Friuls or similar ... What is that ?? ... lol. As always, I tried to do my best with what I had. As for weathering, similar, I had some new products (pigments, and enamels), but very few and not knowing how to use them properly ... test-error. I remember trying to make a modulated painting, leaving the base color much clearer at the end, but I liked it as it was. Basically, the final result, made me continue the hobby, and did not think about discarding the kit, which served me well to train with the new in the world of modeling. Now, after about 2 years built, I decided to try to improve it, because all the handicaps mentioned above, I have been solving with the passage of time. My idea is to put a new "slippers", metallic drag cables (what brings, I think they are pore of scale, very thick?), And a more aggressive and real weathering. With that I think I will win this modest kit a lot. Here below I leave a few pics, as it was finished at the time. You can easily see in some pics, the roughness of the tracks ... Next week, next update (i hope...), as always, thanks for watching and commenting

Bought this a few years ago ,built it last year ,no weathering yet.