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LVT-4 "Water Buffalo"


vaoinas

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Hi, 

My first thread here in Britmodeller will be a model I've been building for a while now. It's AFV Club's LVT-4 Early version with few extras such as Voyager basic set, Eduard interior set, Aber metal barrels for machine guns and AFV Club aftermarket tracks.

 

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It's one of these vehicles that need the interior to be painted even before the basic assembly. So I was eager to complete the interior that much that it can be painted and the hull could be assembled. At first after following needed steps of the instruction it even seemed that way.

 

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But before I reached for the airbrush, I took some time to pay attention to some reference material in hand and it appeared that many of the interior elements are still to be added.

So here we go:

 

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Gear selector had to be scratched as well because original broke in two and half of it went missing.

 

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That's all for now. The engine of my airbrush has finally started and next update will be of the painted interior.



Kristjan

Edited by vaoinas
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Thank you.

It's going to be Pacific theater for this one.

I have Bison decal set for this one as well and even the choice of specific vehicle had to be made, because they used all sorts of different modifications and additional armor types and each of these vehicles had it's own distinctive features. Mine is going to be ex-army vehicle used by USMC named "Blood and Guts" and used on Okinawa

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi,

 

Now the interior, seen on previous post has been painted and weathered. I made a few photos of radio also, because it sits on its locker and although the hatches are open, it will be sparsely seen. Sides of the hull are not glued on yet, because I plan to fill the side compartments with some random stuff, and these are not ready yet. Dashboard is another thing yet to be made. Otherwise the drivers compartment is more or less finished.

 

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Edited by vaoinas
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Thank you all for kind words.

 

On 18/01/2019 at 14:12, Silenoz said:

wow, superb work on this one... that interior was already nice unpainted, but now... it's a shame to put it away...

Thank you. I've got few tricks up my sleeve so the interior will be visible later. 

 

On 19/01/2019 at 05:21, krow113 said:

Nice!

 Its a fun kit to build , some watchful areas.

Get the proprietary track set if you can and check my attempt:

Thanks. I've been watching your thread on the LVT. I also have the same track set from AFV Club and I've already tried to build few links to get the taste. It's quite delicate at first but after you get the trick, it'll be no problem to build the track even without the jig.

 

 

 

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On 25/01/2019 at 23:13, RHWinter said:

IMPRESSIVE! 

Have you built the Italeri kits of the LVT 2 and 4, too? How do they compare to AFV-Club's kit?

Thanks!

Richard

Thank you! 
I haven't built Italeri's LVT's. Perth military modelling site has made a AFV Club LVT-4 kit review with some detail comparison to Italeri kit though and according to that AFV Club kit seems to be superior in every aspect. Hope that helps.

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Little update about my LVT build.

To complete the interior, I've also finished the dashboard with gauge cluster. Instead of going with AFV Club's clear sheet with dials, I chose decals from Archer Fine Transfers. These were covered with Micro Kristal Klear.
I added a sloppy cable as well inspired by some photos I have. It seemed to be nice detail to add.

 

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Side compartments were filled with some random stuff - mostly jerry cans.

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Next step will be gluing the sides on, so the hull will finally be shaped up. 

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Continuing with Water Buffalo.

So Finally the hull has been glued together. It fitted quite nicely, only problem there was that left hull side piece was warped and I did notice it just after it was painted and weathered. So there was no way I could use hot water to straighten it and only thing to do, was just to glue it on with patience, step by step and and to hope it will come up alright. And luckily enough, it did. Next thing to do was to add dashboard and cables to connect it with electric box. 

 

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Even though the sides fitted nicely, the belly side of the vehicle needed some filler and sanding. I added strip of resin welding just where front and aft part of the chassis joined together to sort out the gap and minor unevenness of the two parts.

 

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I also started with side sponsons.  AFV Club offers only two variants of additional armor - nothing at all, or full side plating. Since my vehicle was only partially armored, armor plates and fittings had to be scratch built. Bolt detail are still to be added to armor plate fastenings. 

Track tensioner cover plates were replaced with Voyager ones and these went on, after some altering, just nicely.

 

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Kristjan
 

Edited by vaoinas
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Thank You all! It's wery much appreciated. 

 

As the hull is together and most of the interior finished, I'm continuing with roof. 

I'm planning the middle section of the roof to be detachable, so I added 2 magnets on both sides of the cabin walls. I was concerned that superglue doesn't hold magnets enough and as they are in their enclosed compartments its impossible to glue them back, if they fell of. So I secured them additionally with Tamiya Epoxy Putty. Roof itself has steel strips recessed to the respective corners. 

 

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To deal with the large part of upper deck, I first removed plastic fenders since I replace these anyway and then cut the piece in three. 

 

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Here are the upper section of roof glued on to model and Voyager etched fenders added. 

 

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And here are the fenders gently beaten up.

 

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Fenders had to be secured underside using styrene angles on inner edge. On real vehicle there were no such supports and I hope to hide these under the mud or something like that.

 

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The detachable section has been glued together of five pieces. I added weld details using Archer's resin weld beads. I also replaced original bolt detail with flush screw heads on the edges. Headlight guards had to be made of scratch because the ones in Voyager set are 1mm too high and look off. Antenna base is from Aber too. 

 

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The inner side of the roof is detailed with welds and bolt heads. Its not accurate, but should be enough to look convincing.

 

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And that's how it sits on its place. Even though the lower corners aren't held by anything, the upper four magnets hold it quite firmly.

 

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The rear lights are molded in one piece to hull details and are opaque. I figured I could do better by drilling these out and replace them by transparent ones made of transparent sprue sections.

 

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Here's the overall look to the model right now. I have few question marks concerning the antenna used on real vehicle. To make rear ramp openable and have the cables look natural at the same time has to be figured out as well.

 

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Kristjan

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I need a little help.

I'm not very familiar with US WW2 equipment. The antenna seen on the vehicle on the picture doesn't seem to be standard antenna that was made of three 3-foot sections and used commonly on vehicles. It seems to be 2 sections instead and the sections aseem to be considerably. Did they used other kind of antennas as well?

Other thing is about the mess of cable seen on the middle of the antenna. Where does it begin and where does it end? And why is it there?

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