MiniArt 1/35 Soviet 1,5 ton cargo truck

[JeroenS]

Hi all, earlier this year I did the 1/35 scale version of Tamiya's Opel Blitz and ever since then I wanted to do more builds in that scale. I read good things about MiniArt's kits so I decided to get one. This will be my "winter build". The opportunities for airbrushing will, for me, be few and far between in the coming months as I'm dependent on warm and dry weather. So I will brush paint this one, I did a practise round with the 2CV and was very happy with the outcome, so I'm confident it will work for this build as well.

 

The kit is in small scale but the box says it contains 424 parts... so it will probably take me a little while which is fine by me 🙂 

 

This is the box art: 

 

 

Fun fact: the furniture and carpets are actually included in the kit. But I think I'll go for something else. Or an empty load bed, I don't know yet. 

 

This is what's in the box: a huge heap of sprues: 

 

 

I already made a start with the build, and I've noticed that the parts on each sprue are numbered from top left to bottom right, which is quite helpful for locating parts. Also, the parts are crisply molded and contain a lot of detail, including texture on the engine block for example. The furniture sprues are a bit rough, maybe they were added at a later stage. 

 

There's also decals and a small sheet of PE:

 

 

Another thing I really like is the colour chart, which notes the colour codes and the corresponding paints for various brands:

 

 

My paint is Vallejo, so it's easy to figure out which ones I need. 

 

You can build 8 different versions of the truck, 4 of which are shown on this full colour page: 

 

 

I will be doing the bottom left one, because the other versions are all green in one way or another and I like different. For once, I intend to follow the instructions, colour wise 🙂 

 

The instructions, by the way, (nice bridge huh?) are very clear and precise: 

 

 

OK so now you know everything there is to know about this kit. So far, I like it a lot and I hope this feeling will last the entire build 😉 

 

The build starts with the engine, I've "broken the ice" just a little bit:

 

 

 

It already took 13 parts to get to this stage!

 

More later, thanks for looking in!

[BIG X]

Hey Jeroen - that looks like a very detailed kit with  A LOT of parts.  It should really keep you entertained during the 'dark nights' ahead.  I'll draw up a chair if I may and peep over your shoulder at the progress as you go along.

 

Steve

[JeroenS]

13 minutes ago, BIG X said:

Hey Jeroen - that looks like a very detailed kit with  A LOT of parts.  It should really keep you entertained during the 'dark nights' ahead.  I'll draw up a chair if I may and peep over your shoulder at the progress as you go along.

 

Steve

Be my guest! I'm sure this kit will be good for a lot of dark nights indeed.

[Andy J]

Yep I'll be following this one looking forward to seeing more of your brush painting skills on what looks like a great kit 👍

[Spiny]

424 pieces sounds like a huge number of parts for a 1/35 - hopefully not too fiddly but that will definitely keep you occupied for a while.

 

I sympathise with you on the winter painting thing as I have similar issues here, which is why I try and get a couple of body shells ready for winter. I need one more decent day, plust a semi-decent day for the Lancia - not sure if pre-painting the bodies is feasible for you next year or not. That paint chart is definitely worth keeping for future cross-reference though, must easier than looking up the internet every time you start a new kit.

[JeroenS]

Tonight, one chassis beam. Again, a load of small parts but that will be par for the course for the rest of the build. However, it's not that MiniArt has created parts for the sake of part count, but rather they've just miniturized the parts that are (or would be) on the full scale truck as much as possible. It makes for a pretty realistic (looking) result. 

 

 

Look how they've modelled the attachment of the leaf spring: 

 

 

There's a sort of wishbone, and a part that goes over the top of it. Really nice. 

 

I have been wondering, though, about how much parts I'll end up losing by pinging them into oblivion with my tweezers 🙄 So far, all parts are still accounted for. 

[s.e.charles]

I will be interested if/ when/ how you replace some of the many MiniArts pieces with brass rod or styrene bits. I really enjoy MA kits, but inevitably I break or damage some trying to remove the sprue gates.

[JeroenS]

10 minutes ago, s.e.charles said:

I will be interested if/ when/ how you replace some of the many MiniArts pieces with brass rod or styrene bits. I really enjoy MA kits, but inevitably I break or damage some trying to remove the sprue gates.

Ha, yes that's something else I'm a little concerned about. I think "inevitably" is indeed the correct term, it's just waiting to happen and I've already spotted quite a few parts which show breaking potential. Getting them off the sprue in one piece, and keeping them that way with all the handling of the model, will be a challenge.

[JeroenS]

A little progress again tonight. It all goes together really well. I did the other chassis beam and some of the crossbars as well so it's turning into a chassis already. 

 

 

 

(Almost) no plans for tomorrow so I'm already looking forward to continuing this build.

[JeroenS]

Engine finished according to specs. I'll let it dry for a bit now, then apply varnish before washes and I'm going to try dry brushing to make it all less uniformly coloured. I've done some on my build of the Benz truck, but I'm just getting the hang of it so we'll see how it turns out. It looks way too clean like this anyway. For this build, I'm going for a lightly weathered look, let's hope it works out like that 🙂 

 

 

 

 

Note the horizontal thingy protruding from the back, I wonder if I'll be able to keep it from snapping off. The whole engine is just over an inch long. 

[JeroenS]

OK let's make some wheels... Wow, speaking of part count: each wheel is made up of no less than 7 rings. There's 3 rings on the outside, 4 on the inside and the rim goes in between. 8 parts per wheel! Personally, I think it probably could have been done with less parts. 

 

 

However, it's all nicely engineered. The outer rings have pins, the inner have corresponding holes. The resulting "front" and "back" parts themselves also fit pin to hole. It's a bit of cleanup of the rings but not too much. Make the inside and outside parts by holding the rings and applying some Tamiya extra thin. Then glue together with the rim in between. All in all a pretty quick procedure. 

 

Resulting in 4 outer wheels, 2 inner wheels and a spare.

 

 

 

Obviously, you can't leave them like this. Too squared off and the tread is too deep. 

 

 

A once over with the sanding paper, and a bit of tweaking afterwards: 

 

 

Hmm... maybe not such a bad idea after all, this is a pretty realistic looking tyre. With just a bit of sanding (and the plastic sands away very easily), you can go from "brand new" to "bald" and everything in between without too much effort and still have a nice looking tyre. And: it knocks 56 parts off the list in one go 🙂 

[Andy J]

8 parts per wheel wow good job your not building a tank ! Enjoying this build so far should make a cracking truck when finished 👍

[s.e.charles]

MiniArt at its finest!

[mustang1989]

Man that's a lot of parts in the box for this vehicle!! Very well detailed kit. Looking forward to more.....

[BIG X]

TYRETASTIC!!!

[Spiny]

Can't disagree that 56 part for seven wheels seems a tad excessive, but that looks like a pretty good end result you have there.

 

I don't want to sound critical as it's probably a bit late but would it have been easier to paint the rim before sticking all the tyres on? That said, if your previous models are anything to go by, I'm sure you'll end up with a very good result anyway so it probably doesn't matter anyway.

[JeroenS]

Thanks Spiny. No, painting the rims beforehand wasn't an option, with all the handling that was going to take place for sanding the wheels etc. The paint would have been gone before long. I'll be fine (I hope ;-)), thanks for thinking along.

[JeroenS]

Minor updates on the chassis. All the crossbars and the rear axle are in place. 

 

 

 

I'm at a point where I'm going to have to start painting. Firstly because otherwise I'll never be able to reach everything, and secondly because at this stage the engine needs to be mounted and it's already painted of course. Plus, some very thin stuff needs connecting from the rear axle mounts, through that crossbar on the left of the picture above, and onto the engine. It will be a very delicate procedure that I'm hoping I'll be able to pull off without breaking any plastic.

[JeroenS]

Hi all, last weekend we were away so I didn't get to the bench. In the past couple of days I've painted the chassis and went looking for some reference pics of the engine. I thought that cute little thing deserved some wires and such. I found some nice ones, like this one here: 

 

 

The good thing about these old trucks is that there's really not that much wire, and so you can see what goes where. This evening, I didn't really feel like modelling but the couch was taken so I thought weeelll maybe I'll just go and see what to do about those wires. And before I knew it I was totally engrossed which was great. 

 

So now my little engine has spark plugs!

 

 

They are a bit cruder than the real things but I like them well enough. I used 0.2 mm lead wire, which I coiled around a small drill. The coil fit snugly around the molded plugs and I used some thin CA glue to attach them firmly. Then, I carefully bent the wires and "soldered" them on that red/orange thingy with a tiny drop of thicker CA. Finally I painted the coils white. And: no engine parts came off during this little exercise so that was a big plus.

[s.e.charles]

looks great to mine eyes; nice detailing.

[Andy J]

Nice work simple but effective looking good 👍

[JeroenS]

Some more work on the chassis. I painted it, and then the engine needed to be mounted first. After that, some wafer thin rods needed to be attached to the rear axle mounts, through the chassis and onto the engine. Then it was front suspension and the steering mechanism. 

 

Here's the chassis with al the new bits and pieces still unpainted. 

 

 

A closer look at that assembly.

 

 

Here's the steering mechanism in some detail. Note the size of some of the parts. 

 

 

I lost that little part on the left, it pinged into outer space from between my tweezers, but after some groping about on hands and knees I was able to recover it. I'm lucky we have laminate flooring instead of carpet 🙂 

 

The complete mechanism. 

 

 

All these bits I've done today was one of the more difficult steps in the build I think, one more like this and then it's on to some (slightly) bigger stuff. 

 

[Spiny]

More good work, especially considing that it's only 1/35. It looks as though it would be tricky enough at 1/24. Well done on finding that small piece, so far I've been lucky in that the carpet monster has only had one piece to feed on, and even then that was only yesterday and a piece for scratchbuilding the Stratos door card.

 

You're probably already aware of this little trick, but just in case you're not, you can make hunting on the floor a lot easier if you get a torch and lay it down so that the beam shines across the surface of the carpet - tends to cast a shadow from anything on there including miscreant parts.

[s.e.charles]

the running gear looks to be a real patience tester

[JeroenS]

5 hours ago, s.e.charles said:

the running gear looks to be a real patience tester

True! However, the fact that everything fits so well prevents blood pressure going up too much. Getting the parts off the sprues and cleaning them up (usually only a little is needed, but still) is the most difficult step in the process but so far I haven't had a single part break on me. I find that when cleaning the parts I need to be very careful with the sanding paper. In other kits you would sand minute dots and ridges away because it's flash or something but in this kit they're actually attachment points!