Heller 1/32 Volvo F12... or just about half of it anyway

[JeroenS]

Hi all, it's been a good while since I've posted anything, but for a good reason. I joined up for the Nordic GB and had a blast building a Volvo F12 with a Swedish touch. 

 

This build needs a bit of background though. As you may (or may not) know I've been building quite a few 1/35 scale trucks lately. I'm enjoying that scale so I thought I'd do something similar for the Nordic GB. There are no 1/35 Volvo's but Heller has a couple of them in 1/32 scale. Seemed like a good idea to me!

 

Fair warning: this post is photo heavy 🙂 

 

This is the kit: 

 

 

Looks pretty good, right? It does, actually... douze points for the box art. 

 

So the story begins... A story, by the way, that turned out to last 4 months and 18 pages of build!

 

The first time I opened the box to start the build, I noticed 2 major things. One, the logs are actually provided. 

 

 

And two, and this was a bit of a letdown, the kit turned out to be a snap-tite! There's no mention of it on the box and I certainly wouldn't have bought it if it had been. However, in that case I would have missed out on a fun build! Somehow I think this is not the reason why Heller chose to ignore this little fact. 

 

Some examples of what's in the box. 

 

One piece chassis. 

 

 

"Engine".

 

 

Front axle assembly. 

 

 

Leaf springs? Where?

 

 

Cab. This part is pretty good! Notice the moulded on side panels however. 

 

 

Lots of moulded on detail at the back.

 

 

But, letdown again, a Globetrotter roof... nothing at all like the box art. I like that low roof!

 

 

It took me all of 5 minutes to put the chassis together. 

 

 

Some crude detail there as well. Mudguards pass the test however, they're not bad. 

 

So now what?? Well, I like a challenge so I decided to get out my stash of white plastic and get to work! I'd always wanted to build my own chassis. And I thought I would see how much I could improve on the kit. 

 

Off went the high roof. 

 

 

And the cab detail. 

 

 

I got medieval on the engine. 

 

 

 

Fuel tank... phew... 

 

 

The mudguards escaped annihilation. 

 

 

And some of the other parts as well. Early on in the build I also decided to ditch the trailer. Here's a photo of it before it went missing. Again, crude and it seems only half finished. 

 

 

Fast forward a few months and here are some "after" shots. 

 

Chassis. 

 

 

 

Not many kit parts used up to now... 

 

Some detail shots. 

 

 

 

Engine. A lot of time went into this one!

 

 

 

 

With yellow paint on. Nordic theme, remember?

 

 

Some parts were kept and improved upon. 

 

 

 

The wheels are rather nice as well. Together with the cab exterior the highlight of the kit I'd say. The tyres are hard plastic of course, not unusual in this scale.

 

 

This puppy needed some talking to but it came round in the end. 

 

 

The very basic interior was upgraded with some flatpack furniture. Driver gave up his comfy bed for this. Doorcards were added as well.

 

 

Cab received some nice side panels. 

 

 

OK so here we are, after 4 months of almost continous building. I've had a load of fun with this kit and I learned a great deal in the process. You can literally put this kit together OOB in an hour. If you paint it nicely, and look at it from some distance it will not look that bad either because the key components are pretty good and the bad ones (engine, mainly) are invisible forever. 

 

However, as you can see there's a whole lot that you can do with it. Because of its shape, the cab can be scratched as well, leaving only the need for a set of wheels. Just skip the kit altogether. But, it will make a nice gift for young or novice builders who've never built a truck model before and wish to have a go. 

 

Right. If you can spare a week here's the whole build: 

 

 

And if you're still here, here are some pics of the finished product! I'm sure the colour combination will look familiar to all of you. It's the first time I made pictures with a photo backdrop by the way, I like it a lot but need to play with it some more. It's a photo of a barn in my area which I've made myself (the photo, not the barn) and had printed on A3 paper. I also made a concrete/ tarmac base.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Full album here.

 

I hope you've enjoyed it, I certainly have. I love how the little truck turned out and will certainly take a lot of experience with me to current and future builds. 

 

Thanks for watching!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Viking]

Lovely work and a great set of improvements!

[Marco F.]

Your Volvo looks really good, espacally just because ist's a Heller kit. The good thing with Heller is they choose real interesting items, the not so good part is that there is always a lot of work to get them right. But at least thats what makes our hobby that interesting.

So, congratulations for this one

Marco F

[Pete in Lincs]

A great result and the build was a pleasure to watch.

[keefr22]

Cracking job Jeroen, it looks great! Really like your photo backdrop too!

 

Keith

[gt6mkiii]

I followed this on the Group Build and the finished model looks fantastic of course, but I think the photos at the end look great as well - looks like you arranged your lighting to match the shadows already in the barn photo - very sharp!

[Spiny]

A good use of 4 months, although four months is about my typical build time when we're not being assailed by viruses so I don't think it's too long. Nicely done and, as you've proved, you can't always discount a kit just because it's snap together. A good end result here.

[JeroenS]

10 hours ago, gt6mkiii said:

 looks like you arranged your lighting to match the shadows already in the barn photo - very sharp!

Thanks Martin, I did! Though credits must go to my wife for noticing the shadows on the photo. I took the photo's outside this afternoon and oriented the "booth" so that the shadows matched 🙂

[Alpha Delta 210]

Incredible build complemented by excellent photography. 

[Andy J]

Looks so realistic Jeroen fabulous work. A lot of effort but what a result. As a Hgv driver myself I would happily take your truck out for a spin and put a few kms on it for you 🙂 Great work love it 👍

[JeroenS]

5 minutes ago, Andy J said:

Looks so realistic Jeroen fabulous work. A lot of effort but what a result. As a Hgv driver myself I would happily take your truck out for a spin and put a few kms on it for you 🙂 Great work love it 👍

Had to look up what hgv means but thanks to t'internet I learned something today 🙂 ... Now I'm curious, what type of truck do you drive?

[Andy J]

8 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

Had to look up what hgv means but thanks to t'internet I learned something today 🙂 ... Now I'm curious, what type of truck do you drive?

Here you go mate nothing glamorous I'm afraid 🙂

 

[JeroenS]

2 minutes ago, Andy J said:

Here you go mate nothing glamorous I'm afraid 🙂

Who needs glamour anyway 🙂 

 

I happen to like this type of truck, because of the low roof and lack of wind deflecting panels all around it. I'm rather into older type trucks but this is actually a modern one I'd build. 

[Andy J]

3 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

Who needs glamour anyway 🙂 

 

I happen to like this type of truck, because of the low roof and lack of wind deflecting panels all around it. I'm rather into older type trucks but this is actually a modern one I'd build. 

Well I could provide plenty of reference material 😃

[JeroenS]

8 minutes ago, Andy J said:

Well I could provide plenty of reference material 😃

And my wishlist is already so very long 🙂 ... What would be a suitable kit, you think?

[Andy J]

15 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

And my wishlist is already so very long 🙂 ... What would be a suitable kit, you think?

I have no idea Jeroen although I think italeri do a MAN TGA kit which is pretty much the same as the pic I sent however I'm not sure about price or quality 🙂

[JeroenS]

6 minutes ago, Andy J said:

I have no idea Jeroen although I think italeri do a MAN TGA kit which is pretty much the same as the pic I sent however I'm not sure about price or quality 🙂

I saw one with a dumper trailer, it looks very similar indeed. The Italeri kits are usually pretty good. As for price, truck kits are on the expensive side. This one goes for €80. Not too bad though considering the amount of plastic which is in the box 🙂

[Andy J]

8 minutes ago, JeroenS said:

I saw one with a dumper trailer, it looks very similar indeed. The Italeri kits are usually pretty good. As for price, truck kits are on the expensive side. This one goes for €80. Not too bad though considering the amount of plastic which is in the box 🙂

I doubt you would ever find an exact replica kit tbh but that does look a good base to start with. If you want to make it look like the one above then there would be some scratch building involved but your skills tell me you could pull it off. You could of course build it oob and it would still look good 🙂

[keefr22]

1 hour ago, Andy J said:

nothing glamorous

 

It's pretty glamorous when the biggest thing you've ever driven is a Transit Luton...!! Love to have a go in one of those!!

 

K

[Andy J]

2 minutes ago, keefr22 said:

 

It's pretty glamorous when the biggest thing you've ever driven is a Transit Luton...!! Love to have a go in one of those!!

 

K

Careful what you wish for, how's your street for parking 🤣🤣

[Mr Mansfield]

This is truly amazing. With that much detail & scratch building  I can’t believe this is 1/32 scale!!

 

 

[Bengalensis]

This is an awesome piece of model engineering. Fantastic work done!

[JeroenS]

Thanks for the comments guys, much appreciated!

[Totally Mad Olivier]

Very nice, Jeroen, congrats!

You achieved a great result from an old snap-tite kit, it was a challenge and you did it!

 

Cheers,  Olivier 

[Ryedale Wolf]

Very nice build for such a little kit. One thing, a truck of that age would have a blue air line as well as the red and yellow.

 

Nice plumbing job, where did you get the valves from?

 

As for Andy J's truck Italeri do a MAN TGX XXL and XLX but not the low roof. KFS do a resin right hand dash.

Edited June 7, 2020 by Ryedale Wolf