MiniArt 1/35 Daimler Dingo Mk. 1b

[Martin Kelly]

Hello everybody!

 

I'm new here and haven't built a 1/35 kit in er... decades. But with the whole of my family cutting, gluing and painting over the last couple of months of the Covid19 situation, it finally dawned on me that I could join in at the craft table too. So I've decided to start small and see how it goes with the MiniArt 1/35 Dingo Mk. 1b. It looks a like a nice, well moulded kit in the box with some PE included though I've noticed some errors in the decals (more of that later). My plan is to build it more-or-less OOTB as a way to practice a few skills. I'll probably add some stowage and I've seen photos of a Dingo with some sort of additional metal plate between the wheel arches on the right hand side, so I expect I'll try to add that. Some photos also show what looks like an aerial with a pennant on it on the front left of the vehicle and I might be tempted by that too if I can find more information.

 

 

 

I won't be following the order of the instructions to the letter because I want to construct in sub-modules for ease of painting. As a modest start, I've assembled the wheels and the first parts of the hull. The wheels comprise two parts - a "front" that includes the front hub and tyres and a "rear" for the rear of the hub. The two parts fit very snugly and offer the first opportunity for a minor tweak: I've drilled out the wheel lightening holes with a 1.2mm bit which makes a definite improvement to their appearance. Thirty-six holes later:

 

 

I've also drilled holes in the rear to accept cocktail sticks for ease of handling at the painting stage. Next job will be all the fiddly bits for fitting the wheels to the hull.

[Martin Kelly]

Now things are getting interesting. I started on the suspension/four-wheel drive assemblies - eight teeny pieces to assemble for each wheel and the instructions don't really suggestion the most sensible order for doing it as I discovered while doing the first one. Anyway, after getting the first one done (patience, steady hands, tweezers all required) I need to step back before tackling the second one and I turned my attention to assembling the engine compartment cover. Three easy big pieces to begin with but that was followed by seven of the smallest slithers of photo-etch I've ever seen:

 

 

Still, we got there though this big photo makes the finish look much untidier that it really is. If you're planning on building this one, I think you'd be alright taking the option to leave off these little bits. But if you do go for them, then I'd suggest carefully nudging each one into place with tweezers (or similar), dotting on a small amount of Tamiya Extra Thin and letting the solvent and capillary action do their thing. CA glue here is likely to be a seriously messy job.

[vytautas]

Good start