World War II Project - M32B1 ARV Pt 2 - Rubicon Models

Moving on from the lower hull and "turret" brings us to the upper hull. The upper hull itself is a single piece casting, it has a bit of a warp to it but not a significant one and I think that most of the assembly will help straighten out just fine without resorting to a hot water treatment. Details are crisp and the casting itself is very clean. 

Step 5 Upper Hull

Here you step right into adding details to the hull, nothing difficult at all. Other than the MG off of the plastic sprue everything in this step is resin and secured with a drop or two of super glue.

Step 6 Mortar

This is a really nice pewter casting. Probably one of the best looking and easiest to assemble mortars that I have ever worked with.

Step 7 (7A & 7B)

Here we add a bunch of pewter detail pieces as well as the mortar that was assembled in step 6. Again no surprises although piece P10 had the most significant mold lines to clean up at this point. In 7B resin detail pieces are added to the back deck. Pretty darn straight forward build at this point.

Step 8 Vehicle Assembly

Its time to bring everything together or, in my case, just dry fit everything and make sure it goes together. For painting purposes I want to keep some of the sub-assemblies separate to make them easier to paint. In my case I will assemble the upper and lower hull together while leaving off the tracks and the "turret".  While the majority of the interior is going to be hidden once the turret is on I do want to get some basic painting completed inside and it will be quite a bit more difficult with the turret attached.

Here I really ran into my first issue with the kit. As I test fitted the upper and lower hull together I discovered a significant gap between the riveted front end of the upper hull and the spot where it should meet the lower hull. At this point I made sure that there wasn't anything blocking the upper hull from sliding all the way down the posts. Here I found that I needed to further trim the rear of the lower hull as I had left it a tad to long. Now the back end fitted together snugly. I also trimmed a bit more off a couple of the ribs located in the upper hull thinking that they maybe keeping things apart when bringing the two components together.

Something doesn't seem quite right here.

Pretty sure there shouldn't be a gap here.

What is going on? Time to troubleshoot.

Working back to front. I didn't cut off enough from the end of the lower hull. I carefully trimmed the circled section more for a snug fit.

These two ribs may stick out a bit to much so I clipped them a little bit to make sure there was enough clearance.

After clipping

Continuing my way forward I checked that the font fenders weren't interfering with anything and did file off a couple of corners that might be effecting the fit. At this point I still had the gap in the front although I had managed to narrow it quite a bit.

All of these steps closed the gap a bit, but not enough. My first thought at this point was to cut the big post out and go from there but that seemed rather extreme. I opted to take a look at the lower hull and see if I could alleviate the problem from another angle.

On the lower hull the front edge is physically to high at this point. They are above the tabs located on the resin transmission cover. I don't know if this is a fault with the kit or my construction. However its easily fixed with a file.

Much better, the two surfaces are now even with each other. A quick test fit revealed that this almost fixed the gap, but there is still a sliver visible. I can't push the upper hull down far enough to cover the gap.

Looking back at the upper hull the post has two "wings" these keep the upper hull from going to low. In the picture the upper hull is just resting in position. Pushing it down to the point where the wings contact the lower locating post is leaving that sliver of gap that I'm seeing at this point.

Now that I see what is keeping the upper hull from going down to far its a simple matter of trimming the "wings" on the upper hull locator post. I tried to trim slowly but still managed to cut a tad to much off, but the gap is filled and that seems like better stop point for the upper hull. Now I'm gluing resin to plastic and there isn't anyway to hit all seven contact points with super glue and have a prayer of getting it in place fast enough before something sets. So the gluing sequence is critical at least in my mind.

    1. Using gel type super glue I applied a bead to the three tabs in the front, two are on the transmission cover and the third is on the upper hull. I then pushed the upper hull down far enough to close the gap completely and cleaned up any excess super glue as quickly as I could.

    2. Apply a more fluid type of super glue to the forward locating post so that it flows in between the front locator posts.

    3. Pushing the rear locator post down till the "wings" contact the lower post and apply super glue (fluid? liquid?)

    4. At the rear make sure that the back two edges of the lower hull are even with the edge of the upper hull and using the same "liquid" super glue apply a minute amount here to complete the gluing sequence.

Apply the gel super glue in front and push hull down to fill the gap

Apply "liquid" super glue on the front locator post and "wings"

Push the rear hull down till the wings are touching the top of the bottom post. Apply "liquid" super glue on the back locator post and"wings"

Apply more "liquid" super glue to the plastic and resin meeting point after making sure both sides are even with each other.

After all that is done you can glue P09 to the front glacis which also serves to help hold the upper and lower hulls together.

A huge shout out to Rubicon Models at this point. P09 didn't make it into my bag of pewter parts and I missed that in my quicky inventory at the beginning of all this. They had it in the mail to me that day and it only took a couple of days to arrive. Can't really express how much I appreciate them going above and beyond to get me that part.

Step 9

Seems almost superfluous at this point but resin part R018 is attached to the rear hull, that is until you try to figure out just how to attach it from the instructions. The instructions show a cross-section of the rear which is just not helpful. A couple of pictures would explain the attachment a bit better, although once you are looking from the bottom it becomes pretty obvious.

And here ends the build so far. The "turret" is finished, the upper and lower hulls are assembled together and the tracks are finished. The only things I have completely glued together are the upper and lower hull everything else is separate at this point for painting. I have also found a number of reference pictures and notations that show some weld seams on the "turret" I'm contemplating adding those before painting. The other thing I would like to do is roughen up the surface of the upper hull and transmission. Since these were all castings they shouldn't be smooth but should have some texture to them. I'm still looking at ways to accomplish this. In retrospect I should have thought about this before I did any assembly, so put this thought in the contemplation phase for the moment.

Sorry for the harsh pictures on these pictures but here is a look at how the M32B1 is looking so far.

World War II Project - M32B1 ARV Pt 1 - Rubicon Models

I unboxed this kit about a week ago and I have been very excited to start working on it. I still need to finish the Jumbo Sherman, but that build has stalled a little bit trying to figure out how I can fix the 76mm gun since I used the wrong one there. No reason not to get started on this one though. Its a pretty new kit and its mostly resin so I figured I would do a step by step on it and maybe help other builders solve any problems that might exist with this one.

I must say that right out of the box this is a great looking kit, clean crisp resin castings and equally clean crisp pewter castings including a beautiful .50 caliber MG.

Step 1 (1A & 1B) Tracks
Like just about every Rubicon build you start off with the tracks. This kit uses the tracks with the VVSS bogies and comes off the single plastic sprue. A single pewter part is added to the right hand track's drive sprocket. A little super glue does the trick here just be sure you have it facing the right way when you glue it on.

Step 2 (2A & 2B) Lower Hull
Moving right into the resin assembly in step 2. The back plate for the engine compartment and a tow hitch are glued together. You will need superglue for this. For this type of construction I like to use a gel type superglue its less messy and you have a tad bit more time to work. Right now I'm trying Locktite Super Glue; Ultragel. Following this glue the sides of the lower (plastic) hull together. You will need to trim a bit off the back end of the lower hull so the upper hull will fit on correctly. Plastic parts A02 and A10 should be added last or at least after you have glued on the engine compartment back plate. The resin transmission cover and front tow hitch can then be glue in place. Be sure to test fit the transmission cover and be sure you have it oriented right and that the fit is tight against the front of the lower hull. 

This is the section of the lower hull that you will need to trim. Instructions say 1.5mm which is tough to measure. Better to cut a bit to short as it will be hidden by the upper hull when assembled. Leave it to long (like I did) and its harder to trim to fit, however, you will get a tighter fit that way.

Step 3 (Step 3A & 3B)
This is the internal assembly for the winch and a good chunk of the interior of the lower hull that can be seen. Unfortunately you have quickly arrived at the point when you need to decide if you are going to have the crane in Standby (or travel) Mode or in Operating Mode. For travel mode use part R09 which features a closed cover so you can't see the cable reel. For operating mode use part R08 which is an open cover and allows access to the cable reel. If you change your mind later on I wouldn't worry about it to much, all of this is buried fairly deep inside and unless you remove the turret you probably won't be able to tell if the cover is opened or closed anyway, however, with it open you can thread your wire or thread all the way down to the reel. Make that decision and then glue the whole assembly to the lower hull, it fits between the two posts although its not a tight fit. I elected to fit mine tight against the front post and leave a small gap at the back post.

You can also glue the tracks in place at this stage. I prefer to leave them off so that I can paint them separately and assemble them after that.

Step 4 (4A, 4B & 4C)
Here begins the assembly of the "turret" probably more properly a superstructure. It does not have a turret ring it is not intended to swivel. This is a pretty straight forward bit of assembly of resin and pewter parts. The only decision will be if you want the hatch opened or closed, which determines if you will be using piece R10 (open) or R11 (closed). I went for open just so more of the interior is visible (although really it doesn't add that much, if I were to build another one I would just go for the closed hatch). I did encounter one issue here. Everything in these three steps has something to add you in where it goes, a notch, a pin or something. While Step 4A clearly shows such a small rectangular protrusion for piece P14 it is not there (at least not on the casting I received). Fortunately this piece sits dead center on the back part of the superstructure and there is a detail piece on the outside that is also in the center. Just use that to line up the placement of P14. P14 is the seat so if you went with a closed hatch you can just leave it off.

Step 4A

 

The location of P14

The beginning of Step 4B, you can see how the seat (P14) is centered underneath the opening for the hatch.

All glued up and ready for action. I didn't glue the .50 cal in place, its in a spot that could be problematic with threading cable (wire or thread) if you opt for the operating mode like I did. You are also probably better off with a closed hatch for operating mode as well.

World War II Project - Return to Normandy - The Gangs all Here - AARGH!!

I hate this, and I know better and managed to do it anyway. From the last session I cleaned up the pigments and added back in some of the oil stains and such on the bogies. Then I applied some of my favorite pan pastels to finish everything off and was pretty happy with the final results.

Here comes the mistake, and I managed to make two of them. I have a bottle of Liquitex matte varnish, big bottle, will last forever. I sprayed it on and it was only watching it dry that I realized that I just lost all my pigment work. That was bad enough, except that on top of that I must not have shook up the varnish very well and instead of a nice matte finish I got a nice glossy finish.

Bottom line I have to re-apply the pigments and get rid of that nice gloss coat. I forgot about not being able to seal the pigment effectively, although using the pan pastels in a more heavy handed manor will work, hence why I'm seriously considering bases for the vehicles this time around. The pan pastels hold up much better to handling than regular pigments so its still up in the air. In the mean time it will take another session or two to fix the finishing mistakes.

Pretty happy at this point, just a little pigment adjustment and they are good to go.

Definitely to enthusiastic on this side

 

Here they are all finished up just before I sprayed them.

A bit more subtle on this side this time

Pigments disappeared and looking nice and glossy!