Hi Guys !
When I got this model, I understood that everything has to wait (beside my exams of course ) and it's a model that I really want to build - nice color , weathering , rear corridor interior an ,of course , the mine plow . But then I loocked inside the booklet and realised that it's going to be very tough battle to build this model.
First , as usual , almost no diagrams - only 4 diagrams while there is almost 250 parts only in the tank itself . So ,for the first time I tried to translate the written directions .At my work , my co-worker's grandmother speaks Polish and thanks to her I had the translation (BTW it didn't help - soon I'll explain about this).
Second , there are not enogh formers to make the hule strong enough.The solution (made to late) was to reinforce the sides and the bottom of the tank (and maybe the fore and the aft ) by gluing these parts to 0.5 cardboard ( I used a cardboard from cereals - thank to my girlfriend in "supplying" those
) - the problem is that the rear corridor interior is supposed to be glued to the side parts and it would not fit to the reinforced sides ,but using some (brutal) force I managed to stick it in
Third, I didn't like the paper on which the model was printed(maybe it's only for me) - solution was made instantly - to scan the model and to print it on my favorit 180g/m2 bristol paper
As I mentioned early , there's not enogh building diagrams - and this for the tank that has very difficult asymmetrical upper part of the hull - again , I looked for info for this tank , which is very scarce .Talking about the hull there's very interesting way of building this one - the builder has to build all of the hull without the upper cover from fore to aft of the hull ,then to glue the "roof" (let's call it that ) and to the "roof" one has to glue the upper cover of the hull which , again , has pretty difficult shape and there's no explanation of how to form the upper cover - like one has to guess how to form it without seeng the real tank and not having a lot of pictures of the Merkava - for example - there's no diagram explaining how to form this part(made from 5 smaller parts ) and the text says somethig like "Now glue the part 14 after having formed it in right way (???)" .Somehow I managed to form this part (thanks to my friend Big Guy) .And here is it - another trouble - how do you glue huge part mesured almost 25 cm in length to a flat sheet of paper while trying to form it in right way while the formers can't support the "roof" - nevermind - I managed to do it after using some brutal force and some cursing . Again another trouble- to fit all the small parts - for example lights .The right one is explaned well by diagrams but the left one is built from eight parts and there's no explaining on how and what .On the other hand all the grids fit perfectly and there are numbers of parts written on the hull which is very helpfull.
One more thing . Allmost every structure and box has to be glued without any gluing tabs which is pretty complicated .But there's no problem using self-made gluing tabs - I made them from regular office 80 g/m2 paper
Sorry ,for now this is all .My digital camera is at my friends at Thailand for now and because of that there's no pictures
When I got this model, I understood that everything has to wait (beside my exams of course ) and it's a model that I really want to build - nice color , weathering , rear corridor interior an ,of course , the mine plow . But then I loocked inside the booklet and realised that it's going to be very tough battle to build this model.
First , as usual , almost no diagrams - only 4 diagrams while there is almost 250 parts only in the tank itself . So ,for the first time I tried to translate the written directions .At my work , my co-worker's grandmother speaks Polish and thanks to her I had the translation (BTW it didn't help - soon I'll explain about this).
Second , there are not enogh formers to make the hule strong enough.The solution (made to late) was to reinforce the sides and the bottom of the tank (and maybe the fore and the aft ) by gluing these parts to 0.5 cardboard ( I used a cardboard from cereals - thank to my girlfriend in "supplying" those
) - the problem is that the rear corridor interior is supposed to be glued to the side parts and it would not fit to the reinforced sides ,but using some (brutal) force I managed to stick it in Third, I didn't like the paper on which the model was printed(maybe it's only for me) - solution was made instantly - to scan the model and to print it on my favorit 180g/m2 bristol paper
As I mentioned early , there's not enogh building diagrams - and this for the tank that has very difficult asymmetrical upper part of the hull - again , I looked for info for this tank , which is very scarce .Talking about the hull there's very interesting way of building this one - the builder has to build all of the hull without the upper cover from fore to aft of the hull ,then to glue the "roof" (let's call it that ) and to the "roof" one has to glue the upper cover of the hull which , again , has pretty difficult shape and there's no explanation of how to form the upper cover - like one has to guess how to form it without seeng the real tank and not having a lot of pictures of the Merkava - for example - there's no diagram explaining how to form this part(made from 5 smaller parts ) and the text says somethig like "Now glue the part 14 after having formed it in right way (???)" .Somehow I managed to form this part (thanks to my friend Big Guy) .And here is it - another trouble - how do you glue huge part mesured almost 25 cm in length to a flat sheet of paper while trying to form it in right way while the formers can't support the "roof" - nevermind - I managed to do it after using some brutal force and some cursing
. Again another trouble- to fit all the small parts - for example lights .The right one is explaned well by diagrams but the left one is built from eight parts and there's no explaining on how and what .On the other hand all the grids fit perfectly and there are numbers of parts written on the hull which is very helpfull.One more thing . Allmost every structure and box has to be glued without any gluing tabs which is pretty complicated .But there's no problem using self-made gluing tabs - I made them from regular office 80 g/m2 paper
Sorry ,for now this is all .My digital camera is at my friends at Thailand for now and because of that there's no pictures
