Hi Val

it may be causing you bucketloads of eye strain & using up oceans of patience, but the resulting slat armour must give you a rewarding feeling. It looks perfect.

cheers
Neil

Thanks fellas!

Updates:

I have managed to finish the turret's slat armours. This is difficult because of the offset of the turret slightly to the right and the small adjustments that had to be made on the angles of the armour on the right side. I have to be a bit pricise on the distance because a little bit off will throw away the balance and the natural offset, this is crucial in order to get the right appearance.

This is showing the first slats as a guide.


Next is the swing out options of the left wedge amour, a nice addition to the new Revell Leo2.


Right side elevation. Notice the correct gap of the rear bottom of the turret in relation to the hull.


Left side elevation....


Rear view.....


Front view...


Top side... Here you can clearly see the offset of the right side of the turret and the compensatory angle near the rear half of the turret. Notice also the very minute distance of the slats. This has to be accurate to get the correct placement otherwise the slats will look funny.


Quarter views...






Working at this scale is so difficult and will test your patience but the feeling is so good once you have completed it. Until next time.......

Wow what a great job!


cheers

I second Rick, you did a stunning job on the slat.

Keep on building and posting

I have a hard of a time doing slat on 35th scale projects... but 72nd? Forget it! You're insane! Nice work!

Thanks Rick, Oliver, Jason.

Wow, this is amazing. Specially in this scale.
You are showing top of the line scratching .
Keep it going! Must look fanastic at the end!

Great job val

A lot of work i think.
Can´t wait for next pictures. Like your detailling very much.
Outstanding.....

Cheers Daniel

Val, be patient, you are making and excellent work.

Regards. Pedro.

Great work Val. Keep working!... =)

Hi Val

the really fine work keeps coming, its great to see, thanks for posting the updates

cheers
Neil

Thanks guys. Been off action for a short time.
Small updates on the build: Managed to do some work with the ECM, this is not done yet as I will do all the conduits and ducting to make it complete. Very difficult because of the small size.

Note the riffle/weapons box in between the commander's hatch and front sensor.













Arials, front hull armour, etc... will be next. Stay tune....

Very impressive...keep up the outstanding work!

Absolutly great!

Love the scratching....


Cheers Daniel

hey,

this one is looking really cool. De slats are simply fantastic...

I'm gathering my references to try the same (bought an aftermarket for the slats) but with a mineroller (will try to scratch this completely) in front.

Keep up the good work...

I've just started following this build and already am I looking forward to the painting. Keep up the good work!

OH ALSO, I seriousley need to get some pictures up of the finished product in a new thread some time, bit off topic, but....

Any chance these have been in afghanistan? I know at one point they where trying to negotiate a sale with Saudi Arabia....
http://www.defence.pk/forums/military-forum/78071-sale-more-than-200-tanks-leopard-2e-saudi-arabia.html
And from what I could gather, they're likely going to be purchasing Leopard 2A7's instead.... I'd imagine the 2E is more suited for Saudi Arabian terrain because of where it is from.
The tank is the Spanish licensed Leopard 2E.

UPDATES: Finally completed all major facelift. Small details have to be done such as arial mounts, main gun cooling ducts, slats brackets etc.

Front chassis armour.


completed the suspension, wheels, tracks.
















More to come.

Hi val

Absolut fantastic model.
Like the scratch. Maybe you can show us how you build this slat armor so nice and clean. 2 or 3 pictures will help i think. That will be great.

Cheers and happy new year!

Daniel

Val,

Incredible work. Love this scatchbuilding effort. You must have nerves of steel to pull this one off so very well.

Great effort.

Dave.

Thanks Dave, Daniel.

The slats are made of precisely cut evergreen styrene number 101 (0.25 x o.75 mm). This is manually done, no jig because using a thin cement on a jig will make it more messy and will stick to the jig itself. Distance in between was done using a home made spacer calibrated to this scale, you can also use an automotive clearance gauges use to adjust tappets in the engine. This has a lot of fine depth that you can use to set the space. I have to work my way very slowly applying each slat one at a time. Very time consuming and requires a lot of patience especially working at this scale. Let it dry a bit then adjust accordingly to have a precise look. I will try to do a step by step photo shoot for this if I have the time.

Its been a while since I touch this build and been out of action for a while. Managed to do a couple of hours on the kit and have been focusing on the slats mounting bracket particularly on the turret. I know this is one of the hardest part to do as this is so tiny and keeping this accurate for scale is breaking my nerves. The work is slow and takes time to align it properly but the end result is satisfying and getting a very good alignment makes all worth it. Here are several pictures showing you the brackets and how it should look like in the actual tank. tiny details such as the bolt heads are also added.

















Turret brackets and slats. Alignment is crucial because if its not align properly it looks awful!








Size of the whole project compared to a ballpen.


Long way to go but i'm chipping it one bracket at a time, stay tune folks!

Val,

This is fabulous. I am really impressed. Wow.

John

Val

Job well done.

Anthony

When will it turn into a resin conversion set?
It is worth it.

Olivier