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Making a Master: An Idea to Production

Bringing it all together

I started with the master for MERCEDES BENZ L4500A with 3,7cm Flak 36 (WMM 35002 ) and was ready by mid of April 2004. I mainly used polystyrene plastic and profiles, the rims are mode of turned aluminum. Then the first moulds were fabricated, followed by some prototypes. This process was finished by mid May 2004. Luckily there was not much to change on the parts and the moldings and the recess of the parts after drying was within our tolerance limits. The parts are in a layout which requires a minimum of clearance.

I worked on the masters for MERCEDES BENZ L4500A with 2cm Flakvierling 38 (WMM 35003) and MERCEDES BENZ L4500A with 3,7cm Flak 36, large cab( WMM 35004 ) until May 2004. The prototypes followed immediately.

On 06/09/04 the models, all built by me, were photographed. From this point the project stalled, as the suppliers did not deliver on time and the WMM homepage was far away from being online.

After waiting awhile I could see no movement forward so I took matters into my own hands. I drew the decals with ACAD and Corel Draw and passed them to a reliable print-shop. The images for the photoetched parts were also done by myself on CAD and were given to another company for manufacture.

Unfortunately the 2cm barrels that were to be made by Schatton would not be able to meet our deadline so we had to look elsewhere and I decided to use the 3,7cm barrels from ABER. Time started to fly by and finally, toward end of September the boxes arrived! So now we could box up our kits and sell them during the Euromodell 2004 in Ried/Innkreis (Upper Austria).

Meanwhile we have produced the 2nd edition of these three trucks, but it will take a little longer until I start work on the 5cm Flak versions. I want to thank especially www.classic-truck.de as without their support I would not have been able to produce accurate models. You can order the kits directly at www.wmm.at . The site is in German, but the guys speak English—so don’t be afraid!

Photos: Copyright ©2005 Wolfram Bradac