Zvevda BTR-70 kit with eduard PE set.




the bottom of the hull... all the suspension boogies had been assembled... so many seem line in the parts... noticed the PE grille ..




I cut the kit windscreen details and wiper and add the eduard pe parts. The driver hatch interior was added with pe part.



next the upper hull. The engine grille cover must be replaced with eduard part so arm with my dremel and miniature file i removed the plastic grille cover.



eduard PE parts added



the exhaust mesh cover ?? noticed the strecth sprue used ask CA glue applicator. as well as the accelerator. I made severals strecth sprue parts....



both of the above items installed together



this IFV is equipped with propeller...but the kit propeller molded-on type and is crude and basic. thanks god eduard replaced this part..so in order to used the pe part. i have to open the hole for the propeller .... i clean it with mini files



the 5 parts PE... hehehe...this procedure took almost 30 minutes.... but i managed to get it done...my fingers crammed once due to this...hehe



i take a break and light a cigarette..
i installed the propeller into the kit rear hull...




that's for now...........

be back for more................

Hi,
those PE parts really are a great plus to this kit. Very good job on the swimming propeller !

Looks promising. Will you redo the hatch hinges on the kit? They rely don't do the vehicle justice.

Good job!
I guess this is the same model issued by Revell with a re-box. Did you find any fit problem between the hulls?

thanks guys for the comments...

Marc, up till now i still unsure to replace or not all the hinges. some hinges look okay but some look bad in this scale.... at first i was so surprise that eduard didnt capture this problem.


james84,
hey i didnt know revell rebox this kit...
test fitting between the hull show there is a potential of gap problem between the top and bottom hull as well as the rear hull part..........
so i'm preparing my self with putty now... more challange for me...more job.......

cheers,

zaidi

Any progress on this one?

hi there... yes there is progress but my camera was 'away'. hehe..

i almost completed scratbuilding the basic interior. will show some pic if i got my camera

Another progress... it's been awhile since i started this thread....
the main reason behind is i'm having difficulty deciding to scratchbuild or not the interior. Then i decided to do the interior based on some references photos on the internet. However the kit interior structure was all wrong and if i want to correct it, will involve in major surgery of the entire hull. The main problem is the wheels hub where the suspension lies on, the correct shape is almost like semi-conical shape but zvevda did them with a regtangular shape and hollow too. If i want to correct this part, i have to remove all of them. This is where i stuck in the project.
Since i plan to open all the hatches at the front of the vehicle, many of the interior will be shown (well this was my initial thoughts..!! - later i discovered that few details will be seen even if the hatches are all opened...)
So i started working with the project. I cut all the suspension protuding rod that were glued inside the interior. The 4 front wheels were connected left and right by a series of bar and i cut them too. I scratchbuild the new floor using .8mm stryene. and then i cover all the square window (holes??).
Using visualisation i made the front seat, and the seat for the turret and the crew seats..
Not very accurate and i'm so ashame to take the close-up shoots.
I found the steering wheels from spare parts, and did the meter panels with stryrene.
Not so proud finished but i think this will do.

Here's some of the photos.

the interior






The rear hull part was glued to the upper hull. There is a big gap between this parts and i presume the same will happen if i mate this part with the bottom hull. I also made the shape inside the exhaust end round as seen in the reference photos.
The join between the exhaust and side hull is bad... and it;s wrongly mould. It should be a metal bracket along the side of the exhaust. I will add this later.


I add 1mm stryene at the back of the exhaust to support the hull. this is because i need to round the 'interior' shape of the exhaust.


i also fill all the holes for some small parts that will be replace with PE parts. No PE were added since my last progress. I will add them once i completed with the major assemblies.

That's for now and thanks for looking. As usual comments and suggestion are welcome.

Great Looking interior details
Keep us update and again congrats on the interior
Well I hope you can see something at the end

Seb

Hey silantra

That looks like a good start on your model. How is the kist quality? Looks like the upper and lower hull don't fit thatgood togheter? The interior is scratch right? It looks very good. Keep us updated.

Grtz Roel

I really love the effort you did to show the interior!
Upper and lower hull did mate OK on mine BTR though

Keep up the great work!
Greg

Looks really good!

Thought about how it's going to look when it's done? I think to capture the essence of the BTR-70 it probably should be a burned out wreck haha, no the Russians make great vehicles but you couldn't pay me enough to go to war in one.

I would go TO war in/on BTR-70/80 It's only an APC, well rather modern version of a transport truck, and thus it's just infantry taxi not a warrior. Besides, mine protection on BTRs is unbelievable. This kit already well detailed, just needs a good painting and some stowage. 2 tone camo and frying pans covering back of the turret maybe

thanks guys for youyr comments.
PEdro, yup the interior is scratchbuild... nothing fancy..just a basic build although in the beginning i was thinking to reproduce something which is near accurate, but as mentioned in my previous post, it need major surgery to the kit, so i just build a very basic and not very accurate interior.
Test fittiing on both upper and lower hull show potential gaps at the rear join. but it's just small task for me. Well i will update some more if time permitted...

wish me luck guys....

ps: i will not only take btr-70 to war, but it's good to bring it to town and getting through morning traffic jammed here..

The BTR-70 like the BTR-60 before it had the reputation of being easy to shoot-up with an RPG and when it was hit it usually killed everyone inside. Russian losses in Afghanistan were approximatly 1,300 BMPs and BTRs mostly due to thin RHA and inherent design flaws. Infact until the D version the thing was powered by gasoline, we all know the story of the Sherman. The vehicle was easy to penetrate with any anti-tank weapon and once hit usually caught fire and everyone was trapped inside because the doors impeded entry and exit. That's why I wouldn't want to go anywhere in one if someone was shooting at me, give me a LAV-III please!

continue with the progress work..

i had mate the hull together. there are still gap to be fill but it's minimal and i already expected this to happen. So i fill with various filler and sand.
I add strip of plastic to the side of the exhaust muffler as seen in the reference photo. I think this maybe the bracket for the muffler.

I also rounded the end of the muffler. The surrounding details is evidence of the sanding work and filler.

Turret
Eduard instruction required that the moulded-on periscope to be removed and the side of the turret to be open with a rectangulat shape.
here's the look after both the steps were done.


The new periscope is a PE consist of 3 parts.
I add the new window(periscope?) at the turret side.
Here's how they look.


I plan to remove and replace the basic shape of the hatches' hinges. This is how they look before i remove it.


i will update somemore.......

comments are welcome...

cheers

Zaidi

Hi there fellas, and happy new year
wow it has been months since my last progress..

it started from a fun beginning but now I have AMS. thanks to excellent workaround photos from this website. Based on the references photos, many of things have to be modified, removed or enhance.

Enough talk, these are some of the progress photos of my build for the last 2 weeks.

i added 0.25mm thick stryrene to represent the bracket for the muffler.




I even thinned down the muffler inside wall for scale correction and rounded the inside of the muffler.

I cut the end of the muffler about 0.5mm and inserted metal tube




The front armour plate/hatches is not right especially the hinges. So i replace them with stock plastic.
The original hinges were removed.

Comparison with the moulded-on hinges and the almost finished replacement.


Stock of 1mmx 1.5mm strip were shape and cut into size and hole were drill. These are part of the hinges.

The completed new armour plate which still look oversize.




I added thin plastic strips to details the perimeter of the windscreen.



The commander and driver's hatches were moulded with the hinges mechanism which is not correct and need to be modified, so i removed the molded hinges and replace with spare PE hinges. This exercise took 4 hours to roll and form the two-part hinges.

Thats 2 for one hatches and made 4 in total. I inserted E guitar string and place them to the kit.



References showed that there is a fex hex nuts were tied to the top of the rear armour plate/engine cover, so i add stock nuts to each of the side.


All of the major modification to the kit is almost done but i still omitted some of teh details which is too crazy for me to start and the fun is just begin. and now time for the regular eduard PE addition...
the side equipment support bracket were replace with PE parts


that's for now...will update soon..
i would like to thanks Dave aka Grumpyoldman for providing me sometiny stocks of plastic and miniatures nuts and bolts set which speed up the process amazingly....
thanks bro.........

cheers,

Zaidi

Looks good and glad to see you are back at it. Keep it up!

Hey

Nice progress on you BTR! I was waiting for an update What setting will you be placing this armoured bus?

Grtz

Looks great , i love modern Soviet stuff . Makes me want to try one looking at your fantastic work.
All the best,

John

thanks guys..

i plan to make a diorama representing the conflict in Chehcnya typically in suburban setup. Already have the setting in mind for years... hope the idea can be realized soon...

Nice work all around, especially on those hinges! Glad to see this one back up and running.

-YL

back with some slow progress

i continue adding PE parts to some of the details..

the left headlight protector. This part is not included in the kit. Eduard marked this as optional parts. i add this based on references..


the right side


There are total of 10 set of periscope part to be added to the kit. The front side periscope required it to be thinned about 2mm as per eduard instruction. some of the periscope are made of two PE parts..
here i go..



Added the winch bracket and attachment.. simple 2 PE part at the left and right of it. Minimal modification to the hook in order to add the PE bracket



Zvevda kit didn't supply the onboard searchlight, however, eduard do provide this. Eduard only provide PE parts for the support arm and the front part.. the instruction required me to used 8mm diameter tube/cylinder and cut into 3mm width to represent the big searchlight. I dont have any tube in that size so i look into the my sparebox, found a 1/48 rocket pod which approx 9mm in diameter. So i convert my dremel into a lathe machine and reduce the diameter into 8mm.
Here's the photo after PE part was glued to the 'light'.


The searchlight was then temporarily fix onto the periscope with blue tack to get the 'feel'..



more slow progress after this..

thanks for looking

Very impressive!

I like the replaced hinges you made, they really make all the difference.

Btw, SP designs offers resin wheels for this kit, available from SAAM models.

thanks Marc..
the hinges is my first attempt working with such PE arrangement... love to learn that they turn out well..
i must stay away for another AM parts... the supplied rubber tires will remain. I tried trimming the tires and modify the tires to give more realistic wear n tear look... the rubber somehow still hard but still manageable.
The only thing that keep this build fast is my work...

thanks pal