My problem has always been in getting the parts to come together seamlessly, no matter what I do I seem to end op with an open seam. I guess that I will need to apply myself just a little bit more.

Tanks
Andy

Ah, I see now. I have that trouble sometimes too. What I do is drop superglue from the side that is not going to be seen and TRY to hold the seems together with the tweezers or "FAT" fingers and squirt accelerator on the part. Most of the time it works. All else fails, i try to hide the seems with gear or something.

Hello All,
No fancy pictures just a quick update to let everyone know that I am in the process of bending some photoetch. During the week I get about an hour a night. I thought I would concentrate on getting some of the bigger pieces of photo etch put together. Now, there are some seriously small pieces to glue togther to form sub assemblies of a bigger piece. More than once I had to break out the magnifiying glass to find them.

Tanks
Andy

Hello All,
Just a quick note to let everyone know that I'm still building and have progressed through parts of the photo etch build and have come across some error callouts on the Real Model photo etch sheets. Nothing major, but can be a pain for the rivet counter. I am now more convinced than ever that we all have a sick disease in trying to use all the photo etch. I will update this with pictures once I get back off my buisness trip to Canada.

Tanks
Andy

I started mine aprox in april planning to build it in couple of weeks... Oh boy... After a full month of just soldering PE I realised that it might take me a little more time to finish then I expected. Miloslav did an awesome job on that thing! Eduard did great also! But just like any other conversion (that complicate) it needs a lot of work.
Andy I also had some fit problems with the rear wall of the hull but it was minor. There are more coming! Some thing are not even mentioned in the instruction sheet. The busket tamplates are useless (No offence to Miloslav or Eduard) Just a simple comparement of PE basket bottom mesh with the tamplates for bending wire will show you what I mean. And its normal! Rubber mold shrinks - nothing wrong with that. Just couple of evenings more to spend - more fun!
Its end of July now and I am finally getting to primering stage.






Once again - Miloslav, great job!
Guys who are going to build it - dont expect it to be a weekend project.
Thanks
Andy

Andy,
Great job. I am dreading the basket and the templates. I see that you replaced the bolt and washers for the add on armor. What did you use for the bolt heads?

Tanks
Andy

Andy,

Some very good work on your LAV III....excellent looking spare tire rack. Your custom fit stowage looks very nice as well.

Andy,
the washers are punched out of 0.010 styrene and the bolt heads are Plastruct hexogonal rod cut with #11 blade...
I did not replace all the armor tie-downs - just the ones that were kinda "soft" (not crisp enough) and some that were in the wrong spot. It still was something like 70 of them that I replaced.

Andy

Hi Andy,
Excellent work. Your model looks great. This is my idea about LAV III build.
Motley surface cause Axson polyurethan.
Andreas tell that in PE parts was error. I know that right holder for spare wheel basket is small.
This I rebuild only on NZLAV.
Miloslav

Day 7 of the build started with me bending some additional photo etch. Those small grab handles and sheer madness. I’ve attached a few of them numerous times since the seem to continually fall off. I’m dreading my attempts to try and add some straps to them. Once or twice today I felt like throwing the part up against the wall. Figure 1 shows the photo etch from sheets one and two .

Figure 1. Photo Etch sheets 1 & 2.
I’m sorry about the image, I tried different combinations of backdrops but this seemed to work best. I then spent the next hour or two trying to come up with a way to improve the bolt heads and may do what Andy did see my build blog here see the bottom of page 1. I like the way it brings out the detail. Andy also stated the he had a hard time in building the frames for the turret baskets. I dread having to deal with this, Andy stated that the forms are a little too small.


Figure 1.

So far I haven’t noticed any major problems with my build, page one of the photo etch sheets has par 24 and 25 listed for the wrong sides. I hope to get more built over the next week since I’m on vacation.


Tanks
Andy

Day eight started off with a lofty goal in mind only to end in frustration. My goal for the day was to finish assembling the major photo etch components that lead to disappointment because of a missing part. I finished assembling the stowage box (Figure 1) that mounts on the back of the vehicle only to discover that there aren’t enough of the microscopic tie-down (footman loops(Figure 2)).


Figure 1 Stowage Box


Figure 2 Missing Footman Loop

The missing footman loop is part number 135 on the photo etch fret. Looking at photo-etch sheet four there is a requirement for six parts 135 (2x Lid top and 4x for the side). The photo etch sheet only comes with five.
The stowage box was a fairly complex assembly requiring lots of planning. I started with the bottom and worked my way to the top. The fit is nice and tight and a little super glue held everything in place. I did get a little bit of fogging from the glue which should be easy to cleanup using a little de-bonder. The guy that came up with the idea of putting footman loops inside the stowage box (Figure 3) should be shot. Some of the most frustrating time was spent in getting these footman loops to take hold. They should really look good with some tie down straps passed through them.


Figure 3 Stowage box interior

If you look at figure 3, you will notice that the lid has an opening for a latch but there wasn’t one for the box itself. I will try and take a scrap piece of etch and create one. I encountered another small problem with the stowage box and that was with the brackets on the ends (photo etch part 146 on photo etch sheet 4). No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get them to line up (Figure 4). I may try and make these from some sheet styrene and see if I can get them to look a little better (that’s why I haven’t attached the cross piece part 34 yet. One of the problems is that part 147 is a little squarer than round causing a slight misalignment.


Figure 4 Photo etch part 146

I also assembled a few of the other brackets for the sides of the vehicle figures 5 & 6.


Figure 5 Left front brackets
 
Next, I moved on and decided to tackle the rear ramp part E8. All of photo etch parts went together without a hitch. The instructions show the parts mounted to the studs on the back of the ramp, the problem that I encountered is that my mounting points weren’t the same as the picture for the right hand side. I had to shave upper pin off and move it over (Figure 6).


Figure 6 Rear ramp

So far it’s been an enjoyable build. The most frustrating items to deal with have been the footman loops since they are so small and a pain in the butt to align. Some of the alignment issues makes them actually look a little more realistic since the do get bent out of shape. I thing they will look great especially if I can manage to pass some microscopic tape through them.

Tanks
Andy

Day 9 started with me wanting to improve the rivet head detail on the hull. I went to the local hobby shop and couldn’t decide on the right size hex rod. SO, I bought one of each and then took them to my workshop and did a comparison of the different sizes to the one actually used on the vehicle. I decided to go with the .040 since it replicated the ones used on most parts of the vehicle. Figures 1 & 2 shows me cutting the hex rods into hex nuts.



Figure 1 Hex Rod



Figure 2 Hex Nut

Once I had a couple hundred hex nuts, I decided to tackle the washers using my trusty Waldron’s punch set. I used .010 sheet styrene and created a hundred of the washers (Figure 3).



Figure 3 Washers

This really improves the overall appearance of the vehicle and makes the components and various other panels really stand out. Some of the nuts are slightly larger than the rest and will still need to be sanded to make them a little more believable (Figures 4 & 5).



Figure 4 Before Hex Nuts & Washers



Figure 5 After

Looking at the 1/1 scale vehicle parked at my office I decided to modify the way the single tie down straps are attached to the hull. I removed the simplified hex nut, added the tie down and then added a hex nut on top of that (Figure 6).



Figure 6 Modified Tie Down

I have a solid plan on moving forward from here. I will need to give the hex heads a once over to level them out a little more and clean up the hull once again before I start hanging additional parts. Looking at figure 5, you’ll notice that I decided to mount the winch since this looks cool and the one in my shop has it mounted as well. I noticed a little error on the photo etch brackets attached to the rear ramp, the clevis hook that holds the spare tire mount was glued into the wrong position. I didn’t notice this until I looked at Andy’s photos on my build blog. It didn’t help that my reference vehicle didn’t have it mounted.

Tanks
Andy

A truely magnificent build. I'll like to thank Real Model for producing this LAV III, because it is the most detailed commercial model I have ever seen. If they had this model last year than I would have never scratchbuilt my LAV III... Well done Andy. A true craftsman.

Charles,
Thanks for the kind words, my work is nothing compared to yours in quality. I do agree, Real Models has put out an outstanding product and I will have to buy another of their variants.

Tanks
Andy

Andy,
looking really nice!

Keep the pics coming

Andy

your LAV III is amazing, one of the best models I have seen

I'm impressed by the amount of work you're doing on this one. It's a really interesting build log and will certainly serve when I tackle this conversion (just don't know when )

Keep us tuned.

Olivier

You've made me blush...thanks for the kind words...Now I've moved over to scale 1:24, leaving 1:35 behind...time for more kitbash and scratchbuilding...

Hello All,
I've done some more building on my LAVIII but haven't had time to put together another post since I've been spending time traveling for work. I should be able to start posting some additional pictures and information starting the week of 21 Sept.

Tanks
Andy

Day 10 was tackled in two sessions, morning and evening with a break in between to take my mind of the bolt head detail. First I would like to address some donor parts that are pictured on Real Models instructions but not called out. The rear fuel tanks parts C22 &23, Parts C25, 27 & 29 (air intake covers) as well as parts B26 & 28 (driver’s night vision viewer) and parts B24 & F17 that make up the gas caps. Photo etch parts 46 and 49 should have a tab on them that attaches to the top of the hull, these tabs can be seen in the color photo showing the left hand bustle rack.
I then decided to start adding the photo etch to the hull detailing it with some bolt heads. Figure 1 shows the left front of the vehicle with some photo etch and bolt head detail in place.



Figure 1 Left Front

Figure 2 shows the additional bolt head detail added to the photo etch on the left front.



Figure 2 Left Front Bolt Head Detail

The following figures shows the various photo etch brackets being installed along with the additional bolt head detail.



Figure 3



Figure 4



Figure 5

Day 11 started with me thinking about assembling the turret bustle rack assembly. Doing some preliminary research shows that photo etch parts 109 should be L shaped and not flat. I will be replacing these parts with some evergreen styrene. Also there are no real instructions that really tell you how to attach the bustle rack to the turret. I have the luxury of looking at a real vehicle, but if you look at the last page of the instructions you will see that the attachment points are bolts through a flat piece of metal to a mounting boss on the turret. This will also be replicated with some evergreen styrene. I had been warned that the assembly of the bustle rack would be a real challenge. This warning included some advice that resin part 15 was too small figure 6. Figure 6 shows what would happen if you bent the lower support frame to fit the mesh.



Figure 6

To alleviate this issue I used photo etch part 83 and made a template that I then used to shape the lower frame, figure 7.



Figure 7

I then bent the lower frame to fit the template created in figure 7 and attached photo etch part 83 to the lower frame, figure 8.



Figure 8

I decided to take a break from the basket and moved onto detailing the turret. My turret and a mold error on the commander’s side by the feed eject shoot. The right panel of the turret was deformed and filled a gap, figure 9. I also decided to replace the molded on washer and bolt head detail, figure 9.



Figure 9

Figure 10 shows how the LAVIII looks at the moment.



Figure 10

You can also visit my blog at Canadian LAVIII Blog

Tanks
Andy

Very nice update and great perseverence in your LAV III project.

Great explanations of what you have done.

I think I might have to bump my LAV III project up a bit....I plan on adding some of the later modifications.....lower hull suspension add-on armour panels, new antenna mounts, extended jerry can racks, Hesco Bastion wire stowage racks.

With the Hex nut and washer you are just crazy this is insane build
Congrats
Seb

Fantastic rendition my friend. Awesome work.

Looking very good Andy, nice work.

Ok guys,
I'm looking for help. I'm a disaster at trying to solder things and got really frustrated in trying to make the turret bustle rack that I switched to the trumpeter bustle from the LAV25 kit. Now, with that said I am having a horrendous time in making the two bustle racks that mount on the side of the turret. I realize that the templates the Milosav provided are too short and have compensated for that. Too those that have already completed theirs I would appreciate some input and adivse.

Tanks
Andy