Hey guys!

This is my first build log here and its going to be Hobbyboss' ZSL-92 Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

Real thing:


First impressions of the kit are pretty good- there is plenty of stuff with some very finely rendered pieces (the amphibious propellers are my particular favourites), a good deal of photo-etch and six chunky vinyl tires along with the usual generic decals.


Prior to starting this I was working on some 1/48 stuff and the transition back to 1/35 was interesting- it seemed so big:


Anyway, on with the build, starting with the lower hull and suspension system:







Everything up to now was dead-on and went together fine. But I began preparing the suspension arm assembly and noticed a goof in the instructions. You are directed to put the assemblies on the wrong way round, they don't fit on the sides shown, they fit the opposite sides, thus:


Anyway, a minor goof for Hobbyboss and it's fairly easy to work out. The suspension arms go together well and are very sturdy.







Once the side doors are done, shown above, the water propellers are next and very well moulded and go together very well, looking the part.





After that there were steps added beneath the side doors (the locating holes need a little drilling out with a 0.5mm drill bit to have the steps sit right) and some more pieces to the suspension.





So thats step one finished, hopefully I'll have more to add tomorrow.

All comments/suggestions etc are welcome.

KARL187

Karl,

Nice looking work so far! I've never picked up any Hobby Boss products. I'm thinking I might have to take a look into one!

Looks good indeed. When I think to the poor Trumpeter kit, HB is hundreds of miles ahead !

Beware of the molding lines on the suspensions springs.

Olivier

I hear that Olivier. looks like a good kit good luck with it.

@Oliver, Scott and Richard- thanks for looking.

@Oliver and Scott- The suspension springs you are both quite right about. However, there's a problem. With the first one I built I noticed the locating holes forced it out of alignment. I thought it might have been my error but they all went together the same way. The locating points are not quite right, the joins force them to mis-align. The solution would be to snip off the locating pins and just carefully glue each side together. Or, failing that, glue them together as normal and sand off the spring detail until its a smooth cynlinder, then wrap some thin gauge wire around them. However, I can't do that now as the rest of the suspension system is finished and it would be a nightmare trying to sand them down, plus I'm just looking for a simple build without too much hassle.

I'm hoping when the wheels are on the springs won't be too noticeable. Failing that a nice coating of mud might just do the trick!

Last night I got the lower hull finished, sorted the inner wheels and did a little clean-up on the upper hull.







As you can see the vinyl tyres are quite nice but they often don't take well to paint so in this build I'll be leaving them off until I paint the inner wheels and the model itself.





The locating holes in the rear door are for these tools, which I'll paint separately.



I just managed to get a bit done on the upper hull which was removing an excess gun-port. I find a sharp scalpel blade, a scriber and some good sanding sticks usually do the trick. I'll judge whether or not the clean-up was a success when I prime the model as that should show up any problems.



I just did the first of two windows on the front of the vehicle. There is, unfortunately, no clear sprue with this kit. However the window blocks are made of a thick acetate with a sticky plastic cover to save it from scratches. A bit of PVA glue, which goes clear when it dries, does the trick with clear parts. I'll probably be closing the windows up on this model though, so this part won't be visible in the end.



Thanks for looking.

KARL187

hey Karl nice biuld love the weld detail I have one waiting for me after some other builds might try raping the springs with wire thank for the tip
hope to have more pic of my ztz up later dave

Ouch! What did those springs ever do to you?

:)

Nice work so far Karl!

Thanks for looking guys.

On with the build!

Last night I started in earnest on the upper hull. First to go on were the two windows and later the six periscopes above them and the small hatch beneath.


Then came a shedload of tiny little bits on the rear of the upper hull.




To my eyes the small parts were attached to the sprue's with fairly thick attachment points, at least compared to some other recent kits. My last 1/35 project was Trumpy's T-62 and the small parts on it were attached to the sprue's with thinner points and therefore required less clean up. Anyway, its nothing a scalpel and some sanding can't fix.

At the front left there was a vision block and two steps.


As you can see, above, the location points for the steps are marked but not hollow. In order to get them so sit correctly I found it was necessary to drill a small hole with a 0.5mm drill bit. I didn't drill right through the plastic, but I created a small hole for the glue and step-ends to sit into.






Thats all for today folks!

KARL187

I didn't get too much done last night. Just got the exhaust and some small bits at the front and rear of the upper hull done.







Yes, that left window is smudged, some PVA glue got away from me! Usually I wouldn't be so careless and if I was fitting clear parts like that I'd wear some latex or nitrile gloves and/or mask them with tape.
However, I'm moulding the windows with the shields down so the smudge won't be visible once thats done.

Anyway, thats all for today.

KARL187

I've nearly got the upper hull finished. Its a fairly busy build, thats for sure, and I haven't started on the turret yet!



The PE headlight cages are very nicely rendered, and very easy to fold, I just held them with some tweezers and used my fingers, very simple.





There are now a few panels on the top, some still to go as you can see.





I always dislike these injection moulded cables- they can be quite fiddly to get to sit right and they can be brittle, making clean up difficult but this one went on very well.

Anyway, more tomorrow hopefully.

KARL187

I finally got the entire hull finished last night, with all the remaining detail added on the left side.



Both hull halves fit together very well and there was only a tiny gap left at the rear that a small run of PVA sorted.





The PE mesh screens for the engine grills are very nice, they slot down into the plastic pieces instead of just sitting awkwardly on top.

I got the first little piece of the turret sorted. Its very nicely rendered and by the looks of things will be quite a busy piece once finished.



I'm hoping to get the turret finished tonight and move on to the painting soon enough.

KARL187

So the build phase of this model is finished with the turret.
It looks small in comparison to the rest of the vehicle and it only takes up a small-ish sprue but it builds up quite quickly and looks good once done. The detail on the smoke grenade launchers is excellent and the gun housing and gun itself (a nice one piece mould) is also good.





The gun and its housing comprises three main sub-assemblies.



If you wish you can assemble the gun so it can move up and down with the co-axial machine gun. I don't believe that this option is mentioned in the instructions though and I ended up gluing the co-axial in place by mistake. Its a little fiddly to assemble the co-axial housing as the part that attaches the MG also attaches to the main gun and both have to be aligned in a certain way to make the housing sit right. (It probably sounds a lot more complicated than it actually is!)






The model is now ready for primer and paint.






KARL187

The model was primed with Tamiya Grey Surface Primer straight from the can.









KARL187

hey karl hope the info helped how are you going to do the tires i have found that with the vinal tiers that if you use a light grit sanding stick on them it helps with the weathing dave

Yeap, paint info was useful. Thanks Dave. I don't think I'll get a chance to start painting until Thursday.
I already sanded the tyres as there was a seam on the middle, and I had read in Finescale mag the wheels didn't agree with paint. I doubt I'll bother with them too much, probably dry brushing and pigments.

that sounds about right i do the some i will hit them with a light spray of buff from the airbrush to get a nice dust effect check out my lav-150 dave

I will, cheers Dave.

Hey guys!

I was away there for a couple of days so thats why there were no updates. I have managed to get the pioneer tools finished (see below) and got the first coat of Dark Yellow on the model itself. I'm planning to do a little shading later today and hopefully should have a few pics tomorrow.

Anyway, I don't like painting tools. (Does anybody?) They are fiddly to paint, sometimes not cast very well and damn is it hard to get them looking like they were made of wood and not mono-tone plastic!
There was a discussion on this forum a while ago (Painting section) about how to do wood grain on tools, boxes etc. I can't remember who posted the technique (the oil paint bit at least) I now use but I'm going to go through it below for the benefit of people who didn't read it or just fancy giving a different technique a try.

First, a decent base coat:


Then picking out the details. I find gunmetal gives a good scale appearance for the metal used on these tools.


Then a liberal coating of dark brown oil paint using a brush damnpened with thinner. Don't be afraid to lay it on thick, it takes a long time to dry (months for some brands!) and even left for 24-48 hours it can still be rubbed off with a finger.


Ok, so once the oil paint is on I leave it to dry for about 24 hours, a day really. Then I take a small brush, 5/0 or so, and dampen it with thinner before lightly rubbing away the thick oil paint coating going up and down the tool handles. Leaving some oil paint, not too thick, this should hopefully give a decent scale appearance for wood grain.


The tools in the picture above still haven't fully dried and there is a little sheen left from the oil paint but a couple more days and a light spray of matte varnish should see to that and then allow them to be handled and placed once the model is finished getting its paint.

Hope this helps and is of interest.

KARL187

Hey guys.
Unfortunately a day after I started on the green camouflage colors I took quite ill (that was last Friday) and I'm only gettting back on my feet now so thats why there has been a bit of a delay. However, I have got three new photos of the first coat of paint which is XF-60 all over. Once it was on and it covered everything I first thinned XF-60 with a little flat white and sprayed it on various areas, then I thinned another bit of XF-60 with some XF-59 and sprayed this on other areas just to give a little tonal variation. Much of it will be covered by the green so its not really necessary.







KARL187

Karl looking good nice paint can't wait to see the camo when it done
dave

Nice clean build, looking forward to the finishing.

cheers

FINALLY!
Every time I set out to paint something (especially something with more than one color) I get bogged down somewhere else. It took a while but I finally got the initial painting and fixing finished today. (Now its just the weathering etc, my favourite!)

I started out masking the model off (as the lines on the real thing looked like they were finished with a stencil of some sort) with blu-tack but it can be fiddly to work with at times. Then I thought of Silly Putty...but its only available in America...amazon via firebox.com to the rescue! I ended up with a tin of bright blue ‘thinking putty’- same stuff, made in the US just a different name.

Now I know why so many of you guys across the pond use it. Very easy to work with and shape and leaves no residue and comes off a treat once your done.
For the colors I had pondered what to use and had suggestions from a few guys on here. In the end I thought Vallejo Model Air Interior Green and Cam Green were good matches.












You might be wondering, those of you that have the kit or know where the Chinese markings are on the vehicle, why there is no number on the rear door.

PROBABLY THE WORST DECALS IN THE WORLD!

That should probably be the tagline here. I’m not sure what went wrong at the factory and if my decals are the only ones with the problem. Take a look for yourself and see if you can spot the problem:



Did you get it? If not, its probably the light- very tricky to get the angle right. Anyway, the carrier film is mis-aligned with the color parts of the decal, its off to the side of each one by a good millimetre or two.

Problem with this was each decal, one after the other, fell apart either on the paper or when I was positioning it with a brush. I’ve never had that many decals disintegrate before and I was using Micro Set and Sol.

Eventually I found that separating the decal from the paper while still in the water kept it from disintegrating immediately. I eventually got the two onto the sides and then the star on the rear and if you go right close to the model even these have some blemishes and tears.

I’m hoping the weathering will cover up most of the imperfections but I guess its just one of those things.

out standing Karl did you do the camo by hand or airbrush ??? thanks for the heads up on the decals can't wait to see this weathered
dave

I have to say I find this thread inspiring, I've been doing a similar camo on a ZBD 04 IFV from HobbyBoss.