Hello everyone. Continuing with the LAV vehicles I'm building I started an uparmored LAV in addition to the ASLAV-25 I am currently building. From what I have been told, Trumpeter's rendition of the LAV-A2 is actually an uparmored LAV-25 or what someone has called an A1, which I'm not sure is the correct designation. I plan on correcting these issues to the best of my abilities by using Blast's LAV-A2 upgrade as well as their weight wheels.

In addition to this, I am still undecided as to how I want to paint the vehicle, so I have been looking through a plethora of images and here is what I have come up with. I will be adding a bunch of stowage as well as a few items seen on these vehicles. So in all likely hood, I will paint it monotone and go from there.
And I know these are mixed photos showing an A2 and non A2's but I just wanted to put it out there to give an idea of the stowage on the vehicle





So without further adieu, here are some progress shots.

I knocked out the suspension pretty quickly and just placed on the AM wheels to ensure that they were all in alignment.



HUGE NOTE: when building the ASLAV-25 and the LAV-A2, Trumpeter uses the same lower hull. The second row of turning road wheel struts are allowed to insert much further than the front turning wheel struts. This will create a non level alignment

I finally caught this while I was building the LAV and was able to correct it, unlike on my ASLAV, which I will correct with terrain.

Also, I looked at the antislip coating on the hull and was dissatisfied by it so I masked off the appropriate areas and with Rustoleum's Terra Cotta and went to work.


Here is the before:


and here is the after:


And lastly here is the mock up with the electronic bundle on the side




So thanks for looking and if there are any other suggestions from anyone, please let them be known!

Happy holidays everyone and until the next time.

Sean

LAV-25A1 is a designation you can find in official papers :
http://contracting.tacom.army.mil/confls%5Csol%5CW56HZV10R0530%5Cattach_exhib%5Cattachment6.pdf

According to, hum, Wikipedia :
"The vehicle has been through many changes through the late 1990s. The new modification or SLEP has changed the LAV-25 to the LAV-25A1 standard and has been completely fielded"

Good luck with your project Sean.

Frenchy

The correct designation for the vehicle you are building is the LAV 25A2. If you would like additional info feel free to PM me and I can send you a few more pics of the 25A2 and other variants. The 3 pictures you have posted are all A2 configuration as well.

Finally some progress after a long hiatus from building
Here is the final list of AM products I will be using:
Voyager LAV-A2 Basic
Voyager LAV Blast Shields
Voyager ECM Antenna
Voyager LAV Weapons
Blast LAV-A2 Wheels
Blast LAV-A2 Upgrade Set
Lots of Evergreen sheet stock and plastic

So picking up where I left off, I began by using Mission Model's Micro Chisel to take off many of the surface details that will be replaced by Voyager's PE sets. Specifically, I removed the racks on the sides and the frontal armor plates, which were a hassle.

Upon further inspection of Voyager's LAV-A2 it seems as if they got the sights correct so I can go on making this into a LAV-A2. Also, to make it a true LAV-A2 I filled in the vision ports on the rear right and left sides of the vehicle with sheet styrene and Tamiya putty sanded smooth.

A few other modifications have to be made to the hull before I start fitting the aftermarket parts to the hull, but for now here are progress shots.







Tomorrow I will be able add the first of the Voyager parts and take it from there.

Hi there nice work there I am wondering if the Voyger upgrade includes the resin tires.
cheers cuny12.

Hi Sean
Looks good.
I want to know is how do non-slip floor? Surfacer 500?

blackwater

The wheels are Blast's LAV-A2 wheels

The anti-slip was doing using Rustoleum Terra Cotta spray paint directly out of the can.

Thanks

I finally was able to get some time to work on the LAV and it's been great to say the least.
:[]-- Forgive me a bit as I go off topic here, but I feel as if I was able to do my best work this far just by taking a step back and remembering that I am doing this for fun. With that, all the pieces just melted together and I'll show the result in the pictures below.

So onto the update

So I was a little bit uneasy with what I did to fill in the side vision ports so I gave it another layer of Tamiya Putty and sanded it down. Also, there were holes that had to be filled because the exhaust cover was not going to be used for this vehicle. Also since the kit's only option has you using the exhaust shroud, there was a line missing in one of the armored panel sections. This was solved by simply taking a saw and starting it where the small section was just running it straight up and you get a great looking straight line.

Voyager PE is getting better and better and this set goes together like a dream. With a combination of diluted gator glue, and thin super glue poured into an old Tamiya Liquid cement bottle, I was able to assemble the 21 part rack pretty quickly.

The resin parts are from Blast's LAV-A2 set and are amazing with all of their detail, but the fit is a bit tricky as the exhaust pipe interferes with the armored cover that you have to add. With reference photos and doing this over 4 times I finally got it right and have the majority of the right side finished.








Please note the electronics box is just taped in place.

So the next time I'll be tackling the left side of the vehicle and then the front as well before I add the small details that could easily fall off. If anyone has any comments, criticisms, or questions, feel free to voice them.

Thanks for reading and looking!

Sean

Looks good, makes me also wanna build one, do you have any idea from which date these up-armored LAV's appears?
The first LAV's in 2003 didn't have this but it adds a lot of caracter to the LAV.
The anti-slip is tightly done, I've seen Gino do it before, does it look 'in scale' as is or do you have to sand it down a bit?

Nice build, cheers Rick

Sean aka Sir build a lot Nice work so far I'm looking to see how good those Blast Photo etch shields are made up. Is that an MRE box right behind the last wheel on the first photo?

You mean "Sir build a lot and can't stay focused enough to finish" .

Finally my skills have gotten to the point where I am confident enough to continue work on it. I won't START (key word start, but I may continue work on other in progress builds ) anything else until I finish building this one. Yah that is an MRE box behind the left wheel and I will be including that.

The anit-slip is perfect for the scale so there is no sanding required, just careful masking. I wouldn't be able to tell you the exact date it appears but I believe the photos I posted are from 2007 or 2008. I'll check on that if you're interested but I'm sure others can shine more light on this subject.

Thanks for the answer, it really looks the part, I was afraid if it needed sanding down you would loose some details, but I'll give at go.


Cheers Rick

Here is another small update:

I just added another rack to the left side of the vehicle and started to mock up the turret so i could see what parts needed to be removed and replaced with AM parts. I couldn't resist putting the legend figure in the turret to check the size of the figure relative to the whole vehicle. For painting purposes, he looks like a trojan for the time being but that will all go away as I near the painting stage.





Thats all for now, hopefully more soon!

I finally got some free time to work on things and got a small update.

My main goal was to finish the main gun on the turret by incorporating Voyager and Blast models pieces together. Overall, I feel like their parts enhanced the overall kit dramatically for only a few dollars. I'll add the smoke dischargers a bit later towards the end of the build so they don't fall off.

Anyways here are photos. Enjoy and please offer any suggestions or criticism.

Just about to start my first LAV-25 and this helps a lot, I think the greatest compliment for a modeller is when it is motivating other modellers to start their model and yours does that.
You cleary having fun with the build!

That barrel is spot on, I got to get me one of those, very nice.

Cheers Rick

Great progress so far Sean, may I suggest some liquid putty flowed into the joints around the transition point @ the dust cover.

Non-skid came out nice, I remember what a chore it is to mask it all out.

Ryan

Thanks a lot! My work is nothing specical compared to others out here like Ryan (just below your post). Best of luck and please post your progress!

Ryan,

Thanks for the suggestion. That would work really well. I'll probably use MiG Productions thinner liquid masking solution for that when I work on it a bit later today or tomorrow.

Also, I'm not sure if I'll keep the vision blocks or if I'll be replacing them with the voyager PE ones. Not because there are so many but simply because I don't have AFV clubs coating for vision blocks. I'll prob just do it

Thanks again for your suggestion!

Just a quick update for today. I didn't have much time to spare but I was able to get the last side rail rack on the LAV today as well as the Chameleon ECM antenna. The ECM antenna was the most challenging part with A LOT of tiny parts. I was going to solder this but I decided that mixing resin and PE would be the best route to give it an authentic look. I wont have time to work on it for the next few days but the next steps are to install the front rail racks and then move on to the turret blast shields.

I also took Ryan's advice and used 502 Abteilung Liquid Mask to start to fill some voids on the canvas cover on the gun.

Anywho, here are some photos so enjoy and as always feel free to comment and offer up some advice

Sean





As always, thanks for looking!

Sean,

That antenna array really looks nice, infact the whole build to date is nice and clean!

Are your wheels glued on yet?

Ryan

Thanks Ryan, coming from you I really appreciate it. The wheels won't be glued on until the last moment because I will hand paint some aspects of them like bolts and such to give it some variation. That will also make it much easier for me to weather the vehicle and add that odd MRE box near the propeller

Ahh, OK understood.

I haven't built a large wheeled vehical such as this. Typically my warped need to have everything true and level would outway the painting/ weathering problems (that you so rightly point out) associated with sticking the whole thing together and then painting.

Ryan