Very minor progress today - even by my standards.

First up was the addition of more sound deadening, this time in the wheel-well sponsons.



That done, it was time to neaten up the gap at the top of the LHS tray wall:



The gap was filled via styrene. Once this firms up, I'll add the top of the tower, leaving room for the ROPS/weapon ring:



As always, thanks for looking in.

Received my 1/16 M4 carbines from Live Resin today. LHS:



RHS:



These are right out of the bag with no clean up. The quality is perfect. I'm not sure about some of the configurations of the ancillary devices though.

The idea of this set appears to be 'easy assembly'. Noting that there simply isn't the market for 1/16, this set is a 'one stop' set, as opposed to the Live Resin pick'n'mix, choose-your-own-adventure sets in 1/35. As such, the range of ancillaries in 1/16 is limited to what's moulded here or by other vendors such as airborne miniatures.

Considering all of the above, I'm a bi disappointed that two of the three carbines have the same sight on them (not helped by my deep dissatisfaction with ACOG sights in general). Some variety would've been nice (Elcan SU230 SpectreDR or EOTech HHS 1?).

The second quibble is that one weapon's RAS has rail covers fitted to all four rails. If, in the unlikely event you find other ancillaries, the rail covers would make installing them difficult.

Noting all of the above, this set is still recommended.

would the m-4's also limit the time frame you can use them in as well? the an/peq 15's would limit them to a certain timefame

Dead right, Matt.

In the Australian context, the LA-5/PEQ (aka the PEQ-5 - it's differs in capability compared to the PEQ-15, though it looks similar) did come pretty late compared to the PEQ-2. I'm building as if it's 2009, so the LA-5 suits for the M4, but I'll need a PEQ-2 for the 50 cal.

The M4s look pretty good. I think this Easy Set is just to test the waters... hopefully we'll see more from Live Resin in this scale. The modular concept of individually cast sights, target illuminators, grips, lights, should be very welcomed in 1/16 scale as well.

Mario

Threw together one of the M4 carbines without any clean up. Love the square alignment pegs for the fore end & the stocks - prevents any out-of-longitudinal-axis alignment.



Also included in my care pack from Live Resin was their beautiful 1/16 50 cal link:



Looking good Yaroslav!

Hey Mario,

I agree - the M4 look fantastic from a production quality point of view! There's never any question of that! I'm a little biased as I have a specific application for these weapons and, as provided, they don't quite fit. That's no one's fault by any stretch.

I've bought two sets but will probably get several more to support Yaroslav's foray into 1/16.

Thanks for looking.

Greg

Thanks Greg!
If sales no bad, we give big range of 1/16 in future

I was going to say I hope they expand the weapons range in 1/16 and make them modular like their 1/35 range.

Thanks for stopping by Yaroslav. I look forward to it.

Great service from your online shop too.

I'd love to see modern 50 cal ammunition boxes, Mk 19 & M240/MAG-58 in 1/16.

Happy to help with M3 Carl Gustaf references too.

Greg

AGREE!!!!

I hope they do weapons in 1/24 too

Not much to photograph this time: spent some time drawing up a 1/16 chassis alignment diagram, scaling the skins for the instrument panel backing and seat base mounting.

More to follow....

I decided to take a break from the tray to knock up the basic chassis.

First up was an alignment diagram:



After that, I cut up the lengths of the styrene for the double-stacked rear of the chassis:



More to come...

Time for a bit of glue for the rear chassis. Due to the geometry of the rear leaf spring hangers, I built the rear chassis inverted.

The rear leaf spring hangers were fabricated from lengths of 6.3 x 6.3mm square tube, cut at a 45 degree angle oriented toward the front of the vehicle.



Cross members are 3.2 x 3.2 mm square tube, 3.2 x 6.3 mm rectangular tubing and 3.2 x 4.8 mm rectangular stock.

The plan is to finish the basic rear chassis & commence the 'intermediate' chassis in the next session. The front is a little tricky, but should be okay.

More to follow...

More on the chassis today. Most of the basic frame of the rear of the chassis was roughed out, squared up & glued. Care was taken to dress one side of the assembly, with the excess on the far side being scheduled to be cut flush & cleaned up once the basic structure has set.

The 'intermediate' part of the chassis is next. This is a little trickier as the cross members along stretch are removable to provide access to the drivetrain & transmission. These cross members aren't the simple square or rectangular sections of the rear of the chassis. My way around this will be to use a surrogate cross member to ensure stability until I get to the more complex stuff done.



Still have to build the second layer of the intermediate chassis, but not bad progress, methinks.

More to follow...

Cleaned up the rear of the chassis for a test fit with the tray. There was a width clash with the battery stowage box, but nothing that couldn't be solved with the cutting wheel in a Dremel.....

So, side view with the tray fitted:



Looks legit. And from the rear...



Not bad. Some minor tweaks, notably on some of the width, but pretty good.

More to follow...

More chassis work today. Had to replace the forward-most cross member as I had used a 3.2 x 6.3 mm section, when it should've been 3.2 x 4.8 mm. My bad.

The odd ends were cut flush and cleaned up and the asymmetrical crossmember was cut to length (33 mm on LHS, 11 mm on RHS, FYI). The aft fuel tank supports were also added. These don't run across the whole chassis. Once all that was done, the lower-most (upper-most as assembled) longitudinal members were added using 4.8 mm square tube.



Apart from adding a radius to all the members, the basic rear chassis is complete. There is a lot of detail and structural work to come, especially the rear suspension, drivetrain and motorcycle stowage tray.

Thanks for looking.

More to follow...

Looking at the front of the chassis was a little puzzling. Whilst simpler than the SRV-SF chassis which is curved, the LRPV (common with all 6WD LR Perenties) has a series of parallel diagonal members.

My first attempt was a direct copy of the prototype. Looking at matching the angle of the diagonal of the forward chassis to the angle on the main chassis forced a rethink of that course of action. This was made from Evergreen 4.8 x 7.9 mm rectangular tubing.

The pic below shows attempt one at the top. The lower effort is the solution I went for. Having cut the chassis members over-length, I opted to cut the angled member of the forward along the lower edge so that the lower edge was flush.



This greatly simplifies to mating of the two sections and will add to the overall strength by reducing the cantilever effect.

The over length portions of the 'mid' chassis were cut to length & the positions for the forward chassis were marked. Once in position, these were cemented into place.





Pretty happy with this first step. It will require some consolidation to ensure rigidity, but the fit of the chassis on the tray is good for confidence.

Thanks for looking.

More to follow...

Only a quick one today: added the forward-most crossmember, replaced the lower longitudinal members with ones 2.5mm longer & added the forward fuel tank supports from 3.2 x 3.2 mm square tube:




Thanks for looking.

More to follow...

Tweaking the forward chassis for the minor job for the day. Like 3/4 of the chassis, the diagonals are box sections running in parallel. To add these, 32mm lengths of 4 mm wide styrene was used to create the outer diagonal. This was then boxed in on one side, filled with styrene sections cut to shape around the ends of the other parallel sections, then boxed in on the other side. Job done.



More to follow...

Almost missed the last chassis cross-member: it's removable, that's my excuse & I'm sticking to it.

This one was made from 4.8mm square tubing. Unlike the other cross members, this one has an overlap onto the longitudinal members. A 'L' shaped cut accommodated this overlap. 13.5 x 13.5 mm blanking plates were added, spanning the top & bottom longitudinal members, with the cross-member centred on the plate. Mounting flanges were added to surround the cross-member & Meng 1.4mm bolts were added to finish off the assembly.



Overall shot:



More to follow.....

More chassis stuff today, this time suspension related.

The suspension tower supports were fabricated from 0.75mm styrene sheet. The shapes will be refined once mounted.




Before adding the suspension tower supports, webs of 0.75mm styrene were added to the chassis itself:



Once they were firm, the suspension support towers were added. I'm looking forward to the front suspension & axle job.



Thanks for looking.

More to follow...

Not much photo-worthy today. The solid rectangular-section portions of the chassis had been made previously using evergreen rectangular rod. These lengths have sharp corners and are cut true. IRL, the chassis is fabricated from rectangular tube stock, with consistent radius' around the edges - not the sharp corners of the Evergreen product.

Cue a session removing the edges & de-burring using scalpels, files & sandpaper. Unexciting.

Once that was complete, I added the rear suspension's mounting points for the shock absorbers. These rectangular mounting plates were cut from Evergreen sheet, plotted, placed & cemented.



Thanks for looking.

More to follow...

It's slowly getting there... keep it up.

Mario