Thanks Gary you’re too kind - in MiniArt’s defense I’m still a big fan of their (WW2) products though, this kit’s issues have taken me very much by surprise because it’s very unusual in my experience so I’d urge you to reconsider not trying them. However, having said that I’m about to slap them around again...

As the most recent photos above showed I gave the ammo my best er shot - not perfect but it’s the best I could do against extreme Resistentialism…that’s “the innate malevolence of inanimate objects” …so it wasn’t your imagination either. The Quad assembly got 3 different greens - the ammo box shade is possibly closer to a Russian military green, the maxim jackets got their own hue and the podium yet another, the implication being that each of those items came to the truck at different times.

And so to the final instruction, Step 88:



…and that’s the designer’s other finger right there – no hosing was supplied in the box. Thanks again druzi! Had MiniArt done so the hoses could/should have been pre-moulded in the same polythene plastic as the ammo belts should have been made of. They might also be made of some totally limp material so they just hang & coil flat, as long as it was also tubular & paint-able. Bare wire e.g. solder is malleable enough but bending it into an arrangement that doesn’t defy gravity somewhere isn’t so easy – and how to securely cement such relatively heavy, rigid sculptures to the tiny plastic faucets/taps masquerading as fixing points?

After trialing various types of thread thickly coated in pva/Elmers, then acrylic paint – all failures – I settled for electrical wire light enough but with sufficient bend-memory (with the copper still inside) to do the job. Unsure if the “rubber” should be semi-gloss or flat black…?







Time to pull it all together - there’s a logical sequence to final assembly usually dictated by the necessity to paint, and the constant question “Do I really need to glue this yet?” because it’s just asking for trouble otherwise. The following sequence back-tracks to the pre-painted Quad, items still dry-fitted include podium, cargo tray & side-boards, driver, cab roof/back, doors…maybe the list of glued items is shorter











I fluked the tray floor, a welcome relief because I’ve always, always struggled to paint bare wood convincingly & whenever I get close, it slides away from nearly looking like wood to just being a mess of browns - so I ain’t touching it…





Last chance regarding the truck’s colour - I’ve been in 3 minds about it but after all the building hassles I’m looking for an easier life so disinclined to change the current colour, despite discussion earlier in this thread. And also because (a) there is no definitive Russian green anyway (b) as a tired 3 year-old vehicle this one’s probably had successive winter/summer camo over-paints, so by the time I’ve finished ageing/weathering it nobody’s going to be able to put a name to the shade (c) the 2- or 3-tone camo scheme idea sorely tempts me but I’m not sure I could pull it off well enough & I’ve invested way too much time in this kit already to take unnecessary risks…as Clint said, a man’s gotta know his limitations



Cab roof/back was slightly deranged (my fault) requiring revisions before fixing to the chassis. Then came the inevitable showdown with the wheels/suspension…sure enough I hadn’t got the rear axles perfectly level, meaning the front wheels were going to be at least 4mm off the ground…



Using blu-tac to hold the fronts in place for a couple of minutes I doused the rear axle attachment-points with cyano and gave it some heavy freight (there’s another sponsorship opportunity gone begging) to dry solid overnight…



Neat huh? Well I thought so until I came back the next day to find the freight hadn’t been exactly balanced in the sweet-spot over the axles (surely the result of a localised earth tremor after I left the room), because a fresh trial positioning of the fronts showed they’d be – you guessed it – still at least 2mm off the ground… er on the right side, and about 3mm on the left. I blazed new frontiers in profanity for some time grappling with that snafu, and the compounding problem of the hopelessly tenuous fixing points of the wheel hubs to the axle. And then miraculously I got a clear image in my mind from somewhere (it was nowhere near my actual train of thought…which had been derailed by another bigass block of Resistentialism ) and it looked something like this:



With one wheel cyano’d to the wire axle I could feed it through the geometry, perfectly hidden behind the “real” front axle, so all I had to do was re-weight the rear axles to make sure all those wheels stayed flat to the ground, glue the other wheel to the wire in situ, and with both fronts now resting on the ground cyano the wire to the back-side of the axle…



…and when dry…



Driver seems happy with it…maybe the fender needs tweaking…maybe not. Anyway that solution not only ironed out my various constructional defects in the suspension, but it should also ensure that the front wheels don’t fall off whenever a light breeze wafts across Antarctica.

Just 3 items left to glue: the cargo tray - not until its under-side/chassis/rear axles & wheels are muddied; the podium onto the tray – not until I’ve recruited a crew that fits in the limited space; and the passenger door – it wedges shut, which keeps my options open for the dio.

Next time: Q.E.D.

Hi Tim,
Nice work on the Quad! That’s a very crafty solution for the front end, and you really nailed that wood floor. ... Pun intended!


Wow! The hoses look great! However, I wish I'd thought to mention this product earlier — here it is anyway for future reference:
’UTC Ultra Wire.’ This stuff holds shapely curves and coils with ease, and it’s great for sharp grab-handle bends as well. I was able to find the wire available in several sizes and colours on Amazon.

Cheers!
—mike🍺

Thanks Mike, & yes of course that UTC wire’s the ideal product - I’d completely forgotten about it & you only posted that reminder a couple of months ago. Wish I could remember where I put my memory. Hey just noticed how you spelt “colo*rs”… u do surprise me!

OK lurkers, nearly done.

Decals provide for 6 vehicle options – at first glance they forgot to supply a front number plate (or six), but image research of WW2 soviet trucks shows they didn’t seem to bother much with plates at all. That aside, the decals are on glossy carrier film because…?!?...so, nil points for the decal set. I considered painting them in myself (always a last resort) but dodged that by applying a dilute wash of vehicle colour over each decal when dry, which not only took the shine off them but also faded them into the paintwork - doesn’t always work but it did this time, just…



Weathering comprised black/brown washes, diy mud and touches of pastel dust – evidently this truck had to ford a stream just to get out of the maintenance shop. I’ll continue modifying/reducing the mud-splashes in places & generally ageing it even more for an obsolete 3 y.o. that had covered thousands of miles.

So this is what you get for an oob build, take a walk around – just don’t kick the t*res…















What wasn’t in the box;

1)Replacement windows
2)Front-axle wire reinforcement
3)Replacement driver’s mirror wire support rod – I kept snapping off the plastic one.
4)Various delicate tubes/rods replacements – pre-damaged on the sprue or by me.
5)Driver
6)Maxim hoses

What should have been in the box;

1)Rolled-up tarp - the Quad would surely have needed a cover to prevent rain/dust getting to the guns, and possibly the crew if on deck in transit.

2)Crew baggage, bucket/water can for the water-cooling system - I’d think the compartments above the ammo store would have been all taken up with kit to service the guns.

3)Spent cartridge bags. At around 550 rounds per minute, just one 5 second burst would result in around 200 hundred shells falling all over the tray floor. Imagine trying to swivel that mother onto a moving target, stepping round in harness with all those underfoot. Impossible…and hilarious, so I’m guessing they slung sacks under each gun.

Surveying the various un-used parts (other than duplicates) which weren’t greyed-out in the sprues diagram as denoting they’re for other versions of the truck - yet not called for in the instructions either - I’m particularly curious about parts F21 & 22 which look like rolled-up cloth shades for the side-windows, except they’re at least 5mm too short – strange. Also I forgot (as they certainly did in the instructions) about actually installing the 2 spare wheels under the tray, until it was nearly too late. Gluing the tray to the chassis was in fact the final step in my build-logic; for reasons stated earlier the Quad stays in protective custody for now.

And finally, a voucher for a free Modellers’ Re-hab course on Daydream Island (tropical Queensland) in the bottom of the box would have been nice...I sure need a break. It took over 120 hours to complete - maybe I’m a slow worker but as a comparison I don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 80 hours on one kit, about 40 is my average for a vehicle. Probably over 50% of the parts needed cyano rather than poly cement - I used over 3 mls on it which might not sound a lot but it actually is for something this size.

Summary: I love this kit. I hate this kit. Will that do?

OK, it incorporates exceptional care and attention to detail with inexplicable vagueness, unnecessary fragility and various assembly-order problems. But I can appreciate how much time & effort it must have taken to design/produce this kit, when they’re on their game the MiniArt designers are superb. Yeah alright I love it.

Thanks for watching, let’s just see if it runs…



Commissar’s not happy either about how long all this took…



Diorama forum’s over that hill so haul ass comrade…

Time, you did a great job. Of course there will be some issues with any kit. You jumped those hurdles very well. Be proud of your creation.

Thanks Jacques I can’t say there’s pride in it (because we all know what that comes before) but I appreciate the sentiment. It was a mixture of relief I didn’t abandon & that I think I did the kit justice - also contentment that if anyone finds this thread who’s thinking of tackling it, my notes should save them a lot of the pain/frustration, hopefully to make it look better than I did.

Hi Tim,

It's looking so good, well done mate!

Cheers,

Maher

Fantastic work!
Must had been fun for the soviet gunner to mount on that quad maxim, with many protection what so ever.

Dear Tim,

Thanks for sharing your struggle to complete this complex model!
It looks great.
Some questions remain:
Why such a long water hose? To add cooling surface?
What is the use of the hand wheel on the right side of the loading area?

Looking forward to see your next Miniart build!

P

Thanks guys, much appreciated. In response;
Yes it’s a desperate attempt at AA cover which wouldn’t have been out of place 25 years previously i.e. WW1. Perhaps the truck carried a huge camouflaged tarpaulin leaving just the Quad exposed? ...I haven’t seen any photos to prove it though.

I may be wrong but I assume there’s a basic (hand?) pump inside the water tank that’s inside the podium, and that the water (which has circulated around the gun jackets to take away the heat) gets to cool down during its journey through the coiled down-hose before returning to the tank and back to the guns via the up-hose…I don’t think gravity alone or a siphon effect would have worked. In the summer I can’t see they’d lose enough heat though…maybe they only chose to fight if they could park beside a convenient river or lake

I was hoping nobody would ask about the wheel thingie - stuffed if I know, it’s not linked to anything in the kit but maybe it was connected underneath to a frame-linkage which deployed all 3 side-boards simultaneously, to give the shooter & crew more space to move around…and practice soccer kicking all the spent shells off the platform. Except by the time a guy had crawled over to do that, I’d think a passing jabo would have made them all severely perforated

As discussed above...