So, following on from my earlier post asking for help to model an OIF Stryker with its slat armour...and with the help and inspiration of Mother (the Armorama regular not my parent) I would like to present some in progress pics.

For those interested I am using .4mm x 2mm strip with 2mm spacing between slats. While my Mk1 eyeball suggests that this is not to scale this what my fingers, eyesight and skill can manage.

I am having a lot of trouble keeping the slats square even though I am using various jigs to cut and glue the slats. Thanks mother for the inspiration. if anyone has any ideas to combat the warping of the panels please post here. At the moment I am hoping that when I start mounting the panels to the hull I might be able to force them square but I have a bad feeling that i have a lot of cutting and regluing to do.

Anyway here are the progress pics. I started with the front and rear bits. I still need to add a heap of bolts to the front panel as well as the hinges for the panel in front of the winch.





Wow, when you take a close-up like this you can really see every fault. I can see that this rear panel will need a lot of rework.







The Trumpeter kit needs quite a bit of help to make it even reasonably accurate. At the rear I had to perform substantial surgery on the boxes (or whatever they are) on either side of the ramp and to add the prominent lip to the edges...I still have to add the lip to the bottom edges and sand the whole lot down a bit.

Finally, if anyone has has any pics of the mountings especially the ones at the rear please post here.

Zed

Two things.

MMI did a pictorial of the Stryker in the last 2 or 3 months (I get them late here in the states). There were a number of photos showing the newly delivered vehicles, plus a couple in OIF garb with the anti RPG "armor" skirt - still looks like alminum house framing to me.

I'm doing this from memory, but it seems like there weren't that many slats on the the skirts.

Have you tried using brass for the outside frame. I think you can get strips thin enought to "look in scale." It's a bit of a pain to handle, but it would give you more rigidity.

Wow Nick...it's taken shape and looking good. Your way ahead of me! Yes warping, well what I did for the few panels I made take a small paint brush, back side and run it along (lightly) the slats to square them up. I will work. Again great stuff and keep us updated. Ill look threw my photos to see what I have and email them to you.

Joe

Damn Nick, you and joe really have some patience! I'll wait for the aftermarket a little while longer in the hopes someone makes a kit for this! LOL as far as the warping and the liuttle faults go, I wouldnt really worry about it. I have been researching the Stryker a lot recently as Im getting ready to build one, and all the pictures I have seen of Strykers in theater with the slat armor all show the slat armor haveing some form of battle damage. Either bent, broken, missing bars, etc. I havent seen too many with perfectly squared off bars unless they were new. So, IMHO, I would say yours actually looks more realistic being a bit warped! great Job!

Gary

So I have made a bit more progress that I would like to share with you.

Firstly, I mounted the front slat array, mainly because I was getting frustrated with the way things were coming out. In my own mind it didn't look too bad so I kept on going. The front array has 4 mounting points, I will be adding the central 2 in the next stage.







So the other thing i did was complete the rear ramp array, which required a lot of studying of pictures to try to capture the shape of the mounting for the last panel. An hour and a half of sawing and cutting, then an hour of cutting and gluing the slats and voila!





Finally I glued the last panel into place and we have the complete rear ramp, except for the plate that runs along the left edge of the door.



So now onto the front quarter panels and the 'blast plates' and accuratizing the basic kit.

I will do the rear corner units last to hide any errors in length of the side panels resulting from my not very exact engineering attempts.

Oh, by the way, I just got the AMPS Boresight Stryker Special which I would like to recommend to everyone. Together with the images found on the web I reckon I will be able to work out just about every piece, its alignment and placement. Well worth the money.

Any way tell me what you think

jsut a note to ya, the slat on the rear that covers the fuel cells rotates to the outside so we can access the fuel cells during refuel

looks great

wow, now that's fantastic! Did you by any chance see Charles King's scratchbuilt Canadian LAV? It must take the patience of a saint to scratchbuild.

Wow! Looks great so far! Looking forward to seeing more!

Look Really Cool
Keep working And post more pictures
Seb

Wow! it's looking darn good.

just a thought, but to keep your framing square, try using brass for the outer edges and then fill with the styrene. Or use brass for the entire piece.

looking great so far.

damn nice job...but, the comparisons between the two available kit on the market tell me that your using the one that is a bit inferior when it comes to detail. So your effort is probably going to only add to the Trumpeter kit's look. IE: hide the details of the original body style. Keep up the wonderful great work your doing.

can't wait to see more "in-progress" pics of this really cool detail your adding.

Kglack

Thanks for your encouraging words.

Kevin, I would love to use brass but at the moment I don't have the equipment or guts to try fabricating and soldering the bits. I am however getting better at making the slat arrays and I am going over the bits that are causing me problems and either replacing the slats or adjusting and regluing them.

On the matter of the AFV club Stryker I have already placed an order with my LHS and will give it the same treatment, ie Slat armour, which given how much I am learning will probably end up looking much better.

I will try to post an update tonight with the final reworks of the front armour and the side blast plates.

Impressive work! Keep the updates coming. I want to get one of these, but I think I'll keep mine in the "factory" look without the slat armor.

You've got a beauty of a build going, can't wait to see it finished.

OK, another little update. I have just made the right side blast plate and the top of the left side front corner slat panel. Just when i think I am getting better at making the panels I take a close up pic of the finished product and all the little faults come out and stare back at me accusingly. I am just learning to let go and just worry about the big picture.

Speaking of which, here is the only pic i uploaded (as I really did not want to show my warts and all close ups).



Initially I scored the panel lines according to the lines on the Trumpeter hull based on my misinterpretation of a reference picture. Now after filling in the incorrect panel lines, I am poring over other reference pics to figure out exactly where these have to go.

I am also preparing the right side of the hull to take the blast panel which I should mount over the weekend,. Then I will get on to making the slat panels and mounts for that side.

I have also thinned out the kit supplied side bins for a more scale appearance but this hasn't worked out as well as I thought. The area between the lightening hole and the top edge tends to become thinner than the area adjacent to it and now I have to figure out a way to remedy that as well.

Any advice on a quick way to fix this without having to scratch build a new bin would be appreciated.

Anyway, I will try to get the right side squared away over the weekend and hope to post something next week.

I am also considering publishing the measurements and scale plans here if anyone is interested and if I actually complete this project. Tell me what you think.

Nick

I am not familiar with all the blast plates or the exact links or braces of this build but what I can say is that I like what I see. You have taken a very tedious undertaking and turned it into child's play. That's the way I see it. I for one cannot wait to see the finished model as it it going to blow my mind.
I am in no way, will ever attempt such a feat, even if they came out already made. Simply because I know everyone will be putting one on their model. But eh, that's just me. Always gotta be different,.

Once again. Excellent job mate

Ok, I did not get as much done this weekend as I had hoped but here it is.

First, have a look at the chaos of plastic sheet,strip, rod, sprue, kit parts, glue and tools that now reside on my desk. I brought a stack of work home but none of it got done. Does this therefore mean I have an unhealthy obsession?



Now onto the progress pics. Firstly take a look at my front corner panels which have given me the $%!7$ during the weekend. After studying the panels in photos I whipped them into shape in record time and then....I partially disassembled the right side panel because I thought I had made two left side panels. I must have been delirious as I was looking at the two panels side by side and seeing them with the angled end on the same side I freaked out and started 'fixing' my error without double checking my references. A half hour later I tried test fitting the 'fixed' panel and realised my mistake. I could have screamed. To make matters worse the right side panel was about 2 mm higher than the right edge of the front panel, so an hour of cutting, gluing sanding latter I got something that was not too far off.



Next I added the two 'steps' for the driver on the front panel, the wire loop one on the bottom and the steel rod one on the central tube.



The next things were the left and right blast panels which I mounted with 2mm long plastic rods and 2mm channel lengths. I am not sure whether what I have done is accurate but in the absence of detailed references I took a deep breath and just did it as without the blast plates you cant mount the side panels.

So here they are.







Here I scratched the tow bar mount ( I presume that is what it is) that Trumpeter provide as a flat disk with a couple of bumps.





I had mounted the side bin on the left side and then tried to put a water can in there as I have seen in my reference pics and realised that the kit supplied bins are about have a s wide as they should be. So I carefully ripped it of, leaving a substantial scar on my bast plate, and added a 2mm wide strip of .4mm plastic on the bottom and sides. I have not checked yet whether the bins feature the correct number of holes but hope I do not have to make them up from scratch. The next thing will be to add the tie down strips to the side bins. I am going to try using fine wire that came with a Fruilmadel track set.



I also cut out the section of the bottom of the side bins that covers one of the hatches on the left side.

The final thing was to thin the tie down strip that is mounted along the bottom of both blast panels. Here is a pic showing the difference between a thinned section and the original kit part. I used a square needle file while holding the part straight against a steel ruler.



Anyway, thats all for now. Sorry that I was so wordy, but I had to vent after the frustrations of the weekend.

Next I will be mounting the two most forward of the side panels and the front corner panels and adding the tie down strips.

Cheers.

Nick

I just went into your link to view the pics. Apparently I had not done so before. I must say you are doing a fine job. This is going to be a knock build. Doing something tediously impossible. Damn fine job.

Hi

Kudos on the work you have done so far. I the WIP shots are of great use too.

Keep up the good work.

Tom

The obsession continues.....

Tonight I made the forward side panel and its mountings without bolts and other details. making the panel was a pretty simple matter with all the practice I have had. Here the corner panel and the new side panel are butted against each other to ensure they are of equal height. Which they were. Hurrah!



Then I stood them up against the hull where they were mounted and measured the length of the mounting rods which I guessed to be about 13.5 mm. I then made up the lower mount (two were required I noted afterwards) and the upper mount which connects to the front upper corner of the side panel. Then I broke into a sweat as I committed the parts to glue and with a bit of adjustment here and there, and with the help of my swiss army knife, I got the panels to sit relatively well.

I noticed that the front panel is not quite vertical and i had to put a bit of pressure on it to ensure the other panels were aligned properly.

So here is what we have now:









As I feared the slat array is going to end up taller than it should be. I expect the separation between the individual slats needs to be around 1.8mm rather than 2mm. I guess I will try that when I build the AFV Club version of the Stryker.

Anyway, it looks like a Stryker and its still fun and exciting...so I will continue on.

Cheers

Nick

Just after my last post I realised that my work on the slat armour was terminally flawed as the side panels were going to end up substantailly higher than the roof of the Stryker. So I was so depressed I gave up on the project.....for a few days. My AFV Stryker is not going to be here for a few weeks so I decided I would redo my work on the Trumpeter one.

So today I clipped off the panels I had made to date, and I will keep them cause even though they are flawed they look cool.

So the new panels are going to be made from .25mm thick x 2mm wide plastic strip, with a seperation of 1.5mm between the slats.

So below is the jig that I made up to make the side panels.



This is the first panel made using the new specifications.



Not bad if I must say so myself.

And here is a comparison between the old and new panels. It is not a great pic but hopefully it will give you an idea.



Anyway, with a bit of work I might get the side panels finished and mounted tomorrow.

Nick

Nick it's really coming along great, really is. Don't give up like I did, your came so far and I was really looking forward to seeing this go all the way. I think you did well with what little reference and photos of it's blast plates and mounting points. Keep us posted Nick

Joe

Thanks for the encouragement, mate. I will continue this project, probably only because it gives me an excuse to post on this great web site and be in touch with some great guys around the world.

My problems with this build stems from my poor preparation and planning. So let that be a warning to you all. Spend a bit more time getting organised in the beginning and you will have less grief during the execution.

Nick

Heck I still make mistakes, some big ones to. I've build and painted some nice kits only to place decals upside down, weapons backwards or even glued parts on wrong It's all apart of learning.

Joe

Nick, once again you continue to amaze me with this project. excellent job allround so far. You're a real inspiration to me.

Hey Nick

Great work so far I think. I must say I like your bird cage on the side better then the front. But that might be an illusion. Maybe it is gone when paint is on your model. I just think some bars are a bit bend so..... But your work improves I see

cheers