Thanks a lot Bill! Unfortunately my job slowed me down recently, but I managed to do this little update:

I went on with the work on the fenders. I worked on the mufflerarea brackets, and they need a lot of work to make them look like stampings, and not like castings, that they in fact are. Here are two photos - "after" on the left, "before" or OOB parts on the right:

Once the parts were thinned down, I painted the parts that will become unreachable with my custom rusty mix of black, brown and gun metal, then I glued the muffler in place. On top of the muffler and the muffler shroud there is a tool tray. I took this tray from my old model, it's a modified Eduard PE part. This part is a little wider than the kit part, so it's very important to test fit the complete fender to the hull to watch for fit problems - I discovered mine soon enough, the tool tray hd to be moved outside a bit, to avoid it from conflicting with the engine cover hinges. Here's how the first muffler looks like now:

And that would be about it for now - thanks for reading, have a nice day

Paweł

Moving along nicely....love the rusty mix...I will have to put that on the shelf!!

Rounds Complete!!

Mike - thanks for your comment! The rusty mix is easy - just take some gun metal/steel and mix it with nice red/brown, that mix being applied over fresh black paint.

And now I'm movin' on with the build. For one, I also did the muffler on the other side of the Duster:

The tool tray also comes from the Eduard PE set and was "transplanted" from my old model.

Then I started looking at the ammo box tops. OOB they looked like this:

I knew I could make much better latches/bolts than those molded on by AFV Club, so I went on and fabricated those:

Much nicer, huh? I also substituted a PE part for the kit part in front of the ammo boxes, this looks a lot better, too, but there's a slight difference in size between the kit and the PE part, you also need to sand some molded-on detail from the front ammo box support in order to pull this one off.

So that'd be it for now, I hope for another update soon - thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

Molded on latches despite the fact this kit is a recent release.  When will the manufacturers get it that we don't like molded on latches, tools, cables, etc?  

Your work replacing those molded on looks GREAT!!!  

Molded on latches despite the fact this kit is a recent release!?!?!?  When will the manufacturers get it that we don't like molded on latches, tools, cables, etc?  

Your work replacing those molded on looks GREAT!!!  

Yah ! What Andy saided !!!

Love the pics!! Awesome looking.

I'll be honest though after reviewing the instructions at Hobby Search website, that fighting compartment scares me with how crammed full of stuff it is.

Now if I could find my Man Up pills I might buy it.

Scott

Thanks for the comments, friends!

Andy, Carl - thanks for your kind words! There's always this dillema for the model kit manufacturer - what's with details that cannot be acurately molded - leave tham out or put SOMETHING there? Option 2 usually wins, and then there's a lot of shaving to do - that's where a sharp blade and good electronics side cutters come very handy.

Scott - thanks a lot. Yeah, that twin gun mount is tricky. Man Up pills? I tried to scratchbuild this mount before, and almost had it done by the time the AFV Club kit went out (see here), so now I'm not afraid. I even know a few details AFV Club left out!

Now I'm movin' on with the hull - I added the various chains to the engine deck:

Of course you could buy them photoetched, but I chose do do them myself. It's easy, too - just take two pieces of soft wire, twist them tightly together and then lay on a hard surface and tap with a small hammer, or like in this case - with a screwdriver handle. Done!

I also added two details on the rear armor plate:

Those two wwhite chunks above the final drive housings are track deflectors, meant to prevent thrown track from snagging the hull edges. By the way, on this photo the towing shackle mounts are corrected - I noticed the error in the instructions late (still glad I managed this BEFORE painting )

Then I went on with the right fender:

Here I also replaced the latches, I also drilled out the holes on the padlock tabs (between the latches) - I also did that on the left side. I shaved the tow rope hooks and cleaning rod mounts and replaced them with PE taken from my old model. You have to watch those tow rope hooks - Eduard designed them to be "square" where infact they should be U-shaped, you can correct that easily.

The lower compartment doors all have different width, and the instructions have an error here too - as you can see the Part O33 is called out two times. You actually are supposed to put the part O31 on the rearmost compartment and part O33 on the front compartment.

To close the hull finally, I have to take care of the interior, and this means putting the driver there - later the acces will be to poor. So I built the "handlebar" and the driver currently looks like this:

I still have to build some kind of seat to put him on, but, as said - I try hard to keep it simple.

And that would be it for now - thanks for reading, best greetings to all and have a nice day

Paweł

Coming along nicely Pawel, neat little trick for the chains!

Pawel

 

 

 

 

Ok, got to say it the look on this guy's face is pure EVIL!

All I can think of when I look at it is the guy is saying "Get Some!!"

So I would leave him just that way.

Scott

Thanks a lot!

Bill - the cool thing is I learned this trick here on the forums!

Scott - of course the man stays! Evil -don't know about that, but "Get some" - all of the Duster crew just had to be that way!

Best greetings and have a nice day

Paweł

And I'm movin on. I decided I have to concentrate on closing up the hull to be able to move on on other areas of the model. As the driver is almost ready, now it's time to get him some rudimentary "office". First I buit something like a driver's seat:

Now if I really wanted to go to town here, I would have to add the backrest and the levers controlling the seat's vertical and horizontal movement, but it won't really be visible anyhow, so I passed on those details. Then I added the driver, that also is supported on the handlebar:

I added some red pigment, so the insides are not so terribly clean. After test-fitting the top and front armor plates I decided the "office" is still not busy enough, so I decided to scratch-build an instrument panel. Here's what it looks like fitted to the front armor:

That was starting to look OK, so I finally closed the hull up. The view through the driver's hatch now looks like this:

While the glue dried I examined the plans some more and found out I have to work on the rear tow shackle mounts for the third time - the way it looks like, not only the instructions, but also the official errata have an error - the mounts are supposed to point to the rear, not down, like the errata shows. By the way I also put the towing hook on, and now the rear armor looks like that:

And that would be it for this weekend - thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

OUTSTANDING BUILD Pawel great Detail work

Clay

Thanks a lot, Clay!

Nice work on the office Pawel...as soon as the driver gets his head on straight you'll be able to steer it toward the finish line! Good progress on the other details as well.

Thanks a lot Bill! Of course I left the driver's head off to facilitate the painting... I don't have to work thursday to sunday, so I hope to get a few things done on this model. Best greetings

Paweł

                     Great looking build so far Pawel,I believe it was a Duster that I took some photos of at a roadside memorial. Check out the "Local Finds " thread its on page 2 now.

                                               Greg"Detailfreak"Rowley

Coming along very well

Greg - thanks for your commant and your kind words. And thanks for sharing - I found that tread, it will help me a lot.

Carl - thanks a lot, but you should see this:

First I worked on a relatively minor detail - AFV Club kit has this nice feature, it shows the spent bras chute that leads the spent cases under the vehicle - the old Tamiya kit omitted this altogether. But the AFV Club kit mises the "slip ring assembly", as the TM calls it - it's a mechanism to provide eletric power to the turret - to traverse and elevate the guns, and to power the computing sight. I started to build this part by cutting a portion of a plastic clothes hanger, then heating, bending and flattening it - that reduced the amount of subsequent filing needed to get the correct shape. After I was done, the part looked like this:

Then I put this part in the chute, using a jig made of styrene sheet, to make sure it is coaxial with the turret. Then I painted the chute white:

But the best thing I managed to do this time, was to realy put some work on the hull. I put the outfitted fenders on the hull, which allowed me to add lots of details, like the fender braces, air cleanersand stuff. The photos below show how complete my hull now is:

The next photo shows the machine gun ammo "corner" made out of sheet metal, fender brace and a photoetched water can holder:

On the photo below you can see another MG ammo "corner", also made out of sheet metal and the corrected T-handle for the fire extinguisher (inside the protective mount, near the turret ring):

Above you can see one of the air cleaner with the complicated ducts connecting it to the vehicle and also the APU's exhaust pipe and muffler. There is a kind of a shroud, where the exhaust pipe enters the hull, but at the point in time when this photo was taken, this part wasn't installed yet. Below is a photo of the old Tamiya air cleaners - to hold you from attempting to build the Tamiya kit . Lots of progres happened in the last 30 years!

So currently I declare the hull to be temporarily completed. I plan to build up the gun mount next, then to paint everything, and then to add the stowage and crew. But for now I would like to thank you all for reading - have a nice day and see you soon

Paweł

Pawel , beautiful work and details . That old Tamiya kit is a real clunker compared to this AFV kit .

Hello Carl, thanks for your continued interest!

Shellback

That old Tamiya kit is a real clunker compared to this AFV kit.

That's the point I'm trying to make - there are only very few reasons to use it today, when there's a much better kit available. Thanks again, have a nice day

Paweł

there are only very few reasons to use it today...

The main one being price... 

Pawel - Outstanding detail work. This is becoming a great reference blog. You can tell you have been waiting awhile for this one.

Rounds Complete!!

Nice work on the details Pawel, the effort you're putting into this one is paying off for sure!

Thanks a lot for your comments, gentlemen!

Hans - I kinda knew you were going to chime in if I dog the old kit enough OK, the Tamiya kit is like 35% cheaper than the AFV Club (here in Poland) - but then you have to put hundreds of hours of correcting and scratchbuilding do get something comparable to the AFV Club model out of the box. Like you said so many times - you have the time and you're not obsessed with acuracy, so that's probably not a big deal for you, but please tell me - let's look at the air cleaner - would you leave the Tamiya part like it is? Or if you decided to rework it, what would you say, how long it would take you to do it?

Mike - Thanks a lot. You see, I was converting the Tamiya kit for years, because I thought the AFV Club Duster isn't going to materialize. In the moment it got here, I saw that there is still so much work to do on the Tamiya and the finished model still will be no match for the AFV Club based models, so I decided to switch and start over with the latter kit. Reaching this stage took me like a year with the Tamiya kit, and like six or seven weeks (working mainly on weekends) with the AFV Club kit, and this time it's a little better. So yeah, I was kinda waiting for this kit to come.

Bill - thanks for your kind words, I'm also quite happy with what I'm getting. The real challenge - the gun mount - is still ahead of me. Wish me luck, friends!

Thanks again, have a nice day

Paweł

Hans - I kinda knew you were going to chime in if I dog the old kit enough

Ahh, heck.. Ya hooked me..

You said in you first post:

This is important for me, as I like my models to be accurate from every direction

That's one major area in which we differ.. I build dioramas, so "every direction" isn't important.. Many of the builds I do are in shadow-boxes too.. The view is even more restricted, so many times I don't even bother to paint (or even fully assemble) a kit in the areas that will be invisible to the viewer... Also, with dioramas, the kit is is just a part of the model.. The whole diorama is the actual model, not the kit (or kits), figures, structures, landscape, etc..  

See, if I were building a Duster, I'd have to build the Duster, the crew, the 1/4-ton and trailer (for the storyline), the farmhouse/stone wall/barn/treeline, the creek and footbridge (to establish location an time-frame), and the road (I like roads)..

Like you said so many times - you have the time and you're not obsessed with acuracy, so that's probably not a big deal for you, but please tell me - let's look at the air cleaner - would you leave the Tamiya part like it is? Or if you decided to rework it, what would you say, how long it would take you to do it?OK, the Tamiya kit is like 35% cheaper than the AFV Club (here in Poland) - but then you have to put hundreds of hours of correcting and scratchbuilding do get something comparable to the AFV Club model out of the box.

I've never put hundereds of hours into any single kit, Pawel... The most time-consuming kit I ever did was one that took about 60 hours, which was the F-82 I did a couple years ago... THAT was a limited-run kit, and the problems were manifold..  I spent about 50 hours just scratch-buliding parts, filling, and sanding that one... Assembly and painting were a breeze...   (Yeah, I'd do it again..)  The estimated time I'd spend with the above Duster diorama?  I'd wager I'd bring it in in under 80 hours..

You said it yourself.. I'm not that obscessed with accuracy so I'd probably forego getting obsessed with the air cleaner... Things like roadwheels, tracks, and *gasp* motorization holes, I don't care about..  I don't turn the models on their backs (they're actually screwed into place to "spring" the suspensions a bit), and the roadwheels and tracks generally are covered in mud (I like to do European dioramas)... Rear decks are strewn with vehicle BII, camouflage nets, rations, water, and personal gear, etc...

I don't build "out of the box" anymore either, so that's not a good question for me.. (But then, neither are you, eh?)  Obviously, one cannot build the Tamiya kit to achieve what AFV has done out of the box, but then again, I don't need or want that level, so why pay for it?  If, on the off-chance that I DO have to change something, I've got the ability to make the parts I need... Can't fault anyone for that, man..

It comes from years and years of doing it, and I see no reason to change it, or to abandon a kit simply because it ain't "pretty" or "modern" enough...   I also tend to work in styrene strip rather than brass, thermo-forming stuff like brush-guards and ammo/fuel can racks...  But CAN I build a model of the Duster, using the Tamiya kit, enter it in a contest against the guy with the AFV kit, and win? Hmmm...  All else being equal... Probably... (Definately, if the judges are primarily ship or car modelers.. )

 Seriously though...   When people dog the old kits, especially experienced modelers with years of references, materials, skill-sets, etc.  built up, I think it discourages the younger or beginning, less-experienced guys, who look at the builds and then at the prices on the sides of the box at the hobby shop...  And then give up the idea of building either one altogether and go play Warcraft instead...So I've rather made it my mission to show people what the "Classics" can look like, with a little common-sense, a little more imagination,  and a lot of Gizmology...  One thing always missing from articles, which are usually rife with what AM parts are used and where to get them, that the total cost of the build is missing...

Bottom line... We're totally different when it come to our approaches to the hobby.. You want to build kits that're accurate to a degree that satifies you, I wanna tell "war stories"...   And that's just fine, but somebody has to speak up for the "underdogs" or one day soon, NOBODY will be able to buy a 1/35th scale AFV like the Duster, Sheridan, Patton, or Tiger for under 50-60 bucks, and what you're paying for now will cost even more..... That's bad..

When all is said and done, we both have a miniture representation of something.. You have something that shows others what it looked like, I have something that shows other people what it was for...

That said, you're building a helluva nice model, and it looks like you got your poop in group...  Rock on!

Hans, thanks a lot for your message and for your kind words!

You and I - we build different models, and that's perfectly OK with me. I understand what you are trying to achieve, and I respect that. I just wanted to point out, for the people seeing themselves somwhere between your and my point of view, that for some dollars more they now have the option to build a model that will look a lot better OOB. That could be also appealind to young modellers with some experience. Here you have, three (3!) PE parts in the box, like perfect introduction to PE, don't you think? I know you don't like too much PE in your model, but how would you like to do those peep sight rings other way? In any case, I'm not telling anybody what to do, just pointing out options. Now there are more options, more decisions to make. So thanks again for your input, I'll definitely ask you for more help at the point of building the crew and putting on stowage - for now I'd like to wish you good luck with your modelling projects and have a nice day

Paweł

Hi Pawel :  )

I just wanted to say I have read your whole thread and I really admire what you are doing with the Duster.

First class work, no doubt about that !  I admire your decision to shelve the Tamiya hull and it's inaccuracy in favor of the AFV kit . Much better result ! 

All the small,delicate details will make this a masterpiece. 

 Also, I felt the exchange of modeling ideals between you and Hans was done in a most gentlemanly fashion. This helps every one understand there are 2 sides to every coin. Diversity is what makes building models a cool hobby.

So congrats man on a great piece of modeling  I am really looking forward to your future progress posts !

tread

Hello tread!

Thanks a lot for your comments, I'm glad you like this thread. It has been a tough decision, but I took my time and finally I decided.

I like to discuss things with Hans, because we can disagree without taking it personal. That's the way it should be, pity it often isn't.

So thanks again, and I'm movin' on with a next update!

I installed the APU (also called "Little Joe" by the crews) exhaust shroud on the rear deck. To build it, you use one of the three PE parts that come with the kit. It's a good thing, because you can't find it in the Eduard set (the old one that is - I wonder if they are going to update for the AFV Club!). Here's what it looks like:

And from this point on I start working on the gun mount, also called a "turret" by many people, although the TM calls it a gun mount. The lower gun mount is a big casting with lots of detail, pin ejector marks and sinkholes:

In the lower left portion of the last picture you can see a detail looking like a small axle - its a part of the firing pedal mechanism. Although it isn't connected to anything on the visible side, it leaves a large sinkhole to be filled there. I'm going to use it to determine the correct position for the firing pedal. In the first picture, in the center of the mount you can se the very top of the slip ring assembly - that's where the electric cables would go out to power certain components around the guns.

Now the worst two babies in the gun mount seem to be the so called oil gear. OK, from one side they look like this:

Not bad, huh? The oil gear's purpose is to traverse and elevate the guns in power operation mode. It's a marvel of 1950's technology - a hydraulic pump driven by high voltage AC motor coupled with a variable-speed hydraulic motor. But from the other side those parts look like this:

Lots of void space (and it could be visible, if you elevate the guns!). Also I marked the electrical connectors on the photo - there should be two of them per device, AFV Club only molded one. That's the weakest spot of the kit so far. But enough whining - I can hack it. I begun by filling the empty spaces:

More of that another time. But I have some more Tamiya bashing for you (please forgive me Hans - it seams to be stronger than me!):

On the left we have a trunnion support (trunnion is the axle around which gun elevates) from the Tamiya kit. On the right the corresponding part of the AFV Club kit. Night and day, isn't it?

So that's it for this week - thanks for reading and have a nice day

Paweł

A little late on putting this up, but if you need any reference pictures of this one, we've got a M42 sitting outside my motorpool in front of our Brigade and Battalion HQs, painted in a 3-tone NATO scheme.

Its a bit out of place here, since the Brigade is composed of two Patriot-pure battalions in Oklahoma with the third (and only remaining) Avenger-pure battalion up at Fort Lewis.