Looking good ! I like seeing all the little bits turn it into a life like machine. Nice.

Quote from: Jakko on October 21, 2024, 02:05:34 AMIncidentally, I ordered a set with larger punches, to make the firing port covers. It's not as excessive as it may seem, because in recent years I've quite often found myself needing to make discs larger than my largest punch (3.9 mm) can handle, so now I decided to do something about it.

Oh I like that set of punches. I have the same as Zenrat and work them hard, they are terrific tool for larger discs.

Really, like the details you are creating here, this is a very nice build.

Quote from: Captain Canada on October 23, 2024, 01:55:06 PMLooking good ! I like seeing all the little bits turn it into a life like machine. Nice.

I always get bogged down by those little bits, though I'm trying to think of a good way to make smoke launchers now ...

Quote from: buzzbomb on October 23, 2024, 02:42:24 PMthey are terrific tool for larger discs.

I could have used this one for the commander's hatch, really: that's a 20 mm disc for the base with an 18 mm disc (with a bit cut off) for the hatch itself, but I had to make them with a circle template and a needle.

I spent a good deal of time today scratchbuilding smoke grenade launchers on the hull front:

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The base is plastic card and strip, which took a fair degree of tinkering to get it to look reasonable despite only being five pieces. The launch tubes are 2 mm plastic rod with some very thin plastic card wrapped around the rear, because of the peculiar construction of the unique Dutch Army type of launchers: the whole tube is expendable, and clicks onto the base with a bayonet fitting. I want to add a brush guard over it, but I'm not sure yet whether to make that horizontal or vertical.

I also added some details to the turret hatch that AFV Club missed:

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It ended up as a mainly horizontal brushguard with a smaller vertical part

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The mirrors are from the Mowag Piranha 4×4 by Verlinden (that includes four, I think, because I had two of them left) on supports from brass wire and plastic — the trickiest job in all of this model, and now my biggest hope is that they'll stay on

After also building a rack on the side for two jerrycans from AFV Club's YPR kit, I'm done building this thing:

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A few things I didn't mention yet are the tubes for convoy flags on the front corners of the hull (brass tube glued into holes I drilled) and the tail lights (leftover parts from an Airfix 1:76 Churchill and thin plastic rod). I could add a great deal of detail that Italeri left out, but I would need better references than the Tankograd book about the Piranha (tip: leave that in the shop, it's basically a glorified Mowag advertisement) and, more importantly, much more motivation to actually add all of them

Looking good, an impressive amount of Gizmology there. 

I respectfully disagree Shep Paine used that word to mean "stuff that looks detailed and like it's supposed to be there, without actually being correct" which is something I generally try to avoid. About the only really made-up parts here are the smoke launchers and the jerrycan rack, everything else is essentially real-world components of the Piranha and its derivatives.

BTW, it was pointed out to me that I really would need to add a cable reel and infantry telephone connector to the hull rear, which I'll do later today.

Good job on the mirrors. 
Wire is much better than plastic.  The trick is to use soft wire for the stems so if you knock one it bends (and can be straightened) rather than snapping something off.

Terrific detail work 

Thanks The mirrors are on 0.5 mm brass rod, which is stiffer than wire. I don't really want to be bending them back into shape given the fragile way they're glued to the plastic, though — even though I drilled out the plastic rod, the whole assembly is not very sturdy at all because all of the contact surfaces are so small.

Anyway, as I said, somebody pointed out that it would have had a cable reel and connecting points for field telephone wire on the back. The AFV Club YPR kit includes a reel, so that was easy, but I had no idea what the phone connectors look like. Luckily, though, I happen to own the 1983 edition of the YPR 765's technical manual, and that includes a section about them:

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They're really just three sheet metal covers over two connectors each (telefoonaansluitingen means "telephone connectors"), and once I knew that, I could look at the parts in the YPR kit I've been using for the turret and some other bits, and found the ones that represent these things. I measured them up and then just cuts three bits of plastic strip to the right size, without bothering to add any more details because those would be on the underside to keep them out of the rain. On the YPR those are sort of visible because they're on a sloping armour plate, but on my Piranha they would be on the backward-sloping rear plate, so I didn't see a need to add the connectors. Also, I put a back plate on the AFV Club cable reel holder so it fits above the right tail light:

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And with that I'm really done building this vehicle Tomorrow, I'll be going to a modelling show/meet at a local museum, and will of course be taking this one along.

All around terrific work. Quite swift as well. Nice one   

Nice work on this project! Well done on building it.

Quote from: Jakko on October 25, 2024, 02:16:19 AMI respectfully disagree Shep Paine used that word to mean "stuff that looks detailed and like it's supposed to be there, without actually being correct" which is something I generally try to avoid. About the only really made-up parts here are the smoke launchers and the jerrycan rack, everything else is essentially real-world components of the Piranha and its derivatives.

BTW, it was pointed out to me that I really would need to add a cable reel and infantry telephone connector to the hull rear, which I'll do later today.

You are quite correct, and I stand (sit) corrected.
It's still an impressive amount of work, and I stand (sit) by that part of the comment.  

Thanks, all

Quote from: buzzbomb on October 25, 2024, 11:51:45 AMQuite swift as well.

That surprised me too

On the advice of someone more knowledgeable about Dutch armoured vehicles than I am, I added mesh over the grilles on the engine deck, because this was a feature of all Dutch troop carriers. I used mesh from Tamiya kits I built in times of yore:

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It may appear that they're a bit wavy, but that's an optical illusion caused by interference between the lines of the grilles and the grid of the mesh.

When that had dried, I sprayed the whole model Mr. Aqueous H78 Olive Drab (1), which is a near-perfect match for RAL 6014 with which the Dutch Army painted its vehicles:

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The paint is still a bit wet in this picture, and maybe a little thin on the roof because the airbrush was running on fumes by the time I was done, but I'll fix that later where it needs to be. It has reminded me why I prefer tracked to wheeled vehicles, though Getting paint into all the nooks and crannies of the suspension was a lot of work.