Trackrover - FINISHED!

[thedarkmaster]

What the hell is a Shoggoth???

It's all a bit H P Lovecraft.........http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Philips_Lovecraft

[Steel Penguin]

i said something bigger,  i didnt give a mamimum size did i 

[Weaver]

Ghah! After all afternoon and evening, three pairs of Scorpion tracks, and extended not-throwing-it-against-the-wall breaks, the Trackrover now has two, reasonably well-fitted tracks. I would like to have words with the guy who designed the Airfix Scorpion track with one, too short heat-weld pin whose hole is too near the edge of the track. We'll start with "ouch!" and then see what other words we can think of......

[Weaver]

Okay, some progress. We now have a toolbox, some stowage bins, a roof box, an escape hatch and a ladder, and a few gaps have been filled and sanded.



The big ladder is the Plastruct stuff that I bought. Frankly, it was disappointing: too chunky and the mould halves wern't aligned so every rung had a S cross section rather than a circular one. The little ladder is the one that's going on the back of the Trackrover, which I cut down from a section of the Plastruct one. It would probably have been easier to make it from scratch, but I wanted to keep the rung alignment.

[NARSES2]

That's nice 

[MiB]

Uhh, I love this Land Rover!! My gf work in a LandRover dealer but she don't knows this new exciting model 
I wanna one!

[ysi_maniac]

This is an outstanding creation!

[nev]

Darren Helm & his ex-gf would like to tell you something

[Mossie]

I see you've chopped down the kits trailer to use as the roof box, inspired!  Looks better with every pic.

[Weaver]

Cheers Folks! Got "something" about it hasn't it? 

Nev - LMAO 

Mossie - yep. In typical style, I made a right pig's ear of that "simple shortcut" and had to carefully fill the bottom edge all the way around.  Also, the way the trailer's designed, the parts of the canvas cover that come down the sides of the body are separate from the top bit, so if you're not careful, you get a groove where there couldn't possibly be one. Still glad I didn't try to make a tubular roof rack from brass rod though....

[Weaver]

Bit of minor work on this last night: hasps for the stowage bin lids, handle for the toolbox, trackguard ends and frame rails and torsion bar tubes underneath. The latter arn't "properly" modelled: it's just so that you see something whe you look at it from the front or back.

I'm not sure about the trackguard ends now that they're on, to be honest: might do some pics tonight to see what you lot think.

I'm thinking that I might break up the sea of orange paint by having the stowage boxes in aluminium, but that would them imply that they should have some surface texture (ribbing/cross-hatching), at least on the lids. I think it might be possible to do this by glueing fine brass or fabric mesh to the tops on them: what do you think? I might also apply this finish to the top of the trackguards next to the doors (lets me scuff it up nicely) or even the whole length of the trackguards.

[Mossie]

Sounds good to me.  You could paint part of the structure black, newer vehicles have black around the cab area, although the older vehicles are allover orange.  If you wanted to add some variation to allover orange, you could fade it a bit, with paler portions on top from being battered by the intense sunlight.  Maybe make the roofbox tarp a different shade?   The stowage bins could be any colour you want really, on the below link one Snowcat has a black pannier, the other orange.  The exhaust could be aluminium, the snorkel black plastic maybe?

http://www.roadtransport.com/blogs/big-lorry-blog/2008/06/british-antarctic-surveyall-th.html

[TsrJoe]

love your model, soo looking forward to seeing it completed too  , just thinking, as a variation to the overall orange scheme (the vehicle in the Science Museum store being a nice 'tangrerine' shade, as was the Auster Antarctic at Cosford before repainting in an inaccurate matt red orange!) the tarp could be a fated green colour, im thinking of an old Matchbox Stalwart in BP. Exploration colours, id always visualised the load bed cover being in original army green whilst the rest of the vehicle was painted in a suitable colour, the top of the trackguards and storage boxes could be unpainted dull aluminium (paint on untreated aluminium would wear pretty quickly in a harsh environ)

cheers, Joe

[Weaver]

Cheers gents! 

Black air intake and alu exhaust (with rust on the welds of course, implying that it's just silver paint over good old tatty steel...): that was always the intention. The exhaust needs a guard on the vertical bit which I'm going to try to make out of fine brass mesh, but I've not had much luck with anything else I've tried to make with it so far....

Tarp: I'd thought about this already but couldn't decide on a colour. Green sounds good: maybe a lighter "plasticky" green would work too, and look more "civilian".  I also like the idea of a faun "natural canvas" look too.

Faded orange on top: that's a good idea - I'll take that further! 

Alloy stowage bins: I guess that what I'm thinking of are flight cases or "expedition-style" motorcycle panniers. These nearly always have corrugations or ribs of some kind to make then rigid.

Trackguards: I think these would almost certainly be painted orange with the rest of the vehicle from the factory (they're part of the vehicle, not a bolt-on extra), but as you say, they'd scuff big-style in service. I intend to show this fully.......

[Weaver]

Okay, it's in the paint shop for a coat of Halford's finest. Top paint will be done by hand.

Final bits'n'bobs done: aerial mount, escape hatch handle, air intake cap, fuel cap, fuel tanks, mirrors and external tools selected.

Here's the underside. The tubes contain the torsion bars and the rectangles at the back are supposed to be the bottom of the fuel tanks (or maybe guards over the actual tanks). The idea isn't 100% detail, just so you get the impression of something being there if you look under the fronr or back.




I got my texture! This stuff is a medical tape called Scotch Transpore. It's like very fine Duck Tape with criss-cross fibres in it. How well does it take paint? We'll find out......