Re: Alternative SG II APCs

On Tue, 24 Mar 1998 23:24:57 GMT agoodall@sympatico.ca (Allan Goodall)
writes:
>On Mon, 23 Mar 1998 11:56:39 -0800 (PST), Brian Burger
><burger00@camosun.bc.ca> wrote:
>
>>Another source of sg2 armoured vehicles is the Roco Minitanks line; =
>these
>>are HO (1/87) or 1/72 scale (I can't recall which) vehicles, mostly =
>modern
>>European vehicles.
>
>I concur!
>
>>They work as big 15mm scale vehicles, and they might work (some of 
>them)
>>as smaller 25mm vehicles (I only have 15mm figs personally). I have
>>several West German Marder A2 IFV/MICVs right now, with the tracks =
>removed
>>and Das modelling clay GEV skirts installed. I'm using them as Size 4
>>IFVs, carrying 12 troops max. The Roco Minitanks are around Cdn $7-8.
>
>I picked the Marder as well! I bought some of the training variant,
>removed the treads, and closed over the track wells. This converted
>them into grav APCs. I did the same thing with American Sheridans
>(which are old enough that most laymen don't get that, "it's a
>modified Abrams/M113/Bradley" feel.
>
>I didn't actually think of putting skirts on them for GEVs, though. Do
>you have any pictures of the skirts, or any tips in creating them?
Well, I can tell you want I did on the SdKfz 250 halftrack I converted
when the rubber tracks broke while building it. :-) I used some sprue to
build a frame around the bottom of the area where the track would go--
		      ______________________
		     /							

\
      ______/		     ________________/	<glue top of skirt under
lip here    
    / ______\		    /_______________/
>  ------------- \_____/-------------------------/  <--the sprue went
down here, around the bottom, so from belowit looked hollow.

Then I glued Kleenex(TM) under the lip of the area where the tracks
went,
and glued it around the sprue at the bottom. I used undiluted Elmer's
glue for this part. After it had dried, I made a thinned down mixture of
Elmer's glue and water, and dabbed it onto the tissue and let it dry.
When it was done, it was pretty solid, and painted up nicely.

>>You can do exactly the same thing with bigger scale models for 25mm
>>Stargrunt - I think 1/35 is the scale you want.=20
>
>1/48 is probably closer. However, I think 1/48 tanks are hard to come
>by these days. They used to be more popular when I was a kid. 1/48 is
>still a fairly popular aircraft scale, though.
1/48 would be closer, but you're right, it's hard to come by. I've had
pretty good luck with the 1/35 scale vehicles I've bought, though. It
seems to vary from kit to kit. The Hammerhead LAV (a 6-wheeld armored
car
used by the USMC) was about the size I expected--a little bit big. But
the SdKfz mentioned above was surprisingly small. And I have a Universal
carrier that I'm still building which looks nice, too. It's one of those
vehicles that is hard to judge the scale on. Oh, and I've got 4 computer
mice that I'll be converting into scout cars soon, too. :-) If I can
work
out the bugs with my digital camera, I might even document the steps and
put them on a web page.

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