Greetings all,
I'm new to here and this is exciting. You might know me from other websites as well. If you do not, I am a Turkish modeler from Istanbul and I have been seriously modelling since 2002 (I took a break in 2005-2006 when I started to work as an auditor). Before that I would -very amateurishly- build airplanes, but when I got my airbrush, I suddenly had an urge to switch to armor. Since then, I couldn't complete an airplane yet
I am trying to improve my skills and the Turkish modeling society is very small and not very keen on armor (it's planes planes planes and the occasional helicopter). As a result, there are few modelers who I could look up to, so compared to many models I see here I'm still an infant. Please do not get mad if I ruin something.
That's enough about myself. Onto the model.
Many of you might be familiar with this kit. It's a rather recent offering from Italeri and it's based on their previous M-109 kit. Not too complex and has vinyl tracks which I greatly dislike.
To get rid of the vinyls, I decided to get support from AFV Club.
I will also be using a metal barrel from Barreldepot.
Before I started, I tried to find information about this kit on the net. A few places warned me about warps of the lower and upper hull. Cautiously, I put together the lower hull. No problems there, fit was good.
Things got more complex when I took out the top of the hull from the box. Uh huh... Talk about warping.
The entire part was "V" shaped. I tried to bend it back into shape but it started cracking in places in response. Since I'm an impatient modeler (trying to get that under control), I decided I will use force to put this unruly hull part into its place and show it who was the boss. It took me the "Battle of the Workbench" and 45 minutes to get it in place using both Revell's thin cement and Tamiya's ultra thin cement, but it was done. Of course, the part was also a little small for its place and there were gaps left. Most notable was at the front.
I decided to let it cure for some time before challenging the gaps. During that time, I challenged the road wheels. Strangely enough, the wheels did not have the usual Italeri molding seams in the middle. Stranger though, they didn't also have the line that separates the rubber part of the wheels from the rims! I assembled the road wheels anyway.
Then came the tedious part of filling all those gaps. You gotta love Italeri!
Assembly of rear hull. I couldn't find out what that roller like thing does. In all photos I could find, it looks empty. Is that a cable roller or what?
I also had to hollow out the exhaust. You think with an exhaust this size, they would give you a hollow one. Of course not! (it's not a 2000s kit after all)
The roadwheels were assembled. The drive sprocket is still workable to easily assemble the tracks.
With the hull nearly complete, I turned my attention to the turret.
Threaded Mode
