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A7V "Hedi"

What is the maniac doing now? A locomotive?

(Model finished 2022)

No, not really. I had bought a resin kit.

It seemed Ok compared to pictures. It is clearly based on parts from Emhar's A7V kit wich suits me well.

I had seen that there were a couple of things that needed to be fixed. The doors should actually be flush with the hull sides and I could have let it pass but the hinges are placed incorrectly on one side of the body. I was impressed by the handles at the doors though

However, I discovered that the "turrets" in the corners are too low and I felt that it was too much work trying to fix that.
Time for a stupid project again. For many years I have wanted to build "Hedi" in 1/72 scale. Let's bring out some plastic card.

Coming this far, everything felt wrong. Things did not fit together.

Only one thing to do. Tear it apart. New sides are made.

I didn't want to make new fronts so I had to splice in plastic instead. Now new roofs must be made.

The "guillotine" is a great help in cutting multiple parts for the grilles in the roof.

But things still don't fit so everything is torn apart once more and new fronts are manufactured. Now nothing will remain of that first attempt I did. Time to tear down the the other end and rebuild it.

Grills are almost done. I'm doing this as I always manage to do. Don't plan ahead and build everything at least two times.

The kit is quite sad when you start to look at it more closely. The roof is sagging, it is generally poorly cast and requires a lot of putty, which means that the details would disappear if you go for it.

Therefore, I continue on my path.

My intension was to use the chassis from the kit but the wheels sat higher at one end so I started to wonder if I made a mistake in the construction of the body. It turned out that the chassis is banana-shaped.

The casting of the track unit is not nice

and it leans. So I need to find another Emhar kit. It will provide for a chassis and machine guns.

This is probably the most frustrating thing that I ever tried to build. I finish something and it looks right but then you turn it and look at it from another angle and it look all wrong.

But it will never be correct. I just have the incorrect kit, a few pictures and a drawing that also has some faults as sources for the build. The first turret in the corners is in place.

Getting closer to the point where my projects go to sleep. It is when I can se what it will look like. If it survives that phase the next point where they definitively dies is when it is time to paint. It is funny that while it is a frustrating build it is a build without big problems. Only many small ones.

Second corner done. It has a different opening than the first.

While waiting for the new kit to arrive I redirect a chassis from one of the other five A7V's that I'm building to this one.

With all four corners ready I need to adapt the hull to the chassis to get the right height.

Not much time for modelling during summer but I managed to cut all the holes in the fuselage.

Some of them are being covered again with hatches and now I can start on the details.

Getting closer to some Archer rivet adding.

I have most of the details done but I messed up in the front.
The tow shackles and their covers should have been placed more to the centre.

I'll let that pass. I'm not sure if I should close more of the gun ports or not, I need to add holes for the exhausts before I start on the rivets

Finally ready for a coat of gloss paint so that the rivet decals will stick.

This time I'll go for a lighter colour to make things easier. The last time I used a colour that was to dark so it was hard to see where the rivets were to be.

I finally got the first coat of paint on so now I can start on the rivets.

I have now started on the rivets. There sure were lots of them on Hedi. It's a good thing that I don't have to put them on as single rivets.

There is still hope for this. One more side to do.

Nine month after I started on this build I was able to put the first layer of paint on.

A little porcupine with all those guns sticking out.

I bought the Black Lion decal sheet but it was a big mistake using them.

They don't look remotely like the real markings so now I don't know what to do. I only know that everything has come to a halt. I was going to put on a clear coat and then start weathering but I cant use these decals. I feel that I just as well could have used the kit that I started with. So I will not finish it. It goes down in a box until I figure out what to do (if I ever will)

Hedi has been standing on the desk in front of me for almost a year and I finally decided to get it out of my sight.

I just repainted the skulls (very badly) and mounted the model on a small base.

Still not happy but maybe I will repaint this when I get back to my other A7V models.

The camera showed me something. Emhar's bogie's don't have any detail on the inside. Not very visible on a A7V as it has flaps hanging down hiding it but clearly seen now..

Some more modelling had to be done.

Stockholm December 24, 2022

No updates

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