LMV Lince Figure & Wheels

As there is now a slight pause on the warrior build while I wait for deliveries it's time to resume the lince build starting with the figure. This is the spare one I had left over from the puma build last year and he works pretty well for the lince dio I have in mind. After a bit of clean up removing some very slight seam lines & primer I can now work out the colours for the camouflage. 

I'm attempting to paint the current Italian mimetico vegetata camouflage so as usual with a pattern I'm not familiar with I paint small samples on some paper to try and match up standard colours to the specific colours in the pattern. Next I'll use reference pictures to help get the correct colours by mixing paints if I can't use a colour straight out of the bottle. This can take some time but I do enjoy mixing colours to match the pattern. 

The wheels have now been given a quick pin wash then matt varnish so are all ready for final weathering with pigments. 

Warrior Stowage Continued

More work now filling up the turret basket and adding a cover to the long hull bin. I started with some duro green stuff putty and made up a couple of roughly shaped sheets to go on the bottom of the turret basket. This was followed by various bits of kit being lightly pressed into the putty and left to set. I then mucked around with the placement of even more ammo cans etc until I was happy with the result. A mix of accurate armour, red zebra and anything else I could find was used here.

Next I used some magic sculpt putty to add a couple of sacks to the open ammo box. Finally on the putty front I added the protective cover to the gun barrel using this as well. It seems a shame to cover up that lovely barrel but photo evidence shows it was heavily used during the ground war for obvious reasons. 

And finally some thin lead foil was used to make a cover for the long bin on the hull. I placed some bits of foam board in the bin first to add a some shape to the cover once in place. Then finished it off with some etched straps. Now with just a new rack to make for the side armour it's time to start thinking about figures.

Warrior Stowage & Lince Wheels

Stowage time for the warrior now and I've been having fun looking at my refs and sorting out stuff for the build. I'm also going to add a long rack seen on some warriors along the bottom of the armoured sides. Of course I had no suitable L beam in the stash so had to order some. It should look good though filled with water cans and other bits of stowage. 

I'd also like to add a couple of milan storage boxes but need to check that accurate armour are still operating due to the coronavirus lockdown here in the UK. 

My replacement wheels for the lince have also finally arrived so I've primed & painted them over the last couple of days. I'll gloss them next before some washes then matt coat.

Warrior Milan Mount Revised

Thanks to facebook I've now found that my interpretation of the milan mount was not correct. It was actually fixed to the sight armoured housing. So off came the first one and a new mount was made from plastic card. I'm happy now that I know for definate how it was fixed to the turret. Meanwhile I've been bashing away with the stowage so more pictures of that soon. 

For discussion purposes only,

Warrior Turret Milan ATGM

The last couple of days has seen me working on the milan and mount for the turret. After looking at what few pictures I had and applying a bit of thought to how it may have been mounted I've come up with a feasible solution. Because I have no clear pictures or info on the mounting this is my best guess. I did try a couple of ideas but this one seemed the best so I went with it. 

Brass tubing was used to make the mount which is adjustable so I can tweak the height of the milan later on. I used an accurate armour milan which needed a lot of work to get it up to scratch. I also had to make up a round because the resin ones where molded very badly with a big casting flaw at the rear of each tube. Aluminum tubing and plastic card soon sorted out a better one. Likewise the rails on the launcher body where unusable so plastic rod was used to make a new one.  

So that's now the main construction complete, next I'll work on stowage adding what I can now before primer & paint.

Warrior Turret

A busy day working on the turret yesterday saw it almost finished by the evening. Most of the work went into the smoke dischargers which where tricky to assemble and very delicate too. A bit of extra detail also went on the inside of the hatches and here I added a seal around each hatch using thin stretched sprue. 
The sights and their armoured houseings went on next followed by the RB models Rarden barrel and mount. I'm now going to attempt to make a mounting for the milan on the commanders size so that should be interesting!

Warrior Hull & Turret Work

The hull is now all finished apart from adding some stowage which will go on once the turret is complete. Turret work started straight away and once the two halves where glued and any joints sanded I added the turret basket. On the kit it actually sits too high as the top of the basket should be level with the turret roof. There's no easy way to correct this, dropping the basket only fowls the hull periscopes and other parts and reducing the height of the basket makes it look too narrow and out of scale. 

I mocked this up using paper templates before committing to any drastic surgery just to be sure. So the basket went on as is, not a big problem as a bit of stowage will help to disguise this later on. One area I really did want to improve where the turret sights. The kit ones are just solid blocks, Not very good at all especially if you want the armoured covers open so a bit of scratch building was called for.

Using the kit sight as a guilde plastic card was used to make them up. I also used the armoured covers to help get the correct fit. Some punched out plastic also added the sight lenses. Later on I'll add some glazing from clear plastic sheet after of course painting up the sights and adding some reflective coatings to the lenses.      

Warrior Hull Work

The hull is now mostly finished after adding a few more details such as the tool holder, camo pole supports and the drivers hatch. I've also fitted the side armour at this stage instead of after painting as the armour needed to be slightly moved forwards. This meant that the locating tabs where removed so the wheels and tracks went on before adding the side armour. 

Not my usual method of building kits with side skirts or add on armour but a strong bond was needed. Painting the lower portions will not really be a problem as most of it will be covered in dust and weathering later anyway. I've also carefully removed the hull bin on the drivers side as I discovered that these were removed and sometimes mounted on the side of the hull. Probably because once the side armour was fitted the bin could not be opened easily. 

Warrior Front Armour

More work on the frontal armour and bin has been done, basically filling and sanding and a bit of fettling to get a good fit. As you can see the storage bin now holds two 5 gallon oil barrels, a common sight during the conflict. The barrels do need some trimming to fit though. 

I just have a few bolts to add and it's all done. The front headlights and guards have also been worked on. I've not bothered to drill out the lenses on the lights as I will cover them later to simulate hessian covers which again are very evident in pictures during the time.