SS-23...Construction complete!

I've bloody well done it! It's only a record shot but I just HAD to share this one as this thing has been on the bench since May 2014. I never thought I would get this far as it has been a 'challenging' build to say the least and many times I've just wanted to put it back in the box and forget about it. Lots of setbacks with this one and even today when I knew I was about to wrap it up I managed to drop the missile on a tiled floor while transporting my portable work surface from one room to another and broke off the guidance vanes, the lower half of the missile body and the tip of the nose cone.
Anyway it gave me a chance to rework the vanes and how they attach to the arse end of the missile so it worked out well in the end plus thanks to my Mrs who found the tip of the missile some yards away from 'ground zero'.
The model needs a REALLY good clean to remove nearly 12 months worth of kak, resin dust and greasy paw prints and a few gaps filling but the main thing is it's finally built. YAY for me! :o)

The 12 inch (or 305cm) ruler gives an indication of just how big the model is.

SS-23-Soldering etchy bits

There is a narrow strip that runs along the lower hull sides and it's made up of sections so figuring out that cyano glue would never hold it together I decided to solder the sections instead. Thankfully this has worked so YAY for me :o)

The sections each have a right-angle so this was done using a Hold-and-Fold etchy bendy tool that is absolutely invaluable. Each part was cleaned up where they are to be soldered using a medium grade Wet and Dry paper and using Blu-Tack they were fixed into place on a piece of ceramic tile. A SMALL amount of flux was brushed onto each side of the join then using a 25w soldering iron the solder was run into the joint (again only a small amount) and when cool it was cleaned up to remove excess flux.
Superglue has it's benefits when attaching etch but soldering is really that easy to do and of course makes for stronger joints especially for a job like this.
By the way the stuff I'm using is lead-free solder AND flux that I got from a local DIY shop although I believe that a company called Carrs make products more suited for modelling.

SS-23....it lives!

I glued the suspension on today and fitted the wheels to see if I have a wonky model and I'm happy to report that only one of the wheels is a bit too high, that's why I did'nt glue the wishbones. There's still a fair bit to do but it finally feels like I'm on the home straight;

The wheels are still loose on the hubs and that's why they look out of line but I just needed to take this picture as a bit of a milestone, the 6" ruler gives a sense of scale and yes my bench is always a mess.
Chuffed as we Brits might say :o)

SS-23 suspension ready to fit

I've now got to the stage where I can fit the suspension units and HOPEFULLY the model will be straight and level on it's wheels. The next job will be to make steering linkages, air tanks and pipework for the braking system as these are missing from the kit. Here's a couple of pics of progress so far;

As you can see the yellow bits are the kit items, the white bits are ones I have had to make as they were missing from the kit. The wishbones remain workable to a point and will help getting the model level when I put it on it's wheels, after which they will be glued.
The pieces I made that hold the front wheel hubs on are not very pretty but they were tricky to make, besides which they will be hidden by the wheels.
Once the suspension is on the build will be more or less finished, the next fun job however will be to attach the ton of etch that comes with the kit.

SS-23 ongoing

Well it looks like Miniman are not going to send the missing suspension parts (it's been nearly a month) so I've had to make my own as time is moving on;

Starting of with styrene sheet a 10mm x 20mm piece was cut out then cuts were made part way through either side and gently bent to make the shape. To get the width of material for the top and bottom three strips of 0.060 (1.25mm) styrene were glued together like a laminate and when fully cured the anchor points for the top and bottom were made.
These are still drying so when they are ready I will cut a hole in the middle for the axle to go through.
They are not the best but they are needed to fix the axle to the suspension assembly and will be mostly hidden by the wheels anyway. The next thing to make are eight suspension struts, add the missing steering linkages, air tanks for the brake system and associated cabling. This ain't going to be finished this side of xmas for definite.

SS-23...a bit of a milestone

After virtually completing the upper hull (apart from fitting the new missile bay doors) I decided to turn my attention to the suspension and for me it feels like a turning point (excuse the pun) as after this point the biggest job will be adding the etch detail (and there is a LOT of it).
The BIG problem at present is that there are some vital parts missing such as the suspension struts and the bits that fix the front wheels to the suspension for the steering. The struts I could scratch from styrene tube but the steering bits will be VERY tricky so I've contacted Miniman Factory with a grovelling email to see if they can help considering I purchased the kit in November 2013. Fingers crossed!

The units are not fixed in place at the moment and the suspension remains workable to make sure I get all eight wheels on the flat, after which they will be firmly glued. I just hope Miniman Factory come through otherwise I'm screwed.
Edit; Miniman Factory are sending the parts YAY! Miniman have a GREAT customer service as they sent me a new missile bay earlier this year due to the distortion and holes in the original piece

SS-23 progress...sort of

OK so 'game on' I said in the prior post with the aim of getting this sucker off the bench but it seems to be for every step forward there's a couple back. In this case I test-fitted the missile bay doors and due to my stupidness in removing too much material at the bottom of each part they now have huge gaps....Sooooooo after a brief walk around the house before I drop-kicked the damn model I've decided to replace the doors entirely with 30 thou (around 0.7mm) styrene sheet. The upside to this is the doors will be more of a scale thickness although I'm going to have to fix them in the open position when the model gets finished;

Also the more I look with this kit the more I find wrong when comparing it to the walkaround pictures I have although as you may understand I'm keeping a lot back for the future article. Sorry about that :o)
I think once I've got the main hull sorted it will feel like I'm getting somewhere, especially when I can start fitting the suspension and wheels. At the moment it's slow going and becoming frustrating but there ya go, resin kits for you.

SS-23...game on!

After a bit of respite from the damned thing I decided to tackle the poor fit between the cab and rear hull tonight. No amount of filling or filing would have resulted in a good fit due to the steps between the two parts so in the end I had to use styrene sheet to build up the right side of the cab. I also had to scratch a new grill as the original had to be removed to be able to fit the styrene.

Even after doing this the cyano glue made the styrene rather brittle and I ended up with a bit missing (yes it was stuck to my bloody finger). After sanding it to shape (more or less) the next step will be to use 500 grade Mr Surfacer to TRY and blend it all in.
Gawd who's idea was it to start this bloody model? Oh yeah it was me......D'OH! :o)

Edit; I did'nt use Mr Surfacer after all, I just used some Milliput instead

SS-23 teaser pic number 3 (I think)

I bet you thought I'd forgotten all about this one did'nt you?

After a LOT of fettling and sanding the basic hull is all together so it's onto the wheels and suspension when I've finished filling some HUGE gaps. I don't know whether it's my fault or the fact it's just one-of-those-things with resin kits but anyway I've got this far :o)

Of course by the time I've built this model Trumpeter would have released theirs....in fact there will probably LOADS built before I'm done with this. I can't wait to get an injection-moulded kit on the bench next lol

Meanwhile.....

While the T-90 was drying I was itching to start another project so after a fairly involved build you would have thought I'd have picked something easy to throw together, which is what I WAS considering but then I got this out of the stash;

It's rather large and made of resin so LOADS of sanding required. Considering it's a resin kit it's going fairly well at the moment;

Detail is pretty good and as you would expect there are some issues to deal with because of the nature of resin but in the whole it's quite an impressive kit. I won't be posting many progress pics as this model will feature in a future edition of Model Military Int'l but I will throw in a few teasers now and again :o)