Hobbyboss 1/35 ZBD-05 Amphibious IFV

Construction of the hull is done so only the turret is left to put together and then the build is done. It has been relatively painless so far except for the etched headlight guards which were a complete pain in the arse to put together.

Looking at pictures of the real vehicle there is no easy way to do these as they are quite delicate, however the four horizontal bars on each light guard needed trimming until they fitted and were superglued into place after a lot of bad language. The shape and height of the guard makes the assembly very flimsy too with only one positive location point on the side of the hull so gluing the other side to the top of the hull is a bit hit and miss;

Hopefully they won't look that bad under a coat of paint. While finishing up the hull I decided to replace a couple of the moulded on grab handles with ones made from copper wire and glued them at an angle rather than flat;

 Apart from tow cables that's the hull built so I will get on with the turret shortly.

Hobbyboss 1/35 ZBD-05 Amphibious IFV

Work is progressing quite nicely with the hull having the last bits fitted before assembling the turret.
The hydraulically operated bow is a pretty good fit but if you are going to display the model with it opened you need to fill all the mould-pin marks on the inside faces. If (like me) you are going to keep it closed then don't bother with all the cylinders as you won't see them and it will save a few hours construction time.
I'll glue the lower bow plate to the hull as the four pins that secure it are tiny and will not stand any stress putting on them, however to aid painting the upper plate will be left moveable.

Hobbyboss 1/35 ZBD-05 amphibious IFV

I made a start on this about three or four years ago and although it has two very pretty camo schemes, I soon lost interest due to the amount of track links it required and it got shoved back into the stash.
I was recently having a sort out of what kits to dispose of and this was due to go either on Ebay or to landfill but after seeing those camo schemes and having time on my hands I decided to build it.
The biggest job is the track links and these took the best part of two evenings to remove them from the sprues, trim the sprue attachment points, glue the guide horns on each link before eventually joining them all together.
They went together fairly well but I would advise that you glue a length long enough for the lower runs to wrap around the front drive sprockets and rear idlers first as the upper run will be hidden by the side skirts and you will need to 'stretch out' the upper run to get it to join up with the other links.

I didn't glue the wheels to the axles as I want to be able to remove the wheels and tracks as sub-assemblies to aid painting later on.
I'm hoping to build this straight OOTB as I haven't got a clue about these vehicles, the only thing I know is it looks pretty.