[modelperry]

Now that I'm back home after three weeks of combined business/vacation trip back east, I have put knife, scissors and glue to the first parts of the Famo.

While I have not finished translating the instructions, I have enough subassembly sections done to start. While most of the instructions are, indeed glue part 1a to 1b etcetera, I have already used them to help locate some parts mysteriously hidden within the build diagrams.

As I work on this, I suspect I will be painting much of this model just to hide all the white. I just don't think simple edge coloring will do it for me and my Panzer gray paint is much darker than the printed color.

So my build starts where it should with the frame rails and fore and aft cross pieces at the ends.

Before I even get started, I noticed the top strip on the outside frame parts is not oriented correctly. However, if it was, then there would be an overlap of the strip onto the side. It would have been better to print this strip separately for each side. I ended up cutting them off and switching sides they go to.

The laminated inner frame rail cores actually do end up a bit too long at the front, but I can understand this as these 1 mm thick pieces have some bends in them at the front to allow the frame rails to taper correctly.

Once assembled I just trimmed them off with a pair of side cutters. No big deal.

Last picture below shows one of my reference materials next to the started frame. Such is the difference between 1/35 plastic vs 1/25 card.

Also, you can see the two round jack points at the back of the frame that are difficult to determine location without the instructions.
greg