MM Renault R17

[Don Boose]

Looks good. Solid fit of the hull sides with the frame. A good sign.

Don

[Robert Woolley]

I never thought of hot glue for formers. It is a great idea. The tank looks very neat so far.

Robert

[Amccombs3]

The famous Mały Modelarz Major Mismatch makes its first appearance! I glued the hatch onto the nose, and as shown in the first picture, the markings for the hinges (4a) are not even close to the same spacing on hatch and hull. This is not my fault. At any rate, the hull is shaping up fairly well. I've glued the top on with its hump-like structure on the back, and have only the front plates with the viewing slots (cz. 6L in the picture) to go before the hull is done. The tail is next.

I am finding that this heavy Polish card stock seems to like water. I've been adding more and more dampness when scoring and folding in an attempt to overcome the brittleness and cracking, and it will take a lot of moisture quite happily. I'm just going to keep a cup of water and a cloth on the workbench. (Although, there are disadvantage. Last night the cat was drinking from my water cup.)

At this point, lacking tracks and turret, the model more resembles a diesel locomotive than a tank, but I'm sure that will change.

[Amccombs3]

The tank has a tail now! No difficulties with this assembly. I don't know what to call the next assembly, but it's the big lengthwise beam that all the wheels and bogies attach to.

[Amccombs3]

Slow progress due to disruptions in sleep patterns lately, but I had a pleasant evening tonight working on the idler wheels (or whatever their correct name is -- I know nothing about tank anatomy or terminology). The "rails" (that's what the online translator called them) are basically done as well. All progress to date is shown in the picture. It still looks like a locomotive, but I'm reluctant to start attaching track assemblies until I'm farther along with the components, since I'm not quite sure what the best assembly sequence will be. I'll have to run the next set of instructions through the online translator/garbler to get a hint about some of the suspension bits.

[rockpaperscissor]

It's looking very good. These old Maly kits can be a challenge to build. Will you be showing it at AHEC in May? I wonder how close a match it is to the one on display in the museum.

[Don Boose]

Looks good, Anne. Can't wait to see it in May.

Don

[Amccombs3]

My hope is to bring the Renault to USAHEC in May -- but after the three-year fiasco that was the Kettenkrad, I'm leery of making any promises. It's my primary project, though, so I'm optimistic. (I can promise to show the Kett, since it is finished).

[Amccombs3]

I haven't posted any progress on this model in many months, but I have been working away at it. I got completely bogged down in track links and had to switch to other projects simply to maintain a semblance of sanity. I also had to print some duplicate track parts, and now I've gotten mixed up as to which parts are usable and which aren't, which was another reason I set it aside. Finally, I decided to build the rest of the model as a morale boost. Good plan, but I got somewhat mixed results. The exhaust and the box mounted on the hull were fun and easy and thoroughly enjoyable. The turret, OTOH, didn't go at all well. Due to multiple fit problems, the turret caved in a bit on one side and the teensy gussets refused to stay stuck together (and there were other problems). The internal former was too tight, and the weapons (I haven't translated them yet, so the only one I'm sure of is a Hotchkiss) were just about as bad. I finally realized that the best way to make folds and curls in this awful MM paper is to submerge the paper for a while -- it seems to be waterproof. I did finish the turret tonight, so I'm posting two pictures. At least, with the turret, it looks more like a tank than a locomotive now. There is now nothing but track left, so I should be able to plod away until it is done, probably interspersed with work on another model to prevent fatal boredom.

BTW, for those who haven't heard the story -- I took the incomplete model to Army Heritage Days last May to show as a work-in-progress. Our display area was adjacent to some building construction (which I am told has since been completed). There was rain and a roof leak, leading to some rapid redeployment of models and tables. For the most part we escaped unscathed, EXCEPT -- a bird got into the building and "bombed" this model. If it was expressing an opinion of early MM quality, I couldn't have said it better myself. Since, as mentioned, the paper seems to be waterproof, it cleaned up OK, but it was quite the amusing incident at the time.

[Don Boose]

I think it looks really good, Anne.

For those not tracking the IPMC 2016 thread, I provide an image of the model post-bird-strike.

Don