Famo, trailer and stug III - long term project

[modelperry]

Parts 9 - 12

Part 9: no issue.

Part 10: This is a complicated mess. Building it correctly includes adding the post for part 11 (made from 11c and 11p). If you don't do this, your pretty much screwed.
Then when I went to insert the assembly in place the gap in part 1 wasn't big enough for the pivot part of the assembly to slide in. To keep the correct geometry, I had to cut, trim and reshape the lower pivot parts to get the correct clearance.

Part 11: This assembly required quite a bit of parts trimming to finish correctly. I was worried that the piece wouldn't mate with it's pivot, but that part worked well.

Part 12: This assembly looked a bit daunting. Actually it fit rather well with one exception, the pivot holes where it attaches to part 11 don't line up. I tried modifying the link to get the drawbar to insert further to no avail. I will re-drill holes through the drawbar when I'm ready to attach it permanently.

greg

[Igor]

I see, no news with model design after FAMO.
But you're dealing well with this issues 👍

[modelperry]

Parts 13 & 14

Part 13 - Axles and suspension. Not a fan of the axle construction. Basically making box structures without tabs or lamination. The U-shaped axle was especially tricky. The bottom plate was too long and I had to section it to fit properly. Then there is no guide for how much curvature the springs need.

Part 14 - The wheel hubs. These have a strange construction too. There is a smaller cylinder that glues to the spindle and a larger one that fits around that. The larger cylinder is not glued to the inner one so the wheel hubs can rotate. Lots of build sequence planning and precision gluing required to get this to all work out.

greg

[Igor]

The design is continued to be awful. No thought at all about the assembler.
Now, that i compare it to the Sherman design, it's like chalk and cheese.
But you deal with it very well. Keep up the good work

[modelperry]

Thanks Igor!

Part 15 - spindle assembly.

So there's a lot of thought needed on proper assembly sequence. I ended up building the upper part of the assembly on the wheel hub, put the assembly on the fabricated hinge pin then added the bottom part to finish this off.

I did the left side first. Apparently when building this model one needs to be a grandmaster chess player capable of seeing several moves ahead.

I am not a grandmaster.

I discovered that I installed the two axles incorrectly. I had to cut loose the left side hub and spindle assemblies, then the axle assemblies from the springs and figure out how to fish the bent axle out of its incorrect position. What a PITA.

Oh and yes I did study the drawings before I had glued in those axles the first time. Better drawings grouped in more logical sequence would have helped avoid this rework....

greg

[modelperry]

Part 16 - steer linkage

Not many paper parts. Actually didn't even use 16a. Replaced with plastic ones off the ends of some shock absorbers in my parts bin.

Regardless, the diagrams were somewhat decipherable but the copper spindle mounting rod patterns kinda sucked.

So I cobbled everything together best as I could and heat swagged the ends of the Rod pins to trap the bushings.

So far the steering works.

Greg

[romanmodels]

the steering linkage is a bugger on this does not take much to get a wheel out off alinement and you have to repeat it all again on the rear bogie.

[modelperry]

Part 17 - tires.

10 of them. Not the most for a project but still took me over a week. Fit was good. Paint was needed. Glad this part is over.

greg

[KCStephens]

Holy Cow those tires!

[jaffro]

Looking good Greg, It's always satisfying when you come to the end of a tedious repetitive step like the wheels. Just wait till you build the M1070/M1000, nothing with almost any number of wheels will seem so daunting, ever again.