TOPIC:

First step, make some narrower wheels/tyres. I already had some 8-spoke Jackman wheels & Rough Rider rear tyres, I know those can be reduced in width successfully. I didn’t make adequate notes (or take enough photos, or remember enough) of the setup to machine the wheels the last time I did it, so this was a bit experimental.

The only Brat fronts available would have been an expensive import, so I used a pair of vintage Ranger wheels (with the extra offset) from parts box. They’ve been kicking around for a while & were already stained after a previous owner painted them red, so I don’t feel at all guilty about using them. 


I started on the inner sections, I didn’t need or particularly want to take that much off, but the webs that join the outer ring to the inner section are also offset compared to Brat front wheels … through screw means I can use a live centre in the tail stock to give extra support.

2nd pic shows “before” on the left, “after” on the right.






Workholding for the outer face consisted of fastening it to the middle. I used a parting off tool to separate the lip from the body of the outer piece, then tidied up the inside edge with a regular cutter. I used the same setup to take off as much of the barrel as practical, then glued the rim to the body – before and after pic below. 002_003002_004  Thanks to the offset on (later) Ranger front wheels, the inner faces didn’t need any mods.

Next two pics are the setup for the rear wheel (new-ish Brat rear wheels) – first taking off as much from the outer side as possible, then the back face.  







This is the setup for the rear wheel outer. Note how close the parting off tool is to the chuck, and where it’s going to cut. 





Setup for the rear wheel inner face. Initial cut position is a lot less critical than for the outer faces as there’s considerable “barrel” to remove. 





Rest of the process is same as for fronts, “after” pics would be similar too, if I’d taken any. Parts are currently outgassing coats of primer & Alpine White paint in the shed.

 

The whole point of making narrower wheels is to use narrower tyres – I popped a new scalpel blade in a holder & carefully took cut out a 2-knob wide band from the (not quite) middle of 2 tyres, and glued the (again, not quite halves) with Zap-RT (“rubber toughened”, part # PT-44) CA glue.  

If the 35mm width is the “9” (inches) in “Sand Blaster 915”, then taking two strips out of the tyres takes them to 21mm, or 5.4 – or 5, rounded, scale inches, so now a “515”.  

Trying one set of the narrowed back wheel parts in one of those “515” tyres made them look a bit too narrow (with bulging sidewalls), so I made a pair of tyres with only one strip of knobs cut out of the centre of the tread. Those ended up being 26.5mm wide, or 6.8 scale inches, 7 with rounding so “715”.  003_001 

These were quite old, used tyres with the sidewall lettering in varying condition, I Dremelled them all off & will sticker them up instead.

It's a honnor to give the idea to built a srb kubel. I have the 1/14th version . And seeing the unimat gives me the want to take my dad's one and try to turn spares.

Wheels/tyres done



As per usual I pinned the wheel bits before spray priming & painting them, I don't remember getting shadows before that were quite so Christmas ornament-y, or in one case, First Galactic Empire-y

There's probably RC stuff I "should" be going before starting on the Kubelwagen body, but I felt like making a start on it

First decision - I'll make it with the top down & some sort of interior (not necessarily the kit parts) rather than my first thought which was top up, and reinforced with resin. This means keeping the kit floorpan.

I really need to make the body fit first, so have skipped over a lot of the detail parts - engine, front end, front seats, batteries, fuel tank etc - for now, I'll just do enough structure to hold together while I cut out all the bits needed to fit on a stock SRB chassis. This meant skipping over a lot of pages, starting on step 37.

Note how well the 1:9 Italeri chassis fits on the 1:10 SRB. It's upside down on the underside, but you get the idea.










'A' pillars, dash & bulkhead are the only other bits I fitted on that double page spread of the manual.

That seems to be a match in heaven!

I have built 2 resin copy engine of that kit engine, looks really good when done up.
Still have a third engine somewhere unassembled.that will go into my camper tribute build.


Decided on paint color?

Picking & choosing from the next 2 pages, body sides & wheelarches bonded on.  I need to start sawing bits off before it'll look any less like a Gila Monster

At this point I don't think the rear cage will fit without having the engine cover ajar (a la original Fiat 500 Abarth), but I am keen to keep it for the stock rear shock mounting points. 

As for the aluminium roll bar - also needed for shock mounting - I think it'll fall in a position that will conflict with the rear deck. However, having a cut out through that, disguised with some sort of luggage containing the body clip would work  

The difference in wheelbase between the 1:9 body (275mm) and the SRB chassis (250mm) is going to be too much to ignore. I know other builders have made an extended chassis plate to compensate, but I plan to cut 25mm out of the floor pan, sides & rear doors. Just not today.

caprinut wrote:

That seems to be a match in heaven!

I have built 2 resin copy engine of that kit engine, looks really good when done up.
Still have a third engine somewhere unassembled.that will go into my camper tribute build.


Decided on paint color?

Got to say the engine & ancillary parts look really good on the sprues, although the exhausts are a bit too peashooter scale for RC. I'll probably build the engine up to go on a trolley in my garage & use it as a guide to make some fake/abbreviated engines to go in the back of some of my SRBs - I'm sure they'll be more realistic than my previous attempt  


Hadn't really thought about colour, the instructions have 4 paint schemes illustrated. I don't think I want to do it in schwartzgrau so that leaves the 3 dunkelgelb options - no camouflage, light patchy camouflage, or wiggly camouflage with greater coverage.

I'm quite happy to have a go at either camouflage, it's got to be easier with an airbrush now than the FAV I did with aerosols, but I'd always imagined I'd do the Thing/Trekker in bright gloss yellow, so maybe the plain, flat dark yellow is the way to go. 

Like the afrika korps or Flat sand yellow and brown camo? 
my  kubel rc is like this one.