Airborne's 1/35 Takom Bergepanzer 2A2

[Airborne01]

Well, I can finally post the sprue shots of this, my next project. I have my in-laws living with me until their house purchase is complete - he has Alzheimer's and li is difficult at times to say the least. Two months down and one to go!

Anyway on with the motley! The stout box contains ten well-populated grey plastic sprues, one clear plastic sprue, hull upper and lower, a small PE fret, decals (when did they stop being called 'transfers' I wonder?),nylon cord and a copper cable; I forgot to mention the six sprues of black poly track connectors (some 300 in all). One of the surprising omissions in the otherwise well-laid out instruction is reference to the number of track links,I counted those on the outline drawing on the front cover of the instructions and made it some 84 per side so there are spares if the Carpet Monster strikes! Takom moulding stubs seem to have been reduced in size somewhat but caution in cutting is still the watchword of the day.

Detail is fine with some beautiful details and a clean, crisply engraved engine deck; there is no interior detail but I wonder how long that will take to appear. There are eight marking schemes including winter cam, and a desert scheme from Kuwait in 2011. I'm going for the German three-colour scheme; thanks to Jakko for pointing out the colours differ between NATO nations and directing me to the appropriate Revell enamels (ordered from John immediately!) So, here are the photos:

 

[Jakko]

decals (when did they stop being called 'transfers' I wonder?)

When American terminology took over. “Decal” comes from French décalcomanie, which derives from décalquer, “to trace, transfer”. British English seems to have cut out the middle man and clipped “transferrable design” to “transfer” instead of loaning the French term for the exact same concept.

FWIW, much the same has happened in Dutch: these kinds of water-slide markings used to be called transfers (accent on FERS when pronounced in an educated way, as in French but unlike the English word; uneducated pronunciation is much like in English but with the <a> as that letter is supposed to sound like ) but nowadays, everybody calls them decals (either with English pronunciation, or more usually, as approximately “DECK-uls”, which always makes me cringe, though I guess they could claim Canadian pronunciation ).

 

[stillp]

DECK-uls, to me, are the crinkly edges that used to be used on photo prints.
Pete

 

[Airborne01]

HOORAH! paint from John has just arrived - no slight on John as his dispatch was notified several days past - our wonderful postal system sent it to Wales first, then to Liverpool! Only the GPO... ! Now I can crack on with the beastie! Stand by, stand by (maybe )!
Steve

 

[stillp]

HOORAH! paint from John has just arrived - no slight on John as his dispatch was notified several days past - our wonderful postal system sent it to Wales first, then to Liverpool! Only the GPO... !

GPO? Has it been in transit since 1969 then?
Pete

 

[Airborne01]

GPO? Has it been in transit since 1969 then?
Pete

Is that when it became P..s O.f I wonder? Didn't realise the service had that length of time to deteriorate ...
Steve

 

[Jim R]

Looks to be a kit which will keep you out of mischief for a while. I'll follow along.

 

[Ian M]

That lot should keep you on track Steve.

 

[Waspie]

HOORAH! paint from John has just arrived - no slight on John as his dispatch was notified several days past - our wonderful postal system sent it to Wales first, then to Liverpool! Only the GPO... ! Now I can crack on with the beastie! Stand by, stand by (maybe )!
Steve

Have the same problem. My purchase from John has arrived - RM even tried to deliver it today but even after requesting 'formally' that they leave in my 'safe place'. They tell me they attempted to deliver but then took it back to the local depot!!! I despair!!

 

[Airborne01]

Circumstances are constrained as the in-laws are still living here due to delays down the house purchase chain , however I have managed a little progress. Running gear and suspension assembled; points to note for anybody who is tempted by this - the instructions would have you attach the suspension dampers prior to attaching the swinging arms - I found it better to assemble each unit separately as this allows the locating pins of the dampers to properly locate in the mountings without the risk of misplacement! There are some awkward moulding stubs to be cleaned up (photo 2 I hope!) but otherwise the fit is good - I deepened most of the locating dimples on the upper hull and there are quite a few holes to be drilled - there are also some mould seams to be cleaned up (some in awkward spaces) and a handful of ridiculously small rivet heads for the glacis plate - why they thought that was a good idea is beyond me - they could easily have moulded them in-situ! Here's progress so far - no comparisons with a certain current Buffel build please
Steve

 

[Jakko]

the instructions would have you attach the suspension dampers prior to attaching the swinging arms - I found it better to assemble each unit separately as this allows the locating pins of the dampers to properly locate in the mountings without the risk of misplacement!

That sounds like Takom, alright I strongly suspect nobody builds their kits during the design process, except on a computer where you always have perfect parts alignment. Their instructions often want you to build things that in the real world will be very tricky to align with things they have you add them to later on, for example.