Early Warning [yada yada yada] Fokker F-270 Skyguard part two! [end]

There it is, folks. A piece of plastic, intended to become a peaceful KLM City Hopper but turned military and dark with a big rotating dish on its ridiculously large tail.

Below you can read more on the how and what, but here is the finished product first:

 

Early Warning is a dish best served Dutch: the Fokker F-270 Skyguard

Yes, I am doing something in plastic. For a change. And also to realise that paper modeling is 100 times cheaper than this stuff. However, it is fun and I really like what I am making.

This is my desk now:

...and this is what I had in mind before I started.

The story of the build is below.

Still here!

Hi friends.
It has been a very busy month. But the fourth film in the architecture series is finished and looking good. 

© De Loods mediaproducties / Stichting Beeldlijn

It has become a very autumny film, lots of rainbows, sunny and rainy spells in one shot, great drone shots and a very comprehensive and interesting story on city-scaping and about how the post WW2 suburbs around my city came to be. In English the title is something like  "tinkering on a running engine", a reference to how the architect we portrayed is regarding his job.

So now it is time again to do some model stuff.
At the moment I am doing a bit of a deviation from the usual paper stuff. I will soon let you in on the details. For now, just bear with me a ittle longer, this week I hope I will get a new post online.
--PK

Schiphol 1935 1/300 [part 2]

While we are very busy with filming the fourth installment in a documentary series on Northern Dutch architecture, I also found a little bit of time to fiddle with paper.
The HP.42 had to be finished and its sister in the KLM, the DC-3 also still had some stuff to be done.
In 1/300 everything is a bit of a challenge, but wing struts certainly are.

Here's where I am now, more follows further below in this post.

This is my 400th post on this blog. Just a couple of days after my 47th birthday, it is just another little milestone in my life.
I never dreamt I would be keeping a paper model blog when I started making models again and here I am. People from America, Turkey, Ukraine, France, Indonesia, Brazil and lots of other places far away from the Netherlands visit my humble little blog and read about my insignificant silly hobby. I feel happy when I think about that. So onwards to the next 400 posts!

Schiphol 1935 1/300

Hi there.
In a way this is a follow-up of the last build, because it has the same subject in a diorama setting: 

The Handley-Page HP. 42 PH-PNG “Groningen” 

at Schiphol Airport, 1935.

It's not often that I revisit a story or a build but this one wasn’t finished yet, I guess.
After building the Handley-Page HP.42 in 1/100 and having recoloured it into a fictitious livery, I thought it would be nice to also do the other fictitious livery from the story, the KLM one. But not in the same scale.
It was long ago that I have tried a small scale build. Mainly because of my eyes have deteriorated a little and me being a little afraid to face a failed attempt to build in these little scales (which I always have preferred).

A little giveaway here, you can see some result in the top of the picture. More on that can be seen below.

Well, anyway, I just printed the HP.42 in 1/300. in its KLM livery, with the same registration as the Kroonduif one except for the nationality letters. So PH for the Netherlands instead of JZ for Dutch New Guinea. So this is the “Groningen”.
(something unusual for the time in KLM-tradition, since all their planes were named after birds, using the last letter of their registration code. Even the hard to name PH - AKQ was named after a bird. Kwak, a small heron. (It could have been Quetzal, but perhaps that was to long or still too unknown in the Netherlands at the time…)

The HP.42 build goes quite well, and I am pleased with it. I used a loupe once in a while to cut out things like the engine nacelles. But in the end it also could be done with just the old specs on the nose. It looks like it is going to work in this scale. work in progress pics further down the post.

But there is already something I can show in a more or less finished state. I wanted to create this into a diorama so I also wanted to make the Schiphol airport main building. There is a very nice little paper model of the building, originally called “Het Stationsgebouw”. It has been designed by Noorderlicht, the architect bureau that actually rebuilt the original Schiphol building at the Aviodrome in Lelystad, the National Dutch Air and Space Museum.

The rebuilt Schiphol main building like it looks today in Lelystad. Photo © Aviodrome Lelystad

They created the building like it was in 1928. By then, it was two years old and already had a little extension added (the part in the back with the four square little windows). Now in my story it is somewhere in the thirties, in the time the KLM HP.42’s entered service. I had to figure out how the building looked in, say, 1935.

It was quite hard to even find good photos of the building itself (it has been destroyed by bombardments in the Second World War) but it was even harder to date the photos. I got confused when I saw elements on photos I couldn’t find back in the building I was making.
It appeared that at a certain moment it was thoroughly expanded and changed. 

The restaurant part was rebuilt, moved forward and heightened. The tower got an extension with an external staircase and the lower roof was turned into a terrace. It took quite some time to figure out what happened to the building, and especially when it happened. Luckily, I finally discovered the elaborate rebuild took place in 1937 so I still could use the original 1928 model for my story.

Handley Page HP.42 Kroonduif Airlines [1/100] part 2

So here's the next (and last) installment of the HP.42 "Kalong" of Kroonduif airlines.
The plane is ready and has taken a nice place on one of my shelves.

Here she is in finished state:

Now below is the build story.

Handley-Page HP.42 Kroonduif airlines [1/100] part 1

Fellow Papermodeler-forum member Gary Pilsworth designed a nice model of the HP.42 in 1/72. I reduced it in size to about 1/100 (by printing two pages on 1 A4 sheet).
I also changed the livery into the Kroonduif livery which was the actual airline of Dutch New Guinea. They never really flew with HP42's but this is a What-if, so there. (see previous blogpost).

This is how it looks right now, a quick resume of the start of the build follows below.

Storytime!

Before the next build, here's a what if-story I made up the other day.

The story of the six Dutch - owned HP.42 “Halifax” - class aircraft
When Handley Page announced its HP.42, which had its first flight in November 1930, Imperial Airways was not the only airline which was interested in buying the airplane. Dutch airline KLM also liked a couple to give their busy line to the Dutch East Indies a much needed boost.

Their own Fokkers were sturdy and trusty planes all right, but they also were slow and often coped with mechanical issues on their journeys and, well, most of them were starting to show their age. Fokker really tried to keep up with developments but they were very conservative in their choice of materials and the configuration of their designs. Frankly, they actually were too slow for the momentum in the aircraft industry at the time. While in the U.S., the development of monocoque aluminium airframes with low wings was in full swing, Fokker’s planes still were shoulder-winged, clad with plywood and linen.
The newest plane Fokker had in development, the triple engined F-XX Zilvermeeuw, was a pretty sight with its more modern appearance. It even could have been a good comparison to the HP.42, being some kind of hybrid between the old-fashioned wooden planes and the soon-to-come modern looking shapes like the all-metal Boeing 247 and Douglas DC-2. But the F-XX also had a lot of developing troubles and was still in its early test phase.
In short, KLM's main fleet of planes were ageing rapidly and the board-members of the KLM knew it all too well. Besides all that, Fokker's biggest planes only could carry up to 16 passengers, the HP.42 could carry a for that time whopping 38 people.

So in early 1931 KLM turned to Handley Page and ordered six of their big, all-metal HP42’s. A little less than one and a half year later, they all were in service and flew prolifically and quickly to and from the Dutch East Indies. The KLM wanted the planes to be a bit more luxurious for the long flights, so the 38 seats were reduced to 30 seats and everyone had a bit more legroom and there was a bit more space for luggage.
The six planes got christened with names from Dutch cities: Groningen, Nijmegen, Haarlem, Enschede, 's Hertogenbosch and Vlissingen.

By the time the HP 42's were delivered to the KLM, the thirties progressed, and KLM ordered even more modern foreign planes, like Douglas' DC-2 and DC-3. But the HP 42’s performed just as well, just like their British sisters and they kept on flying, as luxurious airborne Orient Expresses.

One of KLM's HP.42's during a fuel stop in Palestine. 
(original photo from Wikipedia, manipulation by me)

When at the end of April 1940 war was imminent and already very much looming over Europe, two of the six HP42’s (Groningen and Enschede) just had left Schiphol for respectively Java and Sumatra and two of them (Vlissingen and 's Hertogenbosch) were just about to head back. The other two were in a hangar at Schiphol. One of them was under repair and had its undercarriage removed, and the other was in the middle of a big engine overhaul. Then came that unavoidable May the 10th, 1940, and the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. Schiphol was severely bombed by the Luftwaffe and although all but one of the military planes on the airport were unharmed, the KLM suffered huge losses, while all their DC-2's and 3's were painted orange as a way of showing their neutrality, which made them great targets. The hangar in which the two HP.42's were repaired got a couple of direct hits and although the Amsterdam fire brigade tried their best to extinguish the fire, the Nijmegen and Haarlem were lost.
The two planes that just left from the Dutch East Indies were about to land in Karachi. There they heard of what happened in Europe and specifically in the Netherlands and the crew decided to fly back to Batavia (the city which now is called Jakarta). Soon thereafter, they were joined by the two other HP.42’s that had taken off days before the invasion.
In Batavia, the four HP.42's were put into service with the Royal Dutch East Indies Airlines (KNILM) who made good use of the planes, together with their own DC-2's and 3's and Lockheed Super Electra's.

Then the war also reached the Pacific in 1941 and in early January 1942, two of the HP.42's were chartered by a big group of wealthy Dutch people, eager to escape the imminent Japanese invasion. They set off to fly to Australia. The 's Hertogenbosch was never heard from again and probably crashed in the sea, being too heavily loaded. The other one, Vlissingen, flew from the island of Timor and reached Darwin on just fumes due to a leaky fuel line. Having only one chance to land the heavy aircraft, it came down quite rough and it broke its main landing gear and crashed. Luckily, without any casualties. Unfortunately, it left the plane with irreparable damage and its useless remains were scrapped not long thereafter. Of the other two, the Enschede was destroyed in its hangar at Batavia airport in one of the first Japanese bombing raids in March of 1942. Most of the other planes of the KNILM could reach Australia before the attacks started and were sold to the allied forces. 

A candid photo of the last HP.42 in existence, escaping to Merauke.  
(Photo originates from the website Defence of the Realm)

Groningen, The last HP.42 in existence, managed to escape to the airfield of Merauke, a city on the island of Papua New Guinea, which also partially was a Dutch colony. Merauke was the only city on the Indonesian archipelago that never was occupied by the Japanese army. It apparently was of no strategic or other interest to them, although there have been a couple of heavy bombardments at the airfield.
Here, the HP.42 survived the war. It undertook some transport flights to and from Australia. After the war, things did not go back to normal again. Turmoil in the Dutch East Indies caused a lot of disruption, the local people demanded their independence. Using guerrilla tactics, the Indonesians kept on fighting The Dutch reacted with brute and excessive force to try and bring these revolts to a halt. But only with partial success and lots of casualties and cruelty along with it. Under the pressure of the United Nations, the Dutch finally had to give in and in 1950, Indonesia became an independent nation. But this didn't include all of the Dutch East Indies. There still was a part of Papua New Guinea which remained Dutch.
Indonesia however, had no plans to exploit a single airline between Papua and Indonesia. So for a while, air traffic over New Guinea was almost gone. No cargo flights with food, mail and clothing, no passenger flights across the dense jungle areas and mountains. The Dutch governmental department of Papua decided to charter a single Dakota from KLM to start inland flights and soon they added some De Havilland Beavers on floats and also three Scottish Aviation Twin Pioneer freighters to their fleet.

 

Above and below: Dakotas and a Twin Pioneer of Kroonduif at the airfield of Biak, Dutch New Guinea, 1950s. (Photos from somewhere on the web I can't recall... sorry!)

In the mid fifties, it became a real regular airline and a daughter enterprise of KLM. A pilot of KLM became manager of the fleet. It was around this time the last HP.42 was 'rediscovered'  in a dusty hangar at the back of the airport of Merauke. They immediately brought the old plane back into service after some small necessary repairs and a bit of new oil for the engines. It quickly became the flagship of their airline company, which now was called Kroonduif (Western Crowned Pigeon). They had a very successful business. Kroonduif flew cargo and people to places at Papua New Guinea but also (with a chartered Lockheed Constellation of KLM) to Amsterdam and even Tokyo. The HP.42, which got the new name Kalong (a huge type of fruit bat also called the Flying Fox) was used for inland cargo and passenger flights and for flights to the Australian part of the island. Some even say the HP.42 was the trigger for a lot of the Cargo Cult outings on New Guinea at that time. Some of their wooden 'plane' structures have an uncanny similarity with the HP.42...

The old HP.42 was kept in service until 1962, when the Dutch part of Papua New Guinea became part of Indonesia and the Dutch had to leave all their assets behind. Garuda took over Kroonduif's aircraft, including the HP.42. But for Garuda, the old aircraft was of no use any more and after having been a hangar asset for yet another couple of years, the plane was eventually scrapped in May of 1966.
 
…

Credible? Well, most of it actually is true. The thing that never happened is the existence of those six extra HP.42’s for the KLM and the story of their fate. In reality, there were only ever 6 built and all of them served with Imperial Airways. All of them perished in the first year of the war while in RAF service, either due to storms that blew the planes against one another and practically wrecked them, or by very clumsy landings that did about the same job for the planes. None of them survived the year 1940. A sad ending for this glorious and rather beautiful plane.

The HP.42 in its last known livery, that of the RAF. (Source: Defence of the Realm)

Next up will be the build of a HP42 in 1/100 in Kroonduif livery.
More on that next time!
--PK

Zil 4906 - The Soyuz capsule [4] Finished!

Well, there it is. The Soyuz capsule completely finished.
Inner shield attached to the bottom, the skin nicely scorched and rough.

The rest of the story follows below.

Zil 4906 - The Soyuz Capsule [3]

Some more progress. The capsule itself is finished, I just need to do the shield below.
It has text and pictures on it and lots of holes too. And it has a couple of hard curves. Combining those is a challenge. The first trial is there but I still have some way to go.
Here's how the capsule looks now:

I'll show you how I made this if you read further.

Zil 4906 - The Soyuz capsule [2]

Well it all is going better as expected, actually. Today I managed to get all of the stuff around the wall up and ready. The only things left are the hatch on top and the exposed bottom (the heat shield is jettisoned in the descent, remember?)
Here's a pic on how it looks now, the rest follows below.

Zil 4906 - The Soyuz capsule [1]

Hello friends. Now the Zil is finished is needs something to carry. So I started building a Soyuz capsule.

There is no 1/25 Soyuz spacecraft, let alone just the capsule. So I had to design one. And I am not really a designer. Also, I don’t have any 3D or CAD program to help me. This means I make things up as I go, using some online calculators, lots of photos and two good old Eyeball 1.0's (with a couple of add-on lenses in front of them to correct the blurriness close by...).

trial and error.

The capsule’s shape was the least of my troubles. I already have built it. Thrice. And it ended up looking quite the part. I used just some drawings and schematics to figure out measurements and let the shroud calculator do the rest. After a first trial, which turned out to be a little too coarse in shape, I ended up with six rings which created a nice bell-like shape quite similar to the Soyuz. I am really happy with the shape.

Now at first I planned to try and make this a model I could share but that is a couple of steps too far right now. Story time!

Zio's Macchi C.200 "Saetta" (in private hands) 1/72

I am on a flow at the moment, apparently. I am enjoying recolouring models of aircraft. Especially Fabrizio Prudenziati’s models. They just are so much fun to build. One of the more odd looking planes in his collection is the Italian Macchi C.200 Saetta.
Built in the late 30s, the originally planned sleek shape of this plane was more or less undone by putting a 14 cylinder radial engine at the front end. The Italian government thought it was better because they found radials to be more reliable. In the end it made for a very interesting looking plane. Typically Italian, if you will.

And the Saetta happened to become one of the fastest and most reliable aircraft of the Italian air forces. The design of the Saetta was later reused in the improved C-202 Folgore, which had a straight in-line 12 cylinder engine, a license-built Mercedes and thus a nice sleek pointy nose. I already have that one on the shelf in a recolour as one which was captured by the U.S Army.

Now since there are no other Saettas outside of those scarce ones one sees in museums, I wanted to colour this Saetta like a privately owned plane. No camo, no guns, just a fun high powered one seater to have fun in. So, away with the camo, and on goes the colour. And wahey, there are Il Velivolo Azul and Cavallucio Marino.

Zil 4906 [15] Small stuff part two: Let's call it finished.

This is it, then.
This is the Zil 4906 "Kran" in its final state.
I am not going to add or change anything about it now. The only other thing to accompany this build is a Soyuz capsule.

The Zil 4906, awaiting the Soyuz capsule

Busloads of pictures below!

Zil 4906 [14] - Small stuff part one

We're almost there.
It now is down to the small stuff. Rear view mirrors, propellers, and hinges. The latter still is ahead of me, the rest is well under way. 

Zil 4906 [13] Wheels.

Well, whaddaya know? All the wheels are on. I have been busy, I guess. Still to do work on the windows and hatches and some other cabin-related greebles. Now there are some things to say about the wheels and the way they are attached to the vehicle. More on that below.

Zil 4906 (12) short update - Just one more wheel to go!

So there. Five down, one to go. This was this morning, after making four airplanes to kind of avoid getting any further... 

In front of the Zil are some small doodads for finishing the cabin, four finished wheels and one not even halfway through glueing the treads on, a strip of treads and trials for the upcoming Soyuz in 1/25! More on that later.

 ...And this here below was just minutes ago. Wheel five is ready. 

Now just one last wheel, the one on the rear on the right side, and then it's time for the suspension. It looks like there almost isn't any progress but with my job and all thins in my life beyond paper models it sometimes takes a lot more time to do just one wheel. And just doing a wheel over and over again gets tedious in the long run. Hence the airplanes. I guess I'll take another route for the suspension parts. Not one by one but all parts at once. Might be easier. Who knows.

See you!
--PK

Planes!

Still on a flow with planes, so the Zil has to wait a while.
Model making should be fun and the Zil is a bit boring, having to do all those wheel treads. So I did some reasonable quickies with planes for some quick results. And because I love doing planes.

I made this Spitfire, a recolour of an older Emil Zarkov model, a later model Griffon-engined Spitfire mk. XIX with a 5-bladed prop and shorter gear. I thought it would be fun to do it in the style of the Red Arrows. It looks quite well with that scheme. I based it on the most recent livery.
 

I also did a recolour of this Zio- plane, this time an aircraft from his native Italy. A while ago I read about how the U.S. Army, while moving up through Italy in 1944, captured this Macchi 202 Folgore (thunderbolt) and gave it a new paint job and tested it. They called it the Wacky Macchi. I liked this and knew I had a model of it, so I changed Fabrizio Prudenziati's Italian Macchi into the U.S. captured version.

Now, for the latest one I did, there is some more to tell.

I was on a short holiday.

... But still I found the time to do some paper model stuff.
We of course did some cycling and visited a couple of interesting villages in the neighbourhood but I also found the time to actually do some stuff with paper. Here's what I did on two sunny and very hot days at the camping site in Hummelo in the very pretty Achterhoek region in the Netherlands this week.

Sitting at an outdoors pick-nick table, I first built a small fun stubby rocket (in a recolour of my own design) and after that, I took out another Zio creation, one of his Supermarine Spitfires. I love that plane and especially the sound of the engine and the wing shape.
This particular version was a little messy designed, because the numbering of some parts was misplaced over the parts themselves. I used my pencils to 'correct' the mistakes, giving the Spit a more dirty underside in the process.

As usual, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a fan I am of the late Fabrizio Prudenziati's models. They are so much fun to build and they look so good when finished. When I am somewhere else and I know I have time for a little modeling, I take one or two of Zio's models along to make.

BEsides building the spitfire I also kept an eye on all the birds in the trees around us. I saw a lot of nice Great Spotted Woodpeckers, a Mockingbird, a pair of rare black Kites, Blackcaps, Garden Warblers and of course lots of Blackbirds and Song Thrushes.

Zil 4906 [11] - Suspension and corresponding pending ponderings

PK is the master of suspension. No. That was Alfred Hitchcock. But I did master the suspension on the Zil 4906. The first of the six, that is. And kind of, too. I think.

This set of parts is quite complex and the drawing in the accompanying build scheme is just showing it from one side, leaving a lot open for interpretation. And in this case, to be honest, the black and white isn’t of much help, having just the smallest amount of contrast.
So, I have asked Maxim for help and he sent me all the pictures he had of the Zil. thanks again, Maxim, they were helpful. However, the parts and the assembly still were quite tricky.

Here’s the end result, below it you’ll see the build-up. Perhaps these photos also can be of help for future builders of this vehicle.

Note: This was after I realised it would be easier getting all the wheels aligned if I would leave it off at first, adding the wheel later. Hence the paper rips at the wheel attachment points.

Du Doch Nicht!! - an inbetweenie

The First World War was an interesting war in the sense that a whole lot of novelties were introduced in the battle theatre. It was the era in which a new kind of warrior rose: the flying ace. Every country involved had their own. When having downed five or more aircraft, you could consider yourself an ace, although others were to call you that. the term occurred in 1915, at the same time as aircraft started their dogfights in the airspace above the trenches.

The most famous ace of them all, of course, is Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron. But there were dozens of them. Some of them had aerial manoeuvres called after them, like Max Immelmann. Others had a tennis court named after them. (Yes, Roland Garros.)

According to Wikipedia the French started using the term Ace, while British pilots earned themselves the term Star Turns and the Germans called theirs Überkanonen (literally top Gun!). In the end the term Ace remained and lasted.

Now hobbywise, the late Fabrizio Prudenziati left us paper modelers a heritage of fantastic little aircraft, amongst them a lot of WW1 planes. I have made a couple of them last year and they really are thoroughly enjoyable to make. Get them while you can via the Wayback Machine here.
I got the idea to do a lot of the planes of the big aces of WW1, to eventually suspend them all in a large mobile in an everlasting big dogfight in a future house, hopefully having a high ceiling..

Here's an addition to the flying circus, Ernst Udet's Fokker D.VII. Story goes on below.

Fokker D.VII flown by Ernst Udet, model by Fabrizio Prudenziati, recolour by yours truly.

Intense weeks, indeed!

April the 25th we got a call we had to take over an assignment gone wrong. We had to make a 30 minute documentary film in a month's time. That turned out to be two weeks eventually, while there were some things that had to be sorted out considering the other party involved.
We had to write a new storyline, find new protagonists and we did that within a week. After that, we had to shoot and edit the film in two weeks time. Usually we get about nine months all together to do so.
Anyway, it was intense and hard work, we haven't enjoyed any weekend or time off the last weeks but the film is ready and, might I say, enjoyable too.
The creativity I had all went into this production and there was no time left to work on models, unfortunately.
Good thing is that now I do have time again and I am looking forward to pick up construction on the Zil.
So, hopefully, soon a new fresh update on the blue sixwheeler.
See you soon!
--PK

UPDATE: We finished the film on time, and we had the release last Wednesday. Lots of good reactions and with a last minute arrival of a much bigger screen and projector also a good quality viewing. After some rest, we'll get on with the next film in the series.

I am still here, don't worry.

It's just that the paper model stuff is a lot slower at the moment.
Some parts have been made and added, but it's too little to show yet.
There will be some more or less intensive weeks of work ahead and I always appear to be more creative when that happens, so we'll see what happens then. (-;
In the meantime I enjoy spring, being with my girlfriend and lots of other things.
But I still am here. That is what I wanted to say.
See you soon!

ZIL 4906 [10]: cranes and struts.

With finishing the cranes and the struts it's time to move on to another part of the build. I guess I'll do another wheel or so. I still have four to do, anyway.
However, to round up the build of the crane section, I'll show you what I did.
Firstly, I placed the secondary pistons on the arms. Next, the cranes needed some final detailing. Thirdly, I wanted the struts and jack posts to be functional. Here's how it all ended up, more on the story after the jump.

The cranes both are nice and dirty now. There also is a holder for the jack post support feet, 
just like on the real thing. Left, you can just see the strut peeping out of the shaft.

ZIL 4906 [9] some improvement

even though I promised myself not to tinker too much with this model, I encountered a little dilemma earlier today. The cranes are supposed to stretch all the way back to make an angle of about 130º with the deck, to reach out far enough for grabbing the Soyuz capsule. These cranes now only made it to 80º max. So, it had to be done. I had to take it apart carefully and redo it.
In short, They now bend back to 130º. I did this by making an extra piston, so the arms could stretch much further backward.

This was the original configuration. And as far back the arms could reach. Clearly not far enough.

And this is how far back they can reach now. Thanks to the double piston it now looks much better.

ZIL 4906 [8] closing stuff up and action on the deck.

Been some time, I know. There was a lot to do with filming, editing and trying to make ends meet with those activities. So less time for building.
But now there is a lot to see again. I made some new stuff for the Zil and it goes well. Of course there are lots of photos I'll show you on this blogpost, here's where I am now.

So, a new wheel, some lifting equipment and a filled-up hole in the deck. If you are curious I'd suggest you read the rest. (-:

 

Zil 4906 [7] And on we go...

Hi there.
Time for an update, don't you think? Well, here it is. But don't expect huge progress. I'm taking this one easy, I also am working on some professional stuff at the moment, like customizing my camera rig for an upcoming shoot.
Anyway, here's some stuff about paper modeling a Zil 4906. I have made the sides of the vehicle and I closed up the wheel wells. There still is one wheel, but it now also has a hub.
Which is nice.
I guess most of the photos will speak for themselves, but I'll comment on them anyway. Take a look, if you will.

With this addition to the sides of the vehicle you can begin to get a grasp on how large the finished model will be. I like it a lot. It's a well designed model, really.

Zil 4906 [6]: Big car, big wheels.

Been a while. Sorry. Sometimes the spirit just isn't there. And there is more to life than just building paper models. 
But there is stuff to show and tell.
I find that, when doing a build, it is a good idea to sometimes vary in which part you concentrate on. I was working n the main body part of the vehicle but I wanted to have something else to do. So I started on one of the six wheels.

The truck itself now has its deck, engine cover and cabin glued together on the chassis.

I think it gives a good idea about how big the finished vehicle will be. It all is very precisely in fit and place. There still might be some torsion in the chassis, we'll see about that later when we'll add the side walls of the Zil. 
So, I wanted to do another part of the build and picked a wheel for a change. 

Below, we'll be continuing with the build of this wheel.

Clear Skies, Gene.

One of my favourite astronauts has died.
Eugene Andrew Cernan is the man who left the last set of human footprints on the moon in 1972.
Cernan made his first spaceflight with the Gemini 9A mission and also joined the Apollo 10 mission to test the Lunar lander close to the moon's surface with out actually landing. He set foot on the moon himself with the Apollo 17 mission. He has reached the age of 82.

His autobiography, Last man on the moon, is a really good read to learn more about his life.

ZIL 4906 [5]

Hi there.
On we go. The cabin is nearing completion and I already started some other segments of the build. I still am very pleased with this. It is a well-made model, everything fits perfectly and looks very good. Nice work, Maxim.
Here's a close-up from the side of the cabin, the build report is below.

ZIL 4906 (4)

And a happy new year.
Hopefully a lot better than last year.
On we go with the Zil.