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.

When cutting the large piece out, it still is not quite clear how and where it all has to go but it turns out it just guides itself into place. I only changed one thing; the number on the front wing. There might be a number 14 riding around in Russia but I haven't found any photos of it online. I did find a couple of other ones and I picked a number of a vehicle I obtained a few good photos of (in the build guide I am writing for this model I will include these numbers). Maxim has made a small mistake (or was it just laziness?(-;) to give the 4906 crane, as well as the 49061 and the 29061 'screwdriver'  all the same number. Which, of course, is not logical. So, anyway, long story short, I used 87 as my number here.
I ran into a problem immediately, because when you import a PDF into Photoshop, it apparently automagically reduces its size. So when I printed it for the first, second an third time, it was too small, way too small, it was at least 5mm too short. It ust didn't fit. So I had to scale the newly numbered file up to improbably large proportions, it almost didn't fir on the sheet any more but when printed it was fine again. a margin of 0.5mm was more or less acceptable, I thought.

But was it? Well, it turned out even the framework needs some meticulous fitting and spacing. When I started cladding the frame with the skin, here and there the fit wasn't spectacularly precise. In the end it turned out all right because you can do a lot of fiddling while the glue is setting.

The port side of the skin is on. It bends around to the bottom and meets the middle 'spine'.

Meanwhile, the wheel got its hub. It was a little hard to make it fit onto the wheel, I had to take off the white-ish ring in the centre to get the hub in. The hub itself is relatively easy to make. Even the screws are easy to cut.

Wheel wells added. Also quite easy. These wells firstly need the curved part attached, carefully glueing the edges to the rim of the outer skin and some framework in the process. I used a shortened (for easier handling) knitting needle #5 for smoothing the edges of the rim, it now is a little rounded, which to me looks good, I guess the original vehicles also have rounded edges on the wheel wells. 

But you really need to bring the two surfaces together. Gaps are frequent in these edge glue models if you don't smooth stuff out a little.

The inner well gaps are a little harder to remove. I worked from the inside, pushing the knitting needle from the opposite side in the framework. Realising I couldn't do this for both of the sides...

A little better. It will get even better. I don't mind a little glue here, it is allowed to be gritty, dirty and a little muddy. I plan to set the wheels in a in - outward position so you can see the vehicle has double steering. This will camouflage the unhoped-for gaps of blemishes even better.

Rear wheel well.

The starboard side.

A gap I hope will be covered in the end.

The back end. Lots of stuff will go on here later.

So this is where I am now. I wonder what the next step will bring. There is a large part that will close the belly up, it has a wide front part that has to join with the curved side walls, and a small back part that connects to the rear end. I guess that is what will come next and perhaps I will need to use some inner glue strips for that. We'll see.
Anyway, thanks for watching and see you next time!
--PK