Steen - in braille scale

Yesterday I finally got my compressor. So that's one less excuse for not finishing my builds, and getting through my stash.

Actually I just need one more thing before I'm ready to go. I forgot to order an air-hose, so right now I have the compressor and the airbrush, but no way to connect them.

Today I got a letter from Alex Clark with 6 small PE grills for the HEMTT. The grill on the kit is solid, and don't have the right amount of "holes", so it seems Alex decided on making a new grill using PE. You can take a look at the thread on Missing Lynx's braille scale forum.

Perfect timing from Armory. Luckily I didn't start doing any 3D work on the wheels for the HEMTT. Just today Armory has announced a new set of wheels for the HEMTT, so I've been saved by the bell.

I do need to do a bit more research on the wheels for the M984, it looks like they're a bit special. Hopefully I'll get Armory to release a set of wheels that will work with M984 too, if not, I guess I'll just have 8 spare wheels in the box.

Can't help feel a bit out of the loop, somehow Alex Clark already knew. Well, if I had an after-market company, I guess I would try to cooperate with some of the more experienced people in the hobby too.

Back to the work that I still need to do. At the moment I'm wiring the crane on the M977, actually wiring might be a wrong term, as most of the lines are hydraulic lines, not electrical. I've found some technical manuals from the U.S. Army, also called TM, that shows where the hydraulic lines are, so now I just need to decide on how much detailing I want to do.

A very common problem with soft-skin kits are the wheels, and unfortunately the M977 kit has exactly that problem.

So why not take the wheels from the 2 resin HEMTT kits I own? I just took a quick look at them. They actually look okay, the tread is better and the steel rim look a lot more accurate than the one on the plastic wheels, but the resin wheels are smaller than the plastic ones. Looking at the 1/72 scale drawings in the Tankograd books shows me that the plastic wheels are pretty much spot on! Another problem is that the steel rims for the resin wheels, like the plastic wheels, will give you 8 similar wheels, not 4 for the front and 4 for the back which I need for a M977 according to my research.

So what to do? I know of at least one other set of resin wheels for the kit, done by Korean DToys, but they're not even weighted, but costs almost as much as the kit itself. According to the manufacturer's site, the set should contain "Front 4ea, Rear 4ea", but none of the photos I've seen has me convinced that the difference to the wheels are the steel rims. I would guess that the difference are the same as on the plastic ones, on the back of the wheel.

The tread patterns on both resin sets look pretty good and accurate. They're not the same, but represent the two most common patterns. According to my research these 2 patterns can be used together on the same vehicle. I've only been able to locate one other pattern, and that has so far only been on a single photo. Unfortunately the pattern on the plastic parts does not match any of these three patterns, which I'm pretty sure are the only three patterns (I think I read that somewhere in an U.S. Army technical manual for the HEMTT).

Not really sure what to do here. I might try to get some other AM company to do a set, or maybe just stick with the kit parts. Maybe I should dust off the old 3D software and make a 3D master myself, that might make it easier getting it produced somewhere.

I keep telling myself that I'm mostly into German WWII armor, but what do I have to show? The only things I've finished after returning to the hobby is a few German WWII half-tracks.

After getting the Oshkosh, I just had to start building it. I even put in an order for two Tankograd books about the Oshkosh. I'll get back to those in a review on the site.

I've gotten pretty far with the Oshkosh. Right now I'm super detailing the vehicle, and I'm almost as far as I can get before I have to start painting parts of it. Yes, you're right, I still have to buy a compressor, so that's the usual problem. Anyway, the Oshkosh, I'll also do a in-box and/or build review for the site. I have to get one or two more Oshkosh kits for some conversions.

I just need to point that out!

That M977 Oshkosh was simply too good looking for me to put it in the stash. I've taken a few photos (I'm sorry for the bad quality, it's been a while), and I'll do a quick in-box review in a few days.

I have 2 of the Planet Model resin Oshkosh kits in the stash already, the M983 and M984, and honestly this new plastic kit from Academy is way better in detail, but more on that when I finish the review.