JSU-152 – Part 2: Construction (cont’d)

By miniarmour on June 26, 2012 • ( 2 Comments )

Summer is here and as every year it means there is less time for modelling. In spite of all the work that is suddenly to be done around the house I am trying to keep some pace of work on the JSU and Merkava.

JSU is really nice kit, typical Tamiya. I do appreciate straightforward and rather simple construction. During my last visit at Dave’s Hornet Hobbies I picked up Friul tracks for this kit. Somehow I feel that the ability to have more pronounced sag of the tracks add to the feeling of the weight of this behemoth. Also given that after I have removed almost all the fenders, tracks will be very visible part of the vehicle I plan to spend some time painting and weathering them. Friul tracks for JSU are very nicely detailed and I actually find them quite easy to assemble. They also have the advantage that using them I can avoid all the problems with the fit of the plastic tracks – once these are shaped and glued together, you have to pray that they will still fit the wheels…

I have also asked Dave to get me the barrel for JSU-122, as I was not able to find any source of this item online. It means that I am temporarily stuck with the construction and cannot attach the mantlet to the superstructure, I just want to make sure that I won’t have any problem fitting the barrel. This would likely be more difficult once the mount is attached to the front glacis plate.

At the rear I will need to spend some time recreating the surface structure of the parts that are normally hidden by the rear fenders. I have found some interesting reference pictures on Mig’s blog (see here), so at least I have some reference to go by. And as usually, I found out that some parts that I have already removed will have to be recreated, but this should not be such a big deal.

I am also already thinking about the base for this beast. I have some vision of urban or industrial environment with collapsed buildings and a lot of debris around. I will have to go through my diorama accessories’ box (or rather boxes) to get some more inspiration. Sometimes I am surprised myself with all the things that can be found there.