D9R Doobi (Meng Model SS-002) Build Log

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  • August 16, 2015 at 4:12 pm #12161

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    I made a start with this great kit and started with the undercarriage and ripper assembly. The parts go together very well and the ripper is engineered very nicely! it is fully workable and will be detailed with hoses later on.

    Here are some pics of the undercarriage + ripper:

    Finished undercarriage(1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Finished the lower hull (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    And some closeups of the ripper:

    the Ripper assembled (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The ripper finished (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Finished the ripper (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    note the bolts on the head of the hydraulic cylinders, those had to be cut of the sprue and glued to the cylinder manually, they are not casted within the bigger part. Great feture of MENG Model because it gives great detail!

    The yellowish stuff is putty and was drying at that moment.

    Im continuing with the cab assembly, more later this week I hope!

    August 16, 2015 at 4:18 pm #12182

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    The build of this great kit has continued with the interior and drive train assembly. Lets start off with the interior and my experiences.

    The interior parts have great detail and very crisp casting. The following two pictures show the interior parts dryfitted:

    Interior of the cabin (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    the cabin of the bulldozer (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    the only downside to the interior are the ejector pins on the armor plates (wall of the cabin). I found the ejector pins easily removed with a sharp blade by scraping them out of the parts, and sanding them afterwards. Please see the following pictures, you can see where the pins were by noting the sanded surface:

    Detail on the armor panels (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    On the left panel in the above picture you can see two remaining ejector pins, but they will be invisible after assembly that’s why I left them.

    All the exterior armor panels:

    the exterior panels of the cabin (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Other side:

    the armor panels of the cabin (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next up is the roof / ceiling, same issue here, pinmarks. again removed with a sharp blade:

    Interior side of the roof (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The roof! nice detail! Hatch can be opened for the Israeli version a machine gun will be mounted. But im building the US version (M1070 & M1000 Cargo) so no weaponry for me unfortunately….

    exterior side of the roof (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Drive train

    We continue with the drivetrain assembly. I started with the running gear assembly:

    The running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    As you can see, it looks great but some filling is needed on the large seam over the top of the running gear.

    A detail shot of the underside:

    Inside of the running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Note the extra thick glue I used as filler. sanding required later off course!

    underside of the running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The sprocket wheels! the casting is superb crisp!

    the drive sprocket wheels (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Now we start with the tracks. I struggled with them in the beginning but here’s how I did it (and found the fastest way)

    You start off with three parts per track link, part C1 (right top of the pic) part C2 (left top of the pic) and part C3 (bottom of the pic):

    The track parts (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next we connect some C1 parts, just put them over eachother, no glue needed and put one C2 parts at the end of you trail, this is to connect the trails later!

    First connect all parts C1 (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next, glue parts C2 one by one (so do NOT glue all the tips in advance!) to parts C1.

    don’t mind the exact location, you will change this later. ow yeah, forgot to mention, I used normal Revell glue, no super glue as you want to be able to adjust later on.

    Note you left the LAST C2 piece un-glued so you can connect the separate trails later on!

    after checking the first following picture, notice that you do not need to clean up the entire C1 & C2 part, just one side (right side in this picture) the rest will remain covered when the tracks are completed. This saves you a lot of time cleaning parts C1 & C2

    Glue parts C2 to C1 (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The result (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Now is the time to glue parts C3 to the trail! at this moment you want to be able to adjust the parts C1 & C2 a bit to fit, thats why I did not use super glue!

    Add parts C3 to the tracks (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    One completed track set of 43 tracks! you can wind them around the drive train and glue the final piece to fix it.

    I’ll leave them off for easy painting

    Result after 43 tracks (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The process goes quicker as you might think at first, keep that in mind (-:

    The tracks on the running gear and drive sprocket (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Now you think, well great I got them together and they will fit great on the drivetrain. Unfortunately the tracks are a little bit to loose when using 43 tracks and to narrow (cant get them together) with 42 links….

    see this:

    the tracks are to loose (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    You can see it the best on this picture, the tracks right of the sprocket wheel should be tighter and NOT touch the running gear.

    I guess thats something we have to deal with till some aftermarket tracks come out with the right size… So this is a mistake by Meng Model, and its a crucial one!

    side view (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    tracks on the D9R (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    That was it for now.

    In the next update I hope to show you some painted interior and finished assembly of the complete model.

    Let me know if you have any questions!

    August 16, 2015 at 4:21 pm #12183

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    After building the interior it was time to paint the interior. After painting the interior I can continue assembling the D9R dozer.

    The next two pictures show the painted and partially assembled interior:

    Painted the cabin interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    interior color is added (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The next picture shows the instrument panel of the D9R. This panel is painted in the base color first and a decal is applied after. The decal is very difficult to place 100% correctly on the very uneven surface with all the buttons and such. I used decal softner and setter but did not manage to apply is 100% correct:

    the control panel of the doobi (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next up is the dozer blade. The assembly was very easy and straight forward.

    the immense shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    the shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Here you’ll see some loose parts yet to be glued to the model such as lights, hydraulic system and the exhaust.

    some small parts (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The drive train from the last update got some filler and the seam are gone! takes a little time but are highly visible after finished so its neccesary:

    filled the seam lines (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Finally the dryfit to end this build log parts.

    Please note that this is a dryfit so not everything is straight and tight.

    a dryfit of the D9R (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Dryfit of the current status (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Almost done building! (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    A dryfit of the bulldozer (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next up is the weathering of the interior so we can close the cabin and continue with the rest of the D9R!

    August 16, 2015 at 4:32 pm #12184

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    Another update! Today Im gonna show you guys the weathered and finished interior and the last building pictures, that means the assembly of the D9R is done! I can now move on to painting, decaling and weathering the D9R Doobi!

    I bet the weathering process is gonna be challenging but fun and I can learn from it.

    Here are some pictures of the final assembly:

    Completed building (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    rear left side (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    rear right side (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Now on to the interior! I pretty happy with the result although is was a very easy process. Here is what I did:

    1. Satin coat over the paint job

    2. Applying Decals

    3. Simulating chipped paint with black Vallejo paint:

    – I did this by taking a sponge, cut off a small piece (about 5 – 10 mm square), dip it in the paint
    – dip it off on a paper towel until very little comes of (this you must practice and vary to find the best result! its very easy!)
    – gently tip the model where chipped paint could be seen in real life, like edges etc.
    – Just practice on some plastic and you’ll see how easy this process is.

    4. Take a dark grey colored oil wash and put dots on the interior panels, let it dry for about 15 mins and with a  dipped of brush with white spirit, strike down until the desired result is acquired. Be sure to not wet your brush to much as you will remove all the oil wash with one strike! again, practice with this!

    5. Apply Iraqi sand colored pigments  on all horizontal surfaces of the interior. How much is your call, do you want it to be very visible, or just a little? I went for pretty much!

    6. Apply some dots of a darker color pigment on the horizontal surfaces to break the Iraqi sand color and get a more realistic result. be careful not to overdo this!

    7. Final step! wet the horizontal surfaces roughly with white spirit to make the pigments spread and get more realistic results. This also fixes the pigments (you still should not touch them when dried!) Be sure to carefully dip the wet brush on the pigments and make a dipping movement and not strike to much.

    8. you’re pigments start to disappear but will return way better when the white spirit is dried! so do not worry 🙂

    Note how I used pigments in the window sills as well! sand could reach everywhere so keep that in mind!

    Here’s the pictures:

    Finished Interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Weathered interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    worn out interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    US interior finished (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Painted interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Weathering the interior (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    finished cabin (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    weathered cabin (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    And finally, a shot from outside through the entry door!

    entry view from outside (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    I hope you guys liked it! let me know if you have any suggestions or questions! I’ll be glad to reply!

    Boris

    August 16, 2015 at 4:41 pm #12194

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    Frenchy, a member of Armorama showed me some pictures of a D9R with some improvised armor. The armor exists of bastion cages and seems to be made on the spot by the users of the D9R. Below is a small gallery with the pictures that show the addon armor: (All credit goes to the owner of these pictures)

    Based on these pictures provided by Frenchy (Thanks again!) I went to work and created the following cage:

    dryfit with hesco armor (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    addon armor added (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    added bastion cage armor (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    added addon armor (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Please notice that the cage is dryfitted and the two metal rods are just to put the cage in place for dryfit.
    When everything is painted and weathered I will fix the cage to the D9R the same way as seen in the pictures from the above gallery

    So, that was the cage, on to the first step of painting this Dozer. After seeing pictures of some heavy weathered D9R’s I realized I will need some heavy chipping. This lead me to the chipping fluid / chipping medium solution based on the hairspray method. I used Vallejo’s Chipping Medium product.

    The way this goes is that you first apply the bare steel color:

    steel color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    first color for chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    bare steel color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    starting chipping fluid chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Next up is securing the steel color with a matte or satin clear coat (I have read not to use gloss coat!)
    After the clear coat you’re supposed to apply the chipping medium product by Vallejo or the Chipping Fluid product by AK Interactive.
    The product can be applied by brush or by airbrush, I used the airbrush and thinned the Chipping Medium with water to be able to spray it nicely with my airbrush, I have not used AK’s chipping fluid so I can’t talk about that.
    I have no pictures of this since you wont notice a difference from the previous four pics.

    Now you have to think, what color comes next? looking at reference pics of a D9R I noticed a lot of rust, especially on the lower side of the body, so the rust color is added in between the steel color and the sand color (final color). This means we have to chip two layers of paint!
    I read that after the chipping fluid’s you should use acrylic paints! so be sure to not use oil based paints as the result might not be what you expected!

    Because we work with fairly big surfaces here we want to create some shades in the rust color and break the flat look. I did this by first applying Vallejo 71080 Rust over the whole surface, after the basic rust color I added shades of 71069 Rust (more metallic) and 71029 Dark Earth to the model. Apply the last two colors in random spots over your basic rust color. When chips become visible trough the sand color which is added later, you will see different tones of rust color! I did this with the steel color as well!

    rust color added over steel (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    In the above picture I added the rust color to the lower side of the D9R, I do not want visible bare steel on the cabin and roof because I could not find this on reference pictures.

    That means we have two layers of chipping on the lower side of the hull, and only one layer on the top side of the hull.

    Please notice the paint is still wet here, as soon as the paint becomes “touch”-dry you should start the chipping! not any later! the more you let the paint dry past that point the harder it gets to chip the paint of!
    The chipping is done with a hard shorthaired brush (I took an old brush and cut it up till a few mm’s of hair). You moisten the brush and dip, scratch etc the rust paint layer. You will notice you can just chip off the paint like it could be done in real life! Chip the steel layer visible on spots where they would appear in real life, again, base this on reference pictures and please notice that your paint is still drying so keep the work up as chipping will become harder because of drying of the paint.

    In my situation the rust color was visible over the steel color after chipping like a oil wash, to fix this use a larger soft haired brush and clean water and stroke the washy rust color off until you’ll get your shiny steel color! so basically you just “clean” your surfaces with a soft brush and water, unless you want the wash effect off course!

    effect of chipping fluid (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Note the steel spots visible are achieved with a brush and the scratches are achieve with a plier. When using the plier be sure not to put too much pressure on the plier as you do not want to damage the steel colored layer so the model plastic becomes visible! (this is where the clear coat is for in between)

    Also keep in mind that you can always adjust the chips later by drybrushing or chipping by hand with a fine brush. So dont worry too much if you missed a spot and the paint already too much!

    next up are more pictures of the same steps (steel color, flat coat, chipping fluid, rust color, chipping result:

    rusty color added (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    chipped of the rust color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    A close-up:

    close-up rust color added (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    after the chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The running gear:

    steel color on the running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    added rust color and chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    applied steel color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    069 rust color and chipping running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)rust color and chipping running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    The dozer blade is up next!

    steel color on the shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    rust color on the shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    the result of first chipping layer (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    other corner steel shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    rust color on the shovel blade (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    first layer chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    closeup of the first later chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    That were all the big parts with the first layer chipped. In the next update I will cover the second and last layer, the sand color!

    If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I’ll be happy to help you out!

    Thanks for watching and happy modelling!

    August 16, 2015 at 4:50 pm #12196

    Boris Kamp
    Keymaster
    @boris-kamp

    Sorry for the wait guys! but I have been very busy the last few months.
    Fortunately the holidays gave me some time to continue this beautiful Meng D9R Bulldozer build!

    I have managed to add the second and last chipping layer! the Sand color!
    In the next few pictures you will see the first part:

    First part of second layer (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    heavy chipping bottom sand(1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    You might wonder why I only did the bottom  and did not yet paint the rest sand color as well. The reason behind this is that the chipping fluid only works if the paint is not yet completely dry. So when I would paint the whole D9R Dozer in one go, I would be short on time to chip everything! More info on this process can be found in my previous update (above)

    So take it easy and do not outrun yourself! same goes for the running gear, paint the first half, chip it and then do the rest:

    Second layer on the running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Other agle running gear (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    After a hour or two, I got this result:

    Second chipping layer added (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    painted the saqnd color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    heavy worn effect (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    heavy chipping sand (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Looks pretty difficult to achieve right!? well it takes some patience and time but it is not as difficult as it looks!

    here are some more angles:

    front view chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    rear view second paint layer (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    left side view (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    right side view (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    Some detail shots!

    closeup of dozer blade back (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    closeup of the ripper (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    ripper closeup chipping (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    heavy chipping worn effect (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    chipping fluid effect sand color (1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    chipping paint closeup(1:35 D9R Bulldozer Meng SS-002)

    That was the heavy chipping! jeey!

    Next up is detail painting and further weathering this beast of a vehicle!
    Im planning on using oils and pigments to further weather this Bulldozer.

    If you have ANY questions / or comments feel free to ask and I’d be happy to help you out.

    Thanks for watching people!

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