LSP_K2

Welcome aboard, fellas!

5 of the 10 shells have now received their brass P.E. bottoms. I'm still not sure if I'll use the other 5 or not.

Just landed, my very first ever Optivisor.

I thought the breech operating lever looked a bit anemic, so added a new one.

Looks excellent. I like it.

To answer the question that Ray posted, these assemblies/items will be painted as groups; frame (including trails & gun carriage), gun barrel/breech/muzzle, wheels/cleaning rods/shovels, shield assembly.

I've also discovered that cleaning rods should have clamps on the non-socket end, but none are provided. Fortunately there are many styles and sizes available in 1:16 scale.

Grey on this one, yellow/green on the next.

Looks just awesome.

The trail lifting/moving handles are pretty well represented, but are completely missing the catch release foot pedal. I don't intend to add these, but they really need to be there on the next gun.

Huge error here; I have the spades on the wrong trails! I have no intention of fixing this as they're glued on tight, but will certainly keep it in mind on the next gun. I must have checked these six times and still managed to get them wrong, unbelievable.

There is no provision for the front tow bar lock on the right trail, so I'll just fake one up from plastic strip.

That didn't turn out to be near the nightmare I'd thought it might be, and is now correctly mounted on the left trail. I still need to deal with those pin marks though.

This just annoys me silly. Travel lock was intentionally installed this way in a vain attempt to hide some tiny, tiny ejector pin marks in the bridge section, but they are still visible! So, not only is it mounted on the wrong trail, but still visible, so I'll chop it off, rebuild as necessary and attach correctly. What a pain in the neck. Also, the ratchet that tightens/loosens this bridge is not included in the kit, so I may fake one up.

Pieces of .010 rod added to represent welds. Coated numerous times with Tamiya cement, they just sort of melt into acceptable welds. While they look a little rough right now, once thoroughly dry and buffed with Scotch-Brite, they'll look just fine.

Shields now all doctored up. Vallejo putty helps fill the interior seams of the wings. Shield exterior seams super glued and rounded off as per the original bent plates. The lower vertical gap in the bent shield wings was welded but I doubt I'll try to represent that on this model but will on my next kit, late version yellow-brown with green camo.

Awesome! Welcome aboard, fellas.

I've ordered same brass paint for the shells. Right off I'd say the Alclad will be my choice, but I'll spritz both on some sprue to check.

There's a small electrical box on the forward right trail. What purpose it serves I have no idea, but I added it anyway.

I won't go anywhere near as nuts on mine as you're taking this, but mine will also be VF-41, old colors though. Excellent job so far, I really like it.

Some brake light wiring added via a terminal block and some lead wire.

I'm not 100% sure yet, but certainly giving it a lot of thought, as I'm rapidly approaching that stage.

Assembly, such as it is thus far, is starting to take on a certain level of complexity that I like.

Rotating portion of gun carriage is not provided with a bearing cap, so I faked one up for it.

Each shovel mount has a welded-on stop (handle end) which is not present on the kit, so I went ahead and added it.