IPMS Borinqueneers Eng Version

Hi Everyone, time to start a new proyect, this time is not a tank or a figure or a aircraft but a civil excavator, take a look!

This is the brand new 2017 Zaxis 135 excavator in 1/35 scale from Hasegawa.

The kit consist of several sprues in colors, bright orange, dark grey and black, with a chrome sprue and a clear one. Rubber Tracks are provided. There are two options for the arm, either a claw or a digging bucket.

Building started with the wheels and tracks, then with the hull, that need some weight, I added it using some metal pellets. The cabin is the next step and as the previous parts, there are all done in a evening. Here some dry fiting of the parts.

The next day I built the arm with the digger bucket. The bucket need to fill up some pin marks, but no big deal dealing with it. You have to read carefully the instructions, since they are mixed with the ones for the claw. No problem building this part, so far so good.

Now for the paint parts, I separate the cabin, the cage od the cabin, the arm, the tracks wheels and the orange torso for easy of paint.

Started with a primer, using the White primer from Badger and leave it overnight. Next day, I started the painting using Tamiya German Grey, and a mix of Orange (3parts)/ Red (1part) .For the Arm and bucket I added some yellow to age the color a bit. The backfill blade was painted using Stainless Steel from Model Master.

Here I put back the pieces together unglued, just to see the result.

I sealed with tamiya gloss, then I leave the kit for a night to rest. Next Day I Applied the Decals preparing the areas with MicroMark Set solution and later with microsol. The Decals for the cristals parts are somewhat to big, you have to trim it a little bit. In the end I removed it and paint the black lines myself.

For the Weathering I started painting the tracks with a brown color as a base. Used tamiya Buff to start some dusting on the hull.

I left the kit rest for another day so the paint settled before using oils.

The Weathering Continues with a series of color, from Tamiya Flat Earth, Deck Tan and products from AMMOMIG, like Dust Rainmarks, dark mud, kursk earth, and airfield dust pigment.

Now the Kit all glued in place, with the cristal and all the hoses in place. Some Detailing still pending but its almost finished.