Another big one, Matchbox Caterpillar DH8

This is a kit i first layed eyes on somewhere in the early 80's, and I wanted it! About 5 years ago I found it on ebay! 

It always seemed a little intimidating to me, and turns out, it is. A less experienced builder would probably have a lot of trouble with it. Instructions are not always very clear on where to place parts. 

Overall fit is ok, but very loose on the moving parts so far. Some figures (in early painting stages) for scale reference. 

 

The blade assembly. Very fiddly! I Drilled out the holes for the attachement of the blade to the arms and made some pins, since the kitpins where way to short.  

Dry fitting 

Some added detail.  

 

 

Priming the cabine parts 

I replaced all of the controlhandles with scratchbuild ones from steelwire 

 

More priming and dryfitting 

Coming together very nicely! 

The grill is a decal, which doesn't look very good. So I started to drill the holes. The first one allready went wrong! 

So, rather than trying to drill almost 1200 holes in the right place I decided to replace it with some fine mesh. 

I made a frame from plastic strip and card 

The frame in place 

And glued with the mesh. Will add some bolts later. 

The grill primed and in place. Much better than that decal! The paint clogged up some of the holes, I'll deal with that later. 

Tracks! 

Not very high tech driver protection cage. 

Some lights from the spare parts box, I think from a Revell Unimog 

Wiring always works great for bringing a model to life, although I haven't got a clue af where they are supposed to go. I'm pretty technical, just not with engines. But hey, as long as it looks good... 

The big hook contraption that goes on the back 

Starting to look like a dozer. Tracks in black basecoat, not properly fitted yet. 

The blade construction 

Engine in early weathering stage 

Subassemblies, still some oarts to paint yellow 

Engine in early weathering stage, part 2 

Started weathering and detailpainting this monster. Think i'll need at least a week for that. 

It is going to look like it had a good couple of years hard labour. Lots of dirt, grime and rust.