I was not happy with the upper suspension arm pivots, the sides had a tendency to collapse inwardly.
To brace the pivots and to have more glue area for attachment I made small 1.2 mm thick wedges and glued them between the two outside halves of the pivots.
The two small parts in the bottom of the photo are the caps that will cover the 2 mm rod that protrudes through the pivots.
The upper suspension arms shown here have a 2 mm rod inside the arm that extends through the two pivot blocks.
The pivots were not glued to the rods so that the upper arms could be adjusted before they were permanently glued in place.
The front arm and the last rear arm are glued in position then using a steel rule the two middle arms are aligned and then glued in place.
This insured that all of the arms would be level.
The assembly in the fore ground is the pivot for the leaf spring the 2 mm rod extends through the pivot and into the hull sides.
When finished the spring rests on the top of the upper pivot arm and will help support the model.
The drive shaft is made with 2mm copper wire, the ends are coiled paper.
One end of the drive shaft protrudes into the hull while the other end fits into the outer wheel support.
The wheel support is made with one piece of paper rolled on to a 2mm core.
I purposely left a small gap in the inside of the wheel support so that the drive shaft would fit into the wheel support.
My major concern at this point was how to insure that the wheels would be vertical to the ground. I was reasonably sure that the wheels would be level because of the way I had set up the upper suspension arms. What I decided to do was to make a square from 1mm card stock and use the top of the hull as my reference. One leg of the square was set on the top of the hull and using the other leg of the square the outside flat of the wheel support was adjusted to be perpendicular to the top of the hull.
What can I say doesn't the bottom of this model look like a dead Beatle?
You can also see the start of the weathering of the model.
I am not satisfied with the steering connecting rods, I should have made them out of wire but for now I will leave then as they are.
Hopefully they will be lost in the complex suspension system of the model but I can always go back and remake then with wire.
you can see the copper wire in the axels as we stated earlier wire was used rather then wood to strengthen the model.
The finished suspension system is very strong mostly due to the excellent design of the model I doubt if we will have any issues with the suspension system sagging under the weight of the model.
In the next article we will assemble the wheels and start on the Hull fenders.
Summary:
| Model: | Nr 3/03 SdKfz 234/2 PUMA |
| Kit: | MODELIK |
| Designer: | Waldemar Rychard | Scale: | 1/25 |
| Difficulty: | Rated 4 on a scale of 5 |
| Number of Parts: | 980 |
| Instructions: | Polish |
| Diagrams: | 4 pages generally good |
| Fit: | Excellent |
| Coloring and Artwork: | Coloring average
Artwork Excellent |
| Printing: | Excellent |
| Resources: | Elite Forces - Armoured Cars
WW II Vehicles - SdKfz 234 (8 rad) SdKfz 234 Web site |
