More spaced armor for the RAV 6 x 6

All right!  Time to keep building that extra armor for the Secret Weapon tank!

At this stage, I am building up the armor plating by placing slightly thinner layers of plasticard on the original piece.

Also, it is time to magnetize this, which I do by gluing some rare earth magnets to my polystyrene tubes (they just happened to be the same diameter!)  On the tank hull, I have small pieces of sheet metal.

The magnetized rods are attached so that I can see where to glue the main plates...

I put a few details on the opposite side of the main plate which will be facing the tank hull.

Most of you have seen me crate rivets by cutting very tiny polystyrene tubing with a very sharp exacto knife.  It can be a very tedious process, and many of the rivets will hop right off the table as you cut them.  You have to work through the aggravation :-)

I have a dab of glue handy, which I apply to the plasticard with a pin.  I use the knife to pick up the rivets and put them in place.

With the rivets and extra plate finished, it is time to glue them onto the magnetized rods.  This was a very tricky process, as my reference points got a little fragged, to say the least.

But, I think I got them just about exactly where I wanted them.

They were going to look a little odd so far out from the top of the tank, so I was glad that I had chosen to create a 'top piece' for the spaced armor.  Besides, it will give it a real resemblance to a Chimera :-)

Strips of plasticard were cut to nearly fill the gap entirely.  They are basically flush with the top edge of the vertical plate.

This was my favorite detail!  I cut two thin strips of plasticard and then used polystyrene tubing for the rungs of the ladder.  I wanted to mirror the ladder detail on the vehicle itself.

I added more details to the top plates as well, trying to carry the original vehicle details onto the spaced armor.  If I can find my Jerry cans, I will put those on as well!

So, the main plates are finished.  I am adding a few more touches, including some actual battle damage for the painting videos.

I am also creating some magnetized heavy bolter sponson weapons, so that this could be a Leman Russ.

Stay tuned!!!