Skif MT-LB conversion to a Swedish PBV 401

[jsell]

Hi all!

For some time I wanted to build a PBV 401, but have been delayed by work, refurbishing a house becoming a father and you name it. This summer I finally got started and found the Skif MT-LB kit. With the help of memories from spending some time in these beasts back in the 90's and the outstanding walk around photos at Prime portal I'm almost at the point where I can fire up the AB. Yes I am slow... I get one or two good building hours per week and spend an un-proportional amount of time looking for small stuff I drop on the floor, or fencing of kids stealing my tweezer or just sniffing glue, but I love it and the kids of course.

Any feedback and thoughts are more than welcome!!

[jsell]

This is the kit and the additional stuff I got to complicate my life. the metal tracks... I try to punish myself with putting together at least ten links on every build occasion.


Got a longer bench on the left side and the heater outlet in place. It all seemed so easy back in august.


Building the stowage box was great fun. This is one of the more visible changes to the MT-LB used in so many other places around the world.


Some more interior design - battery boxes and backrests made out of old thai food aluminium packages.


I had to get rid of some plastic around the turret that should not be there. I want to have the back doors open and there will be a gunner sitting in the turret if everything goes well.


The road wheels in the skif kit do not look much like the real thing, so I had a go at making my own out of resin. I made a couple of prototypes with clay molds but it took so much time so I instead found better ones from Miniarm.


The vehicle I'm building should have the Anti-tank missile interior - we had 6 Bill AT missiles in the back of the vehicle in a nice stowage system and could setup the missile launcher on top of the engine hatch. I had great fun with the resin wheel making so I wanted to have a go with the missiles. I borrowed some Lego from my son and here we go:


After making the 1:35 scale Bill missile and the framework for the stowage system I learned that the back doors in the Skif kit are about 3 mm too narrow in height.


New doors and bigger openings...


Then some turret detail. This probably looks weird with the turret lying up-side-down.


I like bending brass a lot.


Finally getting somewhere. Here you can see the mounting system for the AT missile launcher on the engine hatch.



That's all for now With some luck and family support I will try to get going with painting the interior soon. I very much look forward to this.

Thanks for looking!

[TRM]

Nice work so far jsell!! Fair amount of scratch going on!! Looking forwar to following along!!

[`Boots`]

Top work on this so far jsell .................coming along very nicely indeed matey ;D