Cab construction
Once the main chassis compenents have been fitted we move onto the cab construction and is often the case with
trucks and cars we are faced with the dilemma of how to approach painting the
interior. Unfortunately, Zvezda have not
helped us with this task! They have
designed the cab roof to join just behind the screen where no joint on the real vehicle (so far as I could determine) appeared. Masking the joint after painting the interior
would not be my preferred plan of attack so I figured that issue would need to
be addressed first.
I have built the Zvezda L4500 S with the wooden cab so a
fair amount of parts on this kit are identical.
You got both the metal and wooden cab with that kit and as I had built this
cab previously, I employed the same method of construction with this kit.
To be able to get decent access to paint the cab interior and add the instrument decals the cab ideally needs to be built in two
halves. I preferred in this case to leave the screen and all the cab windows off rather than mask them, until the cab is painted.
I started the cab construction by building up the rear section,
cementing the floor and rear panel together. I left off both the seat and seat
back until both parts had cured to avoid any potential interference. There are
a couple of tabs on the inside of the rear panel to line up to the floor and it
is important to make sure the lower points of the rear panel sit at the same
height as the bottom of the floor moulding. I found out in my earlier build this
positioning is crucial for getting the best overall alignment of the cab, and critical if building with the doors closed.