hi
can somebody give me some tips on scratch building a Special Forces DUMVEE?

Vinnie Brannigan (callsign Teacher) took some nice photos at Euromilitare, go to his featured article section ,in the third one down on page 3 ,you will find a KVII which took the silver by Miguel Jimenez(the Hilux MIG) . The bronze was a beautiful dumvee photo underneath ,well it might not be much help to you ,but its worth seeing.

Chris,

If your looking to scratch build a Dumvee, it can be done, and done well, but it is a lot of work. So far, the best scratch built Dumvee I have seen is by AFV Rob, AKA Rob Harvey, and his is still in progress. I think he would be able to help you more. For more info on his Dumvee, and to see what your looking at doing, check this out.................

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/89257&page=1

Personally, I would suggest just shelling out the extra money for the Pro Art Dumvee kit. Its a bit pricey, but it come with lots of parts that are near to impossible to scratch build, like the high back seats and such. They also make the SINCGARS radios you'll need. Have fun.

Here is the link
https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/89257&page=1

Thanks for your kind words Gary!

The main reason I scratchbuilt my conversion was A-I didnt have enough money for the Pro art one, and B-I already had a couple of sets of pro arts Humvee interior set which contains the seats and inteior bits, I felt it would be pointless getting the dumvee conversion when I had this set becuase I knew I could make most od the conversion buts myself, its just the seats I cant make.

So basically you'd probably be better off getting the conversion , becuase its going to be pretty hard to make those seats unless you have soe magic sculpt or something and feel confident using it. You could get one of the Humvee interior sets which is actually cheaper than the conversion and do what i did. Its more fun and the pro art conversion actually lacks a lot of details anyway.

I made a front winch from plasti card based on a model built by John Tapsell(he also made a conversion from scratch using Hobby Fan seats) All the winch is, is a front plate fitted between the bull bar mounts with a wire real behind it and a slot at the front with little rounded buffers to pull the winch through. The rear heavy duty bumper comes from Mr Models, but isnt hard to scratch build, I can give you dimensions if you want. Onto that I fitted the reat stowage try, if you intend to build a Dumvee operating in Afghanistan early on in the campaign you dont need to add this tray as ive never seen it fitted to early dumvees. The rear of the roof, from where it starts to slope down, was all cut away and sanded straight, you need to fitt a roll bar here to which the rear cargo area panels will attach, I made the bar from the plastic rod that was bent into shape(I rarely bother with measuring or making sure its all straight, I just bent it and cut it once it looked even) The side panels of the rear cargo area were made from various layers of plasti card, its quite hard to explain how I made them, I think I would need to draw something and think how I would describe the construction of those. Then all the interior details have been made as per Humvee tech manuals and images of Dumvees ive collected of the net.

If you are serious about doing this conversion drop me an email and i'll try to creat some sort of information package for you with all the reference I have and detailed descriptions I how I made the bits, I'll copy down some of the dimensions that John Tapsell used for his conversion.

Rob: If you have created a 'package' of pics, dimensions, or other info, I would greatly like to see it. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks,
Jonathan
[email protected]

Hi Jon, when it comes to scratch building it tend to work more on the eye than actual measurements-not great i know! What I can do if you like is get some measurements of all the bits I built and describe as best as I can how it was all made. I can provide you with plenty of ref pics of my model and of details from tech manual of the standard Humvee. Its actually a pretty easy converstion to do and may more fun that buying the resin set, also the pro art set lacks so many details I dont find it worthwhile. You will need the bucket type seats and perhaps some other resin bits and pieces such as radio's mg's etc. if you drop me a PM with your email address then I can send you all the info I have and anything that might be useful for you!