ZiL ЗиЛ D-470 "Moose" USSR Airfield Rotary Snowblower (AVD)

ЗиЛ Завод имени Лихачева Д-470/ Д-204. Шнекороторный снегоочиститель на базе ЗИЛ-157

The ZiL D-470 was based on the ZiL-157 chassis and made into an airfield snowblower in 1958. With both engines running it could go nearly 80 km/hr, and had a mass of some 8.8 tonnes over a length of 8 m. It remained in production until 1986 at the Sewdormasch factory in Severodvinsk. A thousand were built in the first eight years alone. Later versions (the D-204) had their main gasoline engine removed and simply took all tractive power from the large (armour) tank engine in the rear housing. The final production version could clear up to 720 tonnes of snow per hour. The Soviets informally called this snowblower the Лось 'Moose'.

My wife very kindly bought the AVD kit as my christmas present. It arrived from St Peterburg Russia just in time. The only parts which were not up to standard were the rotary blades which needed a lot of body work to get rid of the seams. Base plastic is black, so everyhing is spray painted using body gloss orange and then snowblower matte red (Tamiya acrylics), along with blacks and greys and interior green. The decals look okay, and stick down nicely, but I was shocked to find out that all the decal images are printed on a single sheet of clear, so each has to be labouriously cut out and trimmed. 

The axels and pins and the cabin itself are metal. All other parts are plastic. There is a single PE part for the security mesh screen on the rear window. There are a lot of (extra) clear parts for lights which do not go anywhere on this truck.

It is marked as an USSR airfield/airport snowblower from the 1960s. Imagine fleets of these moving through the darkness of a Soviet winter clearing runways and roads.

This Russian kit has much to recommend it (it is very unique), and much to hate (poor plastic, useless instructions, and a single uncut sheet with all decals printed on). But it has been a wonderful and fun build of something we Canadians can really appreciate - moving vast quantities of snow. In the dark of last night I watched a modern version of this technology clearing the massive snow piles from my road. Fascinating!

The build was fun but a bit of a nightmare (sort of Stalinist pleasure/pain) as the kit instructions are about as bad as can be. At least it has a lot of metal pins for securing the blower rig. After I photographed it I realized I had forgotten to add the snow, so the first five images were added later.

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 'Moose' Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 'Moose' Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 'Moose' Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 'Moose' Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 'Moose' Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

after painting but before construction in theSewdormasch ZiL zavod,
whiich just so happens to be in my spare bathroom

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

ЗиЛ Д-470 ZiL D-470 Rotary Snowblower, c. 1966

WOODEN TWO-MASTED SAILING SHIP

It is finally finished. The ghost ship sails away. All the wood work and sail work and rigging and even the forgotten archor are all done.

As I mentioned previously, there were no plans/instructions, and therefore all mast and boom and yard measurements are made up to look proportionately correct first against the hull, and then against the masts and remaining space.

The modeller thinks about sailing away (with a parrot).

WOODEN SAILING SHIP NOW WITH ALL SAILS

This is a progress report on the two-masted sailing ship which was on a two week break in the shipyard as I had far more pressing things to do, and rigging sails scares me.

As I mentioned previously, there were no plans/instructions, and therefore all mast and boom and yard measurements are made up to look proportionately correct first against the hull, and then against the masts and remaining space.

As of today all the sails are in place. I intend to spray paint a very light coat of sepia on the masts/yards/booms/sails as a final colour treatment. I am also considering adding more ratlines using string which has been hardened with CA glue. This is still work-in-progress. 

WOODEN MODEL TWO-MASTED SAILING SHIP

I have no name or even scale for this model. It is between 1:90 and 1:130 scale by my rough estimate. I bought it from AliExpress for a mere $12 shipping included. It arrived in two weeks. Clearly some knock-off small factory in China got hold of the computer file for the kit and burned a bunch of copies. However, the burn image is backwards and there is no reference to the original name. Several of the small delicate parts were so badly laser burned that they disintegrated.

Today is day fifteen (15) of the build. There are two basic problems: 1) there were no plans/instructions; and 2) the laser-cut sheets of wood are plywood instead of solid single type wood. You can only bend plywood in one direction. So this has been a bit of a challenge. The goal here is to make a ghost ship or sort of disney pirates vessels with a lot of crud and dirt and aging. I covered over the gun ports, and added chain-plates and several other parts which were not in the kit. Hull crud is baking soda and crushed pencil shavings. The entire thing has been spray painted with a dirty black, then sanded down (80 grit) to show highlights. It took two weeks to go from flat box to ready-for-sails. This is a work-in-progress which now needs sails.