Hello ladies and gentlemen,

my employer is celebrating its 125-year anniversary this year in october. The company is family owned and an associated company of the old and honorable ARAL company. It is managed already in the fourth generation of the owner Family now and I would like to give them a personal present at the big anniversary party.

Therefore I have the plan to convert a Mercedes L1500S 1,5 to. truck into a Borgward 1000Z truck which is on this picture below:



After some investigations I opted to use MINIART´s Mercedes L1500S as a base for the conversion. It is fairly close but there are nevertheless some changes to do


I will add some photoetched parts to improve the whole vehicle´s look later:


Voyager´s lenses will be used too - they are proposed for an Opel Blitz, but who cares?


Archer decals are needed for the instruments inside the cabin


I found very nice tires with civilian pattern which will fit perfectly for the truck



Peddinghaus Company was so friendly to make me custom decals for the same truck as on the only picture I do have. Even the licence number will be the same


I also already thinked About the Colors - I bought two different blue tones to mix it correctly into an ARAL-Lookalike-blue or something like that


Last but not least I already have an acrylglass display box bought for the finished truck. This will be needed at the very end of my build


A good friend of mine will cast me some wicker baskets for the coal and wooden loading for the truck next Weekend and the advertise company which always works for my employer secretly already promised me to help with a nice colored Display base at the end. Maybe with a link toward this build.

I hope everyting goes well and I would be glad if there are spectators around not to let me build this one sad and lonely.

Cheers

Thomas

Thomas you have gained a spectator right now!

I like you have anticipated almost everything - talk about German planning! I wish I'd be so organized myself.

I'm not familiar at all with the Borgward trucks and I don't know how far you want to go with the conversion, but at-a-glance I guess the most difficult it's going to be to modify the angle of the roof and the front pillars.

Btw, why the historical photo has the Renault rhombus on the grille?

Watching with interest,
Gabriel

Gabriel, welcome aboard! The Rhomboid is not only from Renault. Borgward also had a Rhomboid Symbol. But I have to agree that I just saw this single truck with the big Rhomboid at the frontal grille. As far as I discovered this vehicle was in use in 1946 according to the occupation Licence plate.

The main changes will be mad with the front pillars. The shape of the hood (should be lenghtened a bit and the gill plates at the sides needed to be changed from vertical to horizontal somehow) is also something bigger. Well lets see how it turns out later

Cheers

Thomas

ooo, this looks interesting!

I'm hopping aboard for the ride, Thomas!

Always a welcome passenger Russell

Today i snippled around a copied sideview about the truck. The biggest "Problem" will be that the Mercedes front pillars are going into the cabin doors; the Borgward doors are complete. The Borgward truck will therefore need a more elongated hood and an 90 degree angled grill.


Something about that:


Yes I think this way it does look more right!


Hey ho lets go!

Thanks Thomas!

That's quite a conversion you've got planned there!

It looks scary for me already!

Very, very curious how you're going to manage the conversion!

Gabriel

Me too Gabriel, me too!! I guess I will have to saw something off the ladder frame after ist assembly *harhar*

Ok Gentlemen,

I did started the build with the engine and the ladder frame. The engine will not be equipped with all its details as you will not see anything from him exept maybe the lowest part.


This is my very first MINIART kit and I have to say the plastic they use (at least in this kit) is too soft and too brittle for my taste. Half of the clamps for the two frame parts broke through the process of sawing them out of the sprue or due cleaning up, even though most careful treatment. Just a Little bending - snap...

Thomas,
No, your kit it's not unique! That's MiniArt plastic

On the positives, it responds very well to Tamiya extra-thin - it really welds it!

And you have a rocky start already ?!

Gabriel

Gabriel you are right: I actually use Tamiya´s extra thin glue and it really glues that plastig very good. Second Impression is that there are many microscopic small parts ("end clamps" for the leave springs for example) which are difficult to handle and impossible to clean up if not proper released from sprue. The kit already makes me sweat

Got the ladder frame finished yesterday; looks good so far




Will continue with the axles now...

super speedy compared to the Isuzu!

indeed Russel, indeed! But some parts here are even smaller than those at my 1:350 scale kit before

Had some time to continue at the frame during the last few evenings. I almost finished the lower part of the truck parts (very fragile affair!) and fixed the resin tires, these are very nicely done although PANZER ART ommitted the spare wheel. I had to use the sparewheel of the kit with a different pattern. Well, at least there is not much to be seen of it later.


to be continued

those tires/wheels look great!

It starts looking like a truck, indeed The cast on those wheels is superb! No worry about the spare tire! I was studying the tires for my ADGZ build and guess what: I identified at least three different patterns, sometimes different pattern tires mixed up or tires with the same pattern installed differently. And I guess Germany after war was in dire need of rubber (you must know better in this matter).

Looking excellent so far! Keep us posted!

Gabriel

Ok I did it: I sawed off the frame and lenghtened it about 1 cm to get the wheels out of the cabin door. I strenghtended the lenghed Frame with angled EVERGREEN and planked the inlay with flat sheet to get an even surface. The overlapping parts inside the f
rame will not be seen after as the cabin sits over everything. This is how it is looking now:

brave move that, Thomas

@Russel: There is no way back now

First I did filled the openings of the cabin floor with Evergreen


then I did the same with the cabin doors. This have to be improved further with epoxy putty later to get an even Surface


I sanded down the cabin roof with 1000 - 1500 and then finally 2000 grind paper


After a first test fit everything start to look more like a Borgward now




Next step will be the improvement and fixation of the front pillars

Audaces Fortuna iuvat!

Daring slashing, good result! The gaps you have there after surgery are smaller than the gaps I had to deal with in my last Hobby Boss armored car OOB . And now let's see the pillars!

Gabriel

some great scratch building Thomas

Sorry Gentlemen! Because of the really hot weather here in Germany the last days I was unable to sit at the working bench.

But today I continued a little bit and started with the grill and hood conversion. So far I am satisfied with the dry fitting although some problems are still not solved yet.