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More than half a century ago, a column of tracked all-terrain vehicles designed and built in Kharkiv, Ukraine made an unprecedented crossing of Antarctica. On snowy ice pack and unforgiving terrain, these vehicles – named “Kharkovchankas” – covered 2,700 km in high winds and temperatures as low as –80o C (–112o F), eventually reaching the South Pole
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A Kharkovchanka making its way across the Antarctic
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Since no kits of the Kharkovchanka exist, I used the Trumpeter P-40/1S12 mobile radar (no. 05969) as a starting point for my conversion. It provided a chassis, tracks, and driver cabin, with everything else having to be scratch built
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I started with the tracks which were widened on the real vehicle by welding 0.75 m wide steel bars to reduce the pressure on soft snow. I cemented 1.5mm L-profile Evergreen strips on each link
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I built the driver’s cabin out of the box. The cabin has crisp details and includes some PE parts to attach radio equipment inside the cabin, grills, and engine cover tie-downs
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The completed cabin
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Cabin interior
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Dry fitting the cabin on the kit chassis is shown here. This is pretty much the extent of what I used from the Trumpeter kit, everything else was built from scratch
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I started by creating cardboard cutouts to confirm size, proportions, angles, and cutouts before committing to styrene
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The living quarters access door
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I scribed all riverts on the superstructure sidings with a Trumpeter "riveter" tool
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The sidings of the superstructure were reinforced with styrene rod and tubing, and assembled
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The superstructure with roof accessories under construction. Note the thermal blankets installed over the hood to keep the engine warm
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I painted and weathered Miniart crates and oil drums for roof cargo and played with the composition until I had a good idea of the result I was after
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Playing with composition of roof cargo
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I primed the superstructure with Stynylrez gray primer
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I mixed my own orange with one part Tamiya XF7 Flat Red and two parts Tamiya XF3 Flat Yellow. I first sprayed a gloss white stripe half-way through the superstructure, and after masking it, sprayed the rest orange
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The tall mast is made out of brass tubing. I fabricated two anchor points to attach reinforcing cables, and used EZ Line for cabling. Insulators were simulated by a small dot of acrylic white paint
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I fabricated and painted the orange light on top of the mast from a piece of clear sprue
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The radar dome was shaped from a spare, and the platform is styrene sheet and rod.
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I found the clear acrylic dome at a crafts store. I sprayed it with flat varnish to weather it a little
![](https://format.creatorcdn.com/aa571a4c-7d7f-45d1-bab3-9806ff3b0a71/0/0/0/0,0,3612,2450,3612,1200/0-0-0/8db273b3-2f18-4494-a040-f9592d2e00f3/1/1/9_IMG_7831.jpg?fjkss=exp=2037437704~hmac=04c4e264b725de63d346ff491c243995bdf5326c87b3a1c0fdd07e7458f69254)
The final model on its platform with a Paracel figure to provide a sense of scale I spent about 160 hours over 2 ½ months on this project, which presented many construction and painting challenges.
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This side-by-side photo shows the model above and the actual vehicle below for comparison