During
"Gezi Park Protests"; in 3 June 2013 night, an excavator was hijacked
by ÇARSI (Besiktas FC supporters) members and used against police
forces' TOMA vehicles
(Turkish:
Toplumsal Olaylara Müdahale Araci, English:
Intervention Vehicle to Social Events). This excavator
was nicknamed as POMA (Turkish:
Polis Olaylarina Müdahale Aracı, English:
Intervention Vehicle to Police Events).
This is a diorama based upon a photo taken that night, below:
14 October 2013:
First,
I had to find models suitable for the purpose. Mercedes Atego vehicles
are used for construction of TOMAs, I bought a fire engine
model
from SIKU. For the excavator, the actual one was Sumitomo SH290, but no
models were available so I bought a similar looking one. However, the
one I bought was much bigger than the actual in scale, so I had to make
the excavator from scratch.
I ordered the 1/87 figures from China, they were carelessly painted so
each had to be painted over.
I
began with TOMA, disassembled the model.
I cut the chassis and the body
to meet the scale wheelbase of TOMA.
I glued the body halves with epoxy, the parts taking care that they
stayed orthogonally aligned.
The view of the body and chassis after joining.
16 October 2013:
I
disassembled the excavator. I figured out that I could use the operator
cabin as is, and the chassis and tracks after some cutting. The rest
was useless.
I modified a figure by heating, in sitting position and placed it
inside the cabin.
I
had to shorten the chassis in both axes. I cut the chassis as in the
first photo. The track arms came to proper length but for widthwise, I
had to install a balsa block.
I made the upper part of the body from balsa sheets and applied putty.
Returning to TOMA, I made the rear part from beass sheet.
17 October 2013:
After
checking the mating of the rear part, I made the wheel guards from
styrene and the base for the water cannon from balsa. Fixed all with
epoxy.
I made the bulldozer blade from
styrene.
18 October 2013:
I
applied putty again and primed, made the front protection shield from
styrene.
24 October 2013:
Returning
to the excavator, I made scaled drawings from its technical sheets, cut
the arm sections from balsa and fixed styrene sheets at the top and
bottom. I made the hydraulic cylinder brackets from brass sheet and
embedded into the balsa.
I
made the cylinders from styrene tubing, the piston rods and eyes from
brass rod and tubing with solder. I painted them chrome silver.
26 October 2013:
I
made the bucket from brass sheet. However, I faced problems in
soldering the sides.
I
first soldered the central part to blank sheets at the sides, then cut
along the soldered line and smoothed with a file. Finally, I soldered
the brackets.
27 October 2013:
I
covered the upper body with aluminum duct tape and scribed the panel
lines. I cut and shortened the rubber tracks and joined them with
staples.
28 October 2013:
I
continued with the arms, made the hydraulic lines from wires
and fixed with CA glue.
29 October 2013:
The
arm as painted. I made its base from brass sheet, the end linkages from
hammered solder wire. I also used solder wire for the pins at joints.
The system operates actually, but it will be fixed in the diorama.
.....................
