I tried my hand at some scratch building with the target sight system (TSS). It isn’t exactly the same as this inspirational build video, and I tried using googly eyes for camera lenses and thin-gauge wire to build some internal cables.
Lockheed Martin has a reference photo of the AN/AAQ-30.
Here’s the gallery of 29 images of this step.
Lessons learned here:
- The silvering behind the lenses was unnecessary and didn’t look like actual camera lenses.
- Had to redo the clear yellow (the paint started pooling in the middle), and the clear green wasn’t uniform (maybe because it was Model Master instead of Tamiya?). The convex shape of such a small part was too awkward to mask then airbrush.
- Ended up not using the jump rings as lens rims on the googly eyes (mostly because of the haze the super glue left on the clear parts).
- The kit design allows for the TSS to rotate forward and back, and for the assembly itself to turn left and right.
Note that most of the clear piece will be painted gray except the three lens portals.
This step took about 4 hours.