Land Rover 7 Ambulance WIP #3

It has been a little slow on the Land Rover over the last couple of weeks. A little problem on the laptop wasted a few days of my time whilst sorting that out and some DIY around the house interfered as well. But there has been some progress on the project though.

Now that all of the decals have been done, it was time to finish off some detail painting and start assembling the body and roof to the chassis. When I was test fitting things, it came to light that the driver had to be in place on his seat before fitting the body and roof. So I started to assemble him in the suitable pose for the driving position. Then whilst cleaning up the other four figures so they could be painted all together, I got thinking to myself, "Where do they all sit?". So after a little look around the internet, I discovered that these ambulances had a three man in them. That then made the driver figure redundant in my plans and allowed me to assemble the model into a finished state apart from weathering, etc. So, once all of the windows, and the ambulance interior was finished, I mounted it on the chassis then glued the roof in place.

Now that the main construction of the Land Rover was finished, I turned my attention to painting the figures. Now, these are still not my favourite area of model building, but if you are doing this type of model or diorama, figures are a must. After assembling and cleaning up the figures, they all were given a coat of white primer and left to dry for a while. The camouflage scheme on the uniforms consist of four different colours, khaki, dark green, khaki green and red brown. So all of the figures were airbrushed all over with khaki for the base colour to start. Next the camouflage pattern was added starting with khaki green, then red brown and finishing with the dark green. Below are the figures after the camouflage patterns were finished on them. One thing, I do not fancy having a go at some of these modern digital schemes they have on uniforms, that is too much work!

When I was satisfied that the patterns looked okay on the figures, I then moved onto their faces. This is my biggest hate with figures, but I brought the flesh paint from Andrea Color last year and used it for the first time on these figures. I first read the (basic) instructions that came with the set, was not happy so watched a couple of videos online. Then made the decision that all of these were for doing larger scale figures and busts, and did not really work with this scale figures. So I adapted the methods shown for myself and this scale. This seems to have worked okay, the colours around the faces are not solid and are my best effort so far. I continued with the detail painting on each of the figures, then did a little wash over them to tone them down a little. Overall, I am happy with how they have turned out. There is still a little more detail painting to do on a couple of them, plus a little weathering around the feet and knee areas of them. I also need to add some bandages to the wounded figure, but still need to work out how to make them in this scale.

During the last week, I made the plinth for the Corsair base to sit on. At the same time, I quickly ran up the base for this Land Rover and figures to sit on out of MDF. The next thing to do is seal it, paint it and then create the scenery for the diorama.

Land Rover 7 Ambulance WIP #2

After a quiet weekend with doing family stuff and not visiting the workshop, I thought it was an opportunity to bring you up to date with the Land Rover before chaos resumes on the workbench!

I gave the decals a couple of coats of liquid decal film, but used the kit number decal as a tester without the liquid film on it. This tester stayed in one piece, which was a surprise for a kit this age but showed the quality of the decals Tamiya supplied with the kit in the first place. But I was glad that I did use the film as the was the start of a crack in the large cross which went on the roof.

Now that I was happy with the condition of the decals, I proceeded with applying them on the whole model. I first got the "No Smoking" sign inside laid down, forgetting to give the area for it a coat of gloss clear. But it has gone down okay and not shown any signs of lifting.

I got the remaining red crosses on to the body first, as they were the largest of the remaining decals and I wanted to be ready just in case they decided to break up.  But they all behaved themselves and went down okay. The decal on the rear doors had to be cut into three, so I taped the doors and step shut, applied the decals and then cut it once it was dry. Once the crosses were all done, I continued with the rest of the decals to finish them off.

One little problem that I noticed with the decals was on the number plates and i.d. numbers was that the white background was misaligned to the black foreground, hence not showing the letters and numbers clearly. But that can be hidden with a little weathering towards the end of the build. Another thing was that Tamiya only supplied the tyre pressure stencils for one side of the model. These would have been on both sides so I will have to sort something out for this.

The following photos show rear doors and step going from the open to the closed positions. 

Land Rover 7 Ambulance WIP #1

When the Corsair's got to the stage that they could not be taken to work with me, I looked for something to do whilst sitting around at work. After sitting looking at my wardrobe full of kits for half a hour, I decided to start on this model. It is an old (and I mean old) Tamiya kit from properly the 1970/80's, it does not even have the paint numbers on the instructions. So I do not know what condition the decals are going to be in when I use them! 

These first photos were taken in my cab at work where I did most of the main construction. Here the body and doors are just test fitted to the chassis to see how it all went together. Everything assembled up without any problems, which just goes to show how good a kit this was when it came out. I believe that Tamiya use the same chassis and front body section in the SAS Pink Panther Land Rover kit, which a friend of mine has just recently built. For now, I have left the rear door free so that they can be opened and closed, but I might change my mind about this later towards the end of the project.

This project was put on the sideline for the last month  or so whilst I was finishing the Corsair's off and started on the Lightning. But I decided a few days ago to have a little break from the Lightning before painting her and get the Land Rover out and paint her first. After cleaning the model up, I gave it all a couple of coats of Alclad white primer. The interior of the ambulance was to be painted matt white, which I used Tamiya's matt white for this job, I also sprayed the roof interior with the same paint to.

 Now, the instruction sheet only list the colours dark green for the base colour and cabin interior, and matt black for the Mickey Mouse camouflage pattern, no Tamiya paint codes! So I decided to use Tamiya's XF67 NATO Green and XF69 NATO Black on this model as I have seen some real Land Rovers of this vintage painted with NATO shade colours. So after the white interior was masked off, I started to spray everything with the NATO Green.

Once the whole model received the overall colour of green, it was time to add some Khaki to the roof section. First, I masked off the front section of the roof that was to remain green along the joint line on the roof, then hand painted the required areas with Tamiya XF49 Khaki. This was thinned with a couple of drops of water in a paint palette to allow a smoother, airbrushed look finish on the model. It was done with a couple of coats allowing time to dry between them. Once this was dry, I fitted the body back onto the chassis, masked off the windows to prevent over spray to the cabin interior. Now I airbrushed the Mickey Mouse pattern with the NATO Black all by freehand. This is how it was done in the real world and to no set pattern, but I did try to match it to the one on the instructions. Once I was happy with it, I dismantled the Land Rover, un-masked it and set about touching up any over spray on the roof. Now I have started to do the detail painting on the model, starting with the tyres and fit the wheels to the axles, mainly to prevent any damage to the underside of the chassis. The front seats have also been painted with khaki and fitted along with the various gear levers and handbrake.

Next, I am going to attempt to add the decals to the model. First to play it safe, I will give them a couple of coats of decal film paint just in case they are a bit brittle. So fingers crossed and I hope that they are in a better condition then I am expecting.

EE Lightning F1 WIP #1

As mentioned in my last post on the Corsair's, I have had a couple of other project on the go to keep me busy. The first is the Airfix 1/48th scale Lightning which I brought myself during an exploring visit to a model shop in Doncaster over Christmas. My plan was to be starting on my 1/24th scale Mosquito after the Corsair's were finished, but I was not in the right frame of mind to do it, plus this Lightning kit kept calling out to be started.

Unfortunately, I have not done many WIP photos of the build so far, an oversight I am afraid. Her present stage of build is that she will be ready to start painting very soon, this will be in natural metal with a black spine and tail. I will be using Alclad of cause on the model, think it is the best to work with and apply.

The model is being built straight out of the box, I will be adding some seat belts to the cockpit as there are not any moulded onto the seat. Whilst I was assembling the main undercarriage section, it was noticed that there was not any location points or mountings for the retraction mechanism in the bays. So, after looking at some photos, I scratch-built a couple brackets to fit inside the bays, but have them already mounted on to the gear. This will make painting them easier and mounting to the wings would be quicker.

Nose weight has been added to the inside of the air intake, as par the instructions. But this is usually not enough as I have found in the past, so I have added three lumps of white metal behind the cockpit tub to make sure there is enough. I have now just got a bit more to do on the fuselage before I prime her up and check it over for any problems. Then on with the black base coat and the various shades of Alclad that I will use on her.

Alongside my finished 1/72nd scale F.2 Lightning

The scratch-built gear retractor brackets