Hi,
during our Nationals in March, I received this kit as a gift:
This is a true 3-in-1, in that it builds into 3 models. I studied the instructions and found that about 3/4 of them were more or less identical with all the variants. I then got the idea of building them all at once. This idea soon grew into pure inspiration, and as I had already got a regular 251/1 on the shelf, I decided to make it a quartet.
Friday March 30 I couldn't resist the project any longer, so I started cutting parts of the sprues. I decided that I would need a lot of self-dicipline to maintain a strict assembly line, ie not allowing any one model to get ahead of the others, and completing every step for all four models, before continuing. With few exeptions, I managed to do this.
Status as of April 1:
Lots of wheels, but there were more. I had some 72 units with a total of 128 tyres to paint. Careful study of what would in fact be visible after assembly reduced the amount of painting tremendously.
The deepest dent in my patience was while putting together the suspension. Lots of parts and pretty boring stuff.
April 10
My first attempts at painting wood structure. Vallejo Tan Yellow base, and oils on top. Worked rather well, I think.
Interior weathered:
Darker wood benches:
More wheels waiting to be painted:
The superstructure was fitted April 24:
And camo paint finished by May 4. I used Vallejo Air exclusively on this project.
On May 22 I finished off the last weathering steps. Also I glued back on all the broken width indicators. I was stupid enough to mount them on to the fenders rather early. Amazingly they survived there for rather long, until I started doing the decals. Then they all snapped, one by one.
Weathering is basically done using filters (SIN), chipping (brush or sponge with Vallejo German Grey), fading using oils and finally MIG pigments. The three tone camo vehicle was faded using the airbrush.
Shots of the individual vehicles in my next post...
Threaded Mode
