ICM 1/24 Benz-Motorwagen

I wrote a review of the kit for Armorama; I will just put some photos of the model here. All-in-all, it is a great model of a very unique subject. It is a small model, only a couple of pieces, and also comes with PE for the spokes. ICM has also provided a copy of the patent itself as a separate page, which I promptly framed and put on my wall.

The model is well-designed, and can be built relatively fast- it took me about two evenings, plus a couple of more evenings of painting.

Due to the nature of the model the painting and building had to progress side-by-side; the engine, etc were painted separately and installed only once the main frame was finished.

The hardest part to paint was the wooden foot-holder… with a Citadel paint brown base I used burned umber, umber and Indian yellow to simulate the wood colors. (Paint applied then readjusted with a dry brush to show off the underlying colors repeated several times.)

Once dry, the surface got some gloss varnish. Basically, that’s it. It was an easy and fun build; I can only recommend this model to anyone. It certainly provides an unique addition to the usual subjects on my shelf…

ICM 1/24 1913 Ford Speedster

 

“I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one – and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces.”

Henry Ford

I admit I do not have much experience with ICM. I’ve built their Panther-based artillery observation vehicle years ago and found it to be an excellent model; I was really curious how this will build up.

The Model T was introduced in 1909, and was affordable for your average working family at a price of $450. It was in production until 1927 (!), and millions were sold during these two decades. It is a truly iconic vehicle; it was the first mass-produced, easy to maintain and reliable car sold.

ICM has already issued several versions of the Model T. This version is a stripped-down and modified version of the trusty family car, built for speed by independent companies as an alternative for the expensive, custom built race cars of the era. And when I say they were built for speed, I mean 80km/h, according to the sources I found (and the short history section of the instruction). It may not sound much, but it is actually terrifying if you look at the car. It has the bare minimum to work: an engine, suspension, wheels, seats and a fuel tank. It lacks such luxuries as a seat belt or even a proper body. (Although there were versions with streamlined bodies available.) You really had to love racing (and had to be slightly mad) to drive this car at its top speed. The Speedster versions had other modifications, too: the chassis was generally lowered by four inches, and the wheel bases extended. The car got “wire wheels” instead of the stock (and heavy) wooden wheels. The engine got a RAJO Overhead Valve Conversion (OHV), a hot cam, balanced crankshaft with pressure oiling, and side-draft or up-draft carburettors. I have not seen the other T model kits by ICM, so I cannot comment if all these changes were replicated in this kit or not.
The model is quite simple, and has only hundred parts. There are some extras provided which are necessary for other versions, and we get a nice set of white rubber tires as well. (I’m still on the fence on rubber tires in car models. I think there’s a good argument for full-plastic ones.)

The engineering is very “traditional” (or old-school if you like); there are several round parts (prominently the fuel tank) which need to be built from halves, necessitating the filling and sanding of seams. It’s a less-than-ideal solution, but something that we were all very used to until recently with all the manufacturers spoiling us with slide-moulded parts.
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The quality of moulding is excellent: the detail is sharp and there is no flash to be found. The fit of the parts is also very nice; I did not have any issues during the build -it may be old-school, but it is an excellently made model. ICM really did well designing and producing this model.

The assembly is quite quick and simple. The instructions have 55 steps, but this is quite deceptive, because unlike most manufacturers ICM’s instructions show (almost) every single individual sub-assembly as separate steps. (So gluing parts B1 to B2 will be one step on the instructions.) They are clear and very easy to follow; this model will not be a problem even for a beginner.

The assembly took me about two hours; it really does not take long.

The mounting of the front lamps and the two headlights is a bit of an issue. If you first glue the mounting brackets/holders in place, and add the lamp/headlight bodies later, you will have alignment issues. The best advice I can give is to attach the lamps and headlights to their holding brackets, and glue this whole assembly to the chassis to make sure that they line up correctly. I did not do this with the headlights (because I prefer leaving larger sub-assemblies off until I finish painting and masking), and you can see that the car is somewhat cross-eyed as a result. The lamps on the side, as mentioned, have similar problems: the holding arms tilt up if you fit them into their corresponding slot on the chassis. You will need them glued to the lamps before attaching them to the car if you want to make sure they look straight.
The build itself was quick, but I had trouble choosing an attractive paint-scheme. The green-on green is quite traditional, but I’m not particularly fond of it, and was not looking forward to painting the raised lines on the mudguards. I found a really good-looking black-yellow option, but the tires of that particular car were black, and I despise painting yellow. The red also looked nice, but it resembles a fire truck (also available from ICM by the way). In the end I asked my wife which scheme she liked best and went with that.

The chosen paint scheme also required black tyres, and fortunately the rubber took the black Vallejo metal primer well. I sprayed the whole model black, using this paint, and after masking I sprayed Vallejo gold on the appropriate areas. To be honest it would be better painting these parts before assembly, but I wanted to have photos of the assembled, unpainted model for this review so I had no real choice in the matter. The red further complicated matters; it’s just not an easy color to spray (similarly to yellow…). I ended up using a brush and Khorne red by Citadel mixed with Lahmian medium in several layers. The gold was touched up using AK Interactive’s True Metal gold paint; while it is still not the perfect metallic paint (there is no such thing in my experience), it is extremely good, gives a smooth finish, and moreover it is very easy to use. It’s wax based, so it’s quite thick, and has a very good coverage. With a fine brush I managed to paint the thin raised lines on the mudguards; any mistakes could be easily cleaned up with a brush moistened with white spirit (or ZestIt, which is a friendlier alternative). I used some Citadel black ink on the black areas to make them even deeper black and give a shine to the model, and well, that was it. The model looks really nice, and frankly it really stands out from the usual green and brown tanks on my shelf. Absolutely recommended even if you are not a car enthusiast.

 

 

 

1/35 Takom Turtle

This weird looking vehicle got into my collection because I took my wife to the local hobby shop, and this was the only vehicle she liked. It has a relatively low part count, but it’s surprisingly large: it’s bigger than a panzer IV… (I expected it to be only slightly bigger than a car. Nevertheless I’d love to do my commute in this thing; London drivers are horrendous.)

This is my second Takom model (the first being the Ratte). The detail is OK, but not very subtle (I found the panel lines a bit too deep), and the model lacks any interior details. The hatches cannot be opened, either, so scratch-building (or using aftermarket sets if there ever will be one later) is going to be even more difficult. The quality of plastic, the presentation, the instructions are very, very professional. There are rubber tires provided, but they are quite unnecessary; plastic would be perfectly fine (with the appropriate sag moulded on, of course.) The fit is, again, OK but not perfect; the joint between the bottom and top of the hull needs some filling. (The bump on the top is assembled using four quadrant, and it’s a bit of a shaky exercise.) The model is very easy to build: it took about 2 hours to have it ready to paint.

I wanted to go all-out with the painting and weathering. First, I always wanted to try the complex camo with the black dividing line; and I wanted to do some experimenting with scratches, chips and dust. (Since it’s a city-car, only a little mud is used.) If you want to, you can go with the whole “captured vehicle in German service” cliche, but that version looks rather bland and grey.

 

The model was primed, and then the acrylic primer sealed with Testors Dulcote (as I wanted to experiment with some windex-chipping) later. The multiple colors were sprayed on in light patches. Although it’s an unconventional way to paint I painted individual patches, applied silly putty, added another set of patches with a different color, another application of silly putty, and so on and so forth. I did not want to paint the entire model with all the colors- it would have added too many paint layers. When doing scratches with windex I did not want to work through six individual layers of paint to the primer.

The results are actually pretty good; I was pleasantly surprised when I removed the silly putty.

 

The dividing lines were painted on using a black sharpie.

A few layers of light brown and ochre filters were added, and after a couple of days of drying I covered the model with Future in preparation for the washes. This is when I applied the decals, and sealed them with a further layer of Future.

I used Mig’s dark wash- applying it with a thin brush. It looked bad (as it always does), but I managed to wait an hour or so before attacking the wash. The excess was wiped away with a wet, flat brush in several steps (I kept adjusting it days after the application of the wash). I moved the brush in downwards motions; the wash created faint streaks which I kept adjusting. It also served as a sort of filter as well.

This is the point where I realized that the layers of Future will interfere with the windex-chipping technique… so I added paint chips using a brush and a sponge.

The next step was to use some oil dot filters. I put a few blobs of different shades of brown, yellow, blue and green oil paints onto a small piece of cardboard. In about an hour or so the linseed oil seeped out into the paper; this is important if you want flat finish. I added random dots on the surface, and then blended, removed them using a wet brush with downward motion. This produced very faint streaks, and modulated the base color somewhat. Yellows, greens, etc will give a slightly different tint to the underlying color. I focused the darker browns towards the bottom of the chassis. Since I was there I used a light rust color to form streaks: I prepared a dilute wash using a rust colored oil paint, and applied it with a faint brush. The excess was removed with a flat brush as usual forming faint streaks. I added this mixture around larger chips as well, and let it dry. If the effect was too strong, I adjusted it with a wet brush.

 

I left the model dry for a week, and used a similar technique to further add mud and dust onto the vehicle: I added small dust/mud colored paint on certain areas, and blended them in using a dry brush. It’s important that you have to use very small amount of paint.

I layered everything: on top of the thin, translucent dust/mud I added thicker pigments (mixture of flat varnish and pigment) of different colors; concentrating on the lower parts, of course. The very last couple of layers were splashes of different earth colors using a very stiff brush and a toothpick.

 

The next steps were more pronounced streaks using AK’s streaking products, and after that dried I sealed the whole model with a flat varnish. The inside of the headlights were painted using  liquid chrome by Molotov (great pens).

At this point my wife expressed her displeasure that the previously colorful, clean car became dirty and muddied up, so I decided to stop here.

 

 

 

1/72 M56 Scorpion – OKB Grigorov

I’ve written an in-box review of this model for Armorama; I think it’s time to show how it looks when finished.

The M56 Scorpion was an attempt to supply a gun platform for the US airborne forces that can be easily transported by airplanes, and can be deployed using an air-drop. This requirement pretty much made it impossible for the vehicle to be armored, so it is essentially a gigantic 90mm M54 gun on a dodgem chassis. Crew comfort (and safety) also took second place to the size requirements that came with the airborne deployment option.

The M56 was developed and manufactured by the Cadillac Motor Car Division of GM from 1953 to 1959. It was a small, fully tracked vehicle, powered by a 200 hp engine with a maximum road speed of 45 km/h. It had a crew of four: commander, driver, loader, gunner. The ergonomics of the vehicle were, let’s put it lightly, not very good. The loader had to disembark before the gun fired, and jump back holding the ammunition. The gun recoil also endangered the commander. The only part that can be considered armor on the vehicle is the gun shield, which has a large windscreen cut into for the driver negating its effectiveness somewhat; the rest of the self-propelled gun is about as armored as my Nissan Micra. (Another thing that it has in common with my Micra is that it has pneumatic tires…)

The M56 was in service in the USA, Spain, Morocco, and the Republic of Korea. It was used in Vietnam by the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

There are not many models available of this little AFV; I’ve found a very expensive resin one in 1/35th scale by Hobby Fan, and there’s an old OOP (and quite inaccurate) Revell kit; other than that there’s the 1/72nd scale OKB kit reviewed here. As usual, World of Tanks introduced me to this vehicle, where it is a premium American tank destroyer; and since I liked the way it looked (and have it in my garage) I was really anxious to get a model of it.

 

Considering the size of this vehicle the number of parts (especially the amount of PE) is quite high. The model is made up by approximately 70 resin pieces and about 70 PE parts… all this is in a model that can almost fit into a matchbox.

The resin is smooth, and of different color. The detail is crisp, and the fit is quite good generally. The PE frets are the thinnest I’ve ever seen. (It’s quite easy to crumple them, so be careful; it feels like a thick aluminium foil rather than photo-etched brass.) The tracks come as resin sections which need to be warmed up before shaped to the running gear. The detail is excellent, and there is very little flash anywhere.

 

The instructions are computer generated, and frankly, not very helpful. They show different views of the assembled model, but unfortunately do not instruct on actually how to put the model together. Before gluing make sure you understand how the parts should be fitting; I did make a couple of mistakes during assembly.

The exhausts for the engine seem to be shorter; there should be a section that is turning down at a right angle from the end of the exhaust pipes.

First mistake I made was to wait with the mud guard until I finished with the running gear.

If you decide to give this kit a go, make sure you glue the mudguard onto the hull first. The simple reason is that the PE covers the whole side with cutouts for the suspension units. These holes are way too tight to slide it over the suspension if it’s already in place. I had to widen these holes considerably in order to be able to fit the mudguards into place.

The other big issue for me was the suspension arms. They look very similar, but the front and rear suspension are not identical. I accidentally mixed up on one side, and hence the wheels are a bit wonky.

Other than that, most of the model went together OK. I had to make the headlight protectors out of thin wire (I normally use soldering wire as it’s quite soft). The tracks were somewhat thick and rigid, but with a lot of patience (and hot water) they did go on eventually. The hole on the gun shield has a plexi protector for the driver; I left it completely empty, since any transparent acetate sheet would look foggy and thick in this scale. (I would need something that’s about 0.2-0.3mm thick.)

I’m not sure that the back platform is depicted as open or closed up; probably closed up due to the 2 PE rails sticking out of them. (If it’s folded down, it should be longer; if it’s folded up, it should have some extra bits for the mechanism that keeps it straight in a folded -off state.) I also noticed a bit late that the loader’s seat was left off… my mistake.

The model went through multiple rounds of priming, as usual. These coats were applied more for checking for mistakes and seams rather than to provide a base coat for the paint, and was applied using a spray-can. The model was ready (I left the gun detached for easier painting), I added a final coat, and then applied Tamiya Olive Drab lightened with some Tan. (The first two photos of the painted model show the color to be a bit too greenish, flat and dull.)
A bit of yellow and ochre filter later the green became quite nice with some brownish hues. I could not find any decals that were small enough to fit onto the model, so it remained un-marked. I used Tamiya’s weathering kit (the makeup set) to apply dust and mud to the vehicle, a silver pen around the edges, to give it a metallic shine, and called it a day.

 

Altogether, the model was a pretty pleasant build -except for the little issues I mentioned. It is certainly quite pricey, as all OKB kits are, but, just like in the case of the Batchat, you really have no other options. Overall I’m pretty satisfied with the results; it is a well recommended model of a very rare subject.

MiniArt Mercedes-Benz Typ 170 V Saloon Car 1/35

MiniArt has issued a civilian version of a car that they already had in their catalogue in military service: the Mercedes-Benz W30 Typ 170 V Saloon. (The V stands for “Vorn” -indicating the engine is in the front of the car. They had a rear-engined variant as well, which carried the letter H.) The model does not actually have the brand name in the title for copyright reasons, but we do get the Mercedes symbol for the front of the car, so it’s not exactly surprising what make this vehicle is.

This cabrio was a widely used passenger car during the ‘30s, even into the ‘60s. It was one of the top selling model of the company before the war, an affordable, more luxurious “people’s car”, than the VW Beetle. It was also one of the most produced model as well (it’s difficult to get accurate numbers but around a hundred thousand cars were produced during the full production run of the vehicle) in dozens of different configurations. It was used by the German armed forces as well – the subject of MiniArt’s previous issue of this vehicle. The production went on from 1936 to 1953, with some pause during the later phase of the war when the factories producing the parts were bombed.

There are several good references online: Mercedes-Benz’s own website, some interesting information/photos on pre-war Mercedes models, some historical notes on the pre-war Mercedes passenger cars.

 

 

 

The model is a far cry from the monstrous 1000+ part kits MiniArt has been issuing lately (this is not a complaint, don’t get me wrong… I love the full interior tanks), so building should not take long. One thing you really should do is to plan ahead, as the usual (for me, as an armor modeller, at least) sequence of building sub-assemblies, assembling, painting sequence is not going to work. In some cases it makes sense to deviate from the building sequence as well. I will mention the pitfalls and problems I ran into and the mistakes I made as well; maybe it’ll help others planning the build.

One example of me not planning ahead was the wheels: the tires and the wheel hub assemblies come separate, so if -unlike me- you paint these before assembling them, you will have an easier time.

The building starts with the engine and the chassis; the details are pretty delicate and well done; the model fits together very well. (It’s a pretty interesting comparison to put the 1/35 V2 engine of the T-54 next to the 1.7l gasoline engine of the Mercedes…)

When putting the exhaust system together I would suggest gluing the PE holders (PE6, PE9) onto the chassis, instead onto the muffler, as the instructions say- it will be much easier to align them together.

The instructions show you how to make the brake cables: you get a large-scale diagram to see how they should look, and you get an in-scale diagram to use it as a template; a pretty good solution.

The suspension is very delicate, and features the characteristic plastic springs I find so amazing. Be very careful cleaning them up, though as they break easily.

 

The interior is pretty straightforward. The instrument panel has some tiny PE assemblies that are not easy to do, and my main issue was that there were no decals provided for the instrument faces. There are raised details, but they whole face is sunk into the instrument panel; it’s not easy to drybrush because of that. (It’s not very visible once installed, so it’s not really an important issue.)

One word of suggestion: when gluing the PE rear-view mirror onto the windscreen, use white glue instead of superglue; it will make sure that the superglue does not fog the transparent part.

 

The painting of the body is also something you should do before installing it onto the chassis, since it makes masking and handling much easier; however it means you need to check what needs to be added before you do the painting. (I have to admit I found it challenging to replicate the highly polished, shiny car body; I’m more used to painting matte armor; not to mention my airbrush started dying on me and sputtered paint at times.) Even the doors need to be painted before assembly as it is easier to deal with them with no clear parts installed.

Airbrush problems aside, the first step was to decide on the paint scheme, and paint the body and the sections of the hood. Masking provided some challenge, as the masking tape (which was a dedicated modelling tape) I used peeled away some flakes of the underlying base color… Not the luckiest build I have to admit.

Once I sprayed several light layers of paint and removed the masks, I used a brush to touch up on the problematic areas, and then covered the model with Vallejo’s varnish for metallic paints (it’s very shiny) in several layers. I used a watchmaker’s polishing paste to polish up the paint.

I elected to use the extra luggage compartment fitted onto the back of the car; one thing I noticed is that the locating grooves for the holding pegs are not very well marked on the base of the holding frame; before gluing make sure you know where they are supposed to be going.

 

 

The front grill is made out of a very fine PE mesh; again, it’s my issue, but even with Vallejo’s chrome it was difficult to paint it without clogging some of it up with the paint. (The metallic paint is extremely fine pigmented.)

The grill/radiator assembly (essentially the front of the car) and the body of the car forms a frame onto which the hood and side panels are glued. The fit of the radiator is quite flimsy; I think this is my only real criticism of the kit. Since the fit is not exactly robust, the panels covering the engine compartments will need to be fitted carefully.

The very last step should be fitting the Mercedes sign on the front of the car; a kind of coronation of the build. Since I’m not very keen on figures, the female figure (which, by the way is quite well detailed) found her way into my spares box.

All in all, it’s a really pleasant, relatively easy (well, the tiny PE was a bit challenging…) build; the car looks great, and there’s a lot of great paint schemes to choose from. If you need an interwar civilian car in your diorama, look no further. Because the chassis, suspension and the engine is quite detailed, it’s also suitable for creating wrecks, too.

 

 

Painting lights and lamps using Citadel Technical paints

This post is just a short summary of what I’ve learned using Cidtadel’s Technical paints. These paints are marketed for painting gemstones. (There’s also a traditional way if you’re interested.)

 

Anyhow; aside from painting gemstones (which I will do as I paint the odd WH40k figure here and there), I was interested in how these paints function for lamps and warning lights. I’ve used the SU-122‘s interior light and the Electric Mule‘s warning light to test them.

Interior lights

I’ve simply painted the base of the transparent light fixture with silver, and applied the Citadel paint on the top of the light. The paint flowed around the raised details depicting the protective wires, so I did not have to paint them separately, and also gave a nice, blue glass finish. It’s a perfectly good way to stain transparent light fixtures if the surface is not too large. Even with dedicated, transparent paints it’s a pain to achieve uniform coverage, so don’t expect perfectly even finish on large transparent parts. Since the depth of color of any glass object (such as a headlight lens) depends on the thickness, this uneven coverage actually produces quite a realistic effect.

 

Warning lights

In this instance I’ve used a yellow base color with the red technical paint applied. The effect, again, is pretty good, since the yellow + red gives a nice, uneven orange, which looks quite realistic as a translucent warning light.

 

In short: if you have these paints lying around, they are perfectly good for colored glass lenses, screens and warning lights. I’m sure Tamiya’s and other manufacturers’ transparent paints do the job similarly well, though.

Steyr-Glaeser Cabriolet

The Steyr 100/200 Cabrio was a small, relatively fast (100km/h) car built by the Austrian manufacturer Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG from 1934 to 1940. I don’t know much about cars (most of my knowledge comes from Top Gear), so I can’t pretend I am an expert; this review focuses on the quality of the kit itself. The car looked gorgeous, so there’s that.

 

 

The model is very small; the chassis and the undercarriage/seat come as individual pieces. Once you clean them off, they snap together; the fit is so good you don’t even need to use glue. The model is quite simple to assemble as the number of parts is small; we get four wheels, two alternate parts for the canvas top (one erected, one folded), and that’s pretty much it. There is a casting error on the folding canvas top; generally the quality of resin is good. The chassis has some really fine engraved lines depicting doors, panels, etc. The windscreen frame, the steering wheel and the stick for the manual transmission come as PE parts; you will need fine tweezers to handle them. The driver’s rear view mirror is missing; probably because it would be a very tiny part indeed. There are no clear parts provided, but in this scale I would not use them anyway. (Difficult to make realistic 1/72nd scale glass panels.) Due to the small scale the leaf spring suspension is not depicted, either; it would be hidden in any case.

The only issue I could find was the Steyr text on the radiator grilles; since the letters are only slightly raised details (and they are quite soft) it will be difficult to paint them well. Perhaps undercoating the grilles with silver and using a heavy black wash might be a solution. I’m not sure what the alternative would have been though; I think it would be equally difficult to deal with a tiny PE part instead.

The whole assembly including cutting the parts off the pouring block and cleaning them up took about an hour.

The painting was, well, not easy. I can’t replicate the polished-up look of luxury cars, that’s for sure. I was thinking about carefully polishing it with some polishing compound, but was worried about rubbing the paint off.

The interior was black with the leather seat and instrument panel painted in different shades of brown.

The white base coat was followed by the deep red color. I’ve used some brown in the scarlet Citadel paint, and carefully applied it with a brush. It took several layers to get a relatively even coverage, but it’s still not perfect. I thought about airbrushing but masking would have been a nightmare. The car would definitely benefit from some deeper panel lines even if it’s out of scale. (It’s always a compromise, isn’t it? A lot of the time small details need to be overemphasised so they are actually visible on a model.)

The whole thing got a gloss coat for protection. I’ve tried some black washes, but the details are way too delicate; I did not want to risk the wash over flood the white paint.

 

All in all the model was a breeze to build, and a bit difficult to paint. It’s a pretty cool little project for a weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Krispi Kreme Lowrider

This is an old project -my first attempt on decal printing. (Apologies for the photo quality -it was done using one of the first smart phones – the HTC Mogul).

There’s not much to talk about: I used a Chevy Impala model to pimp it out, and since I’m a pastry white dude, I felt I don’t have enough credibility for an actual lowrider. (Even though I’d love to have a real one.) So I chose Krispy Kreme. Testors has a nice decal designing/printing set, which is really easy to use. (You print the design on a white/transparent paper, apply the varnish, and you’re done.)

The car was painted in iridescent pearl and green color, and then the decal applied.

As an accompanying music, listen to Cypress Hill.

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