CarolsHusband

You vill ask zee questions

Nah, that's one I made up. It would have been green but with no markings originally, they only put stars on them to give the enemy something to aim at. If I can save the majority of the yellow by careful sanding I will and leave it at that. There's council emblems under the green too. I had a load of pics but they got lost in the great laptop disaster of 2024. It may have been one of these To be honest it's lucky it made it out at all. Rated at 1.5 tons...

G'wan, you know you want to.

As most of you know I've had my '42 Chevy dump truck for a couple of years. It's not the first time I've bought the right car at the wrong time but as with the Skyline, a good deal only comes up now & then. This one never saw any combat action (not that many made it out of America) but apparently it was used in the building of the Alaska Highway. After the war it became a council truck/ snowplough in Canada and the came to the UK in 2017-ish. This is what it looked like upon arrival The bloke who bought it was tempted by the silver screen & painted it back to army spec for the " Masters of the air" mini series. Bit of a shame really. He did some work on it but it was never really a restoration. Sadly I've lost a lot of pictures & videos but you'll get the idea. So the time has come to get it on the road properly. I've done some miles in it but it's a bit of a handful as is, especially with no indicators, brake lights & barely any mirrors. It still fires up fine And I've cleared some space & moved it over so I can get round it. Brakes need bleeding. wiring needs doing & hopefully the mirror situation is in hand. Having been under/over/inside it recently, it has become clear it wasn't originally a tipper. Various, but not all the right parts have been fitted but there's still stuff missing. I'm not sure if I should leave it or turn it back into a cargo truck. Biggest problem is that the levers for the bed are where your right foot wants to be for the starter & the throttle. I've got size elevens and it's hard work not getting caught up. Anyway, my plan is to civilianise it again. Nothing more than some paint & decent mirrors really. Maybe a couple of marker lights and an airhorn. I made a model of it with the intended paint jawb. I'll let the sea air add the rust... I'm hoping to get it out in the lanes & cause tourist mayhem before the summer holidays are over. Thank you for your interest.

There's hope for it yet. Might try & sort the roof, might resort to long term weather damage. Might have to buy a better camera.

I continue to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.... I think I knew this wouldn't happen from the start, in my head it was going to be the Beetle roof only 24 times smaller. Silver base coat didn't stick, it all went downhill from there. Pics... Moment of truth... Arse.... So, I guess It'll have to to go from "Kool Kustom" to "Kool Kustom Barn find". / preparing to whoop it with the patina stick.

51 Chevy Kustom moving along slowly (as it should). Weather's not so great over the weekend so might get started on the paint. *edit Looks like the back seat needs to come out again, that's a big glue filled gap....

There's been a bit of progress. My paint order for the halftrack & the Chevy's never arrived, there's another on the way apparently. Once the small block for the street racer was completed the lack of detail was a bit obvious. That, and @Indiana_Jones's fancy spark plug leads, made me push on a bit. Fuel line, carb linkage & plug leads on the way. Bonnet will be mostly shut but meh. Also, despite the lack of paint, I got the SdKfz 250 back on track. / d'ya see what I did there ?

Shit update. Sorted suspension dangle angles for Kustom 51 Chev. Also made tunnel rammed small block for Street racer 51 Chev / no pic coz none came out. That's your lot, too summery for modelling TBH.

Halftrack coming along but I ran out of paint. Cut all the hatches out of the floor. In 1/25 news, I bought another kit to allow my two Chevys to come together. It comes with a tunnel rammed small block that'll go in the street racer (it comes with a hopped up s/six) & some skinny Cragars and white band tyres for the lowrider. The Nova will probably end up as a ratty jacked up teenage custom. Hopefully get on with a Chevy over the weekend.

You're like Yoda.

I like the smell of the poly so I'll stick with that / d'ya see what I did there ? CA for painted stuff but that's a top tip on the PVA. Fanx Steev

Liquid cement. I use Humbrol purely out of habit, Tamiya do it too & also a "super thin" one, though I don't know why. After 20 minutes breathing it in everything's peachy though. They come with a brush in the lid or you can use a paint brush. It melts the plastic and is so much less messy than the tube stuff. / pics of T Bucket plz.

Hatches open, he said. Gotta happen now as I broke one of the torsion bars putting it together. So..... Hatches open, floor up, suspension stripped, etc. Nice kit though. / Not sure Hans is enjoying it much. I bought something else the other day, coz I love early 50's Chevy's. 2 in 1 kit, stock or drag. I want to build it a street racer. And a lowrider. sorted. Gonna make a start on one soon so I don't go mad trying to find perfection in the halftrack.

Umm.... Dunno what's gonna happen with this next. A train of thought started with the passenger door lock knob falling apart this morning. Like all the plastics on the mighty Hilux, they have started crumbling or going brittle. So I pulled the door card off & effected a repair with a cable tie & a brass electrical fitting doo-dad. So I then saw a bit of flaky paint & had a prod. I stopped prodding pretty quick. Anyway, just a bit of rot which is not beyond my talent. But then I started doing a little appraisal in my head. The wiring's all gone crusty and makes & breaks quite a lot. A lot of it's missing too. It fills up with water when it rains, but is losing water elsewhere. And clutch fluid but fuck knows where that's going. It's leaking oil & diesel, rear brakes are fucked with gear oil coz someone forgot to clean the axle breathers out. One of the spring mounts is rusting pretty well too. That and it's a pain in the arse to drive in my advancing years. Nothing insurmountable but I have a nasty feeling when the MOT runs out in a couple of weeks my enthusiasm for it will follow. There's 28 plus years of history between us, I'm genuinely not sure if I should tear into it one more time or just give someone else a go. They are worth a mint, after all. I might have to keep it going just to see how big this little fullah gets to be, though.

/ rest of the car looks shite now.

Evening. Headlight surrounds/ grill have always been a bit tatty. The grill looks a bit odd anyway, as it's not a GT-R grill like most other Hako's on that internet. Much as I like the early front end/ rear lights I can't afford the NOS & repro's are pretty ropey, so it was out with the rattle can. Fiddly masking I repainted some black that had faded & blacked some of the centre badge. Not sure if I approve, will get it out in the sun tomorrow. Before After Meh.

Made a start on the halftrack. Takom like a lot of parts, and so far they seem to go together better than some other many-parted kit builders I could mention. As said before, I'm going to go for a hatches open repair job as the detail is brilliant. Also, pic next to dozer blade of 1/25 scale CAT D8H. I may need to actually give the rust some texture on this one. Did I mention it's a big bastard ?

Go for it with the weathering. You can only fuck it up once & it won't take long ! Joking aside, and bearing in mind I don't know what I'm doing... Think about what came first and last in the weathering story. General staining, oil & grease would be first, a bit of rust on exposed metal and then mud & dirt last. Crash/battle damage will fit in there somewhere but again, you need a bit of a story in your head to give a running order. I have a little side project going on repainting/ weathering one of my builds as I've hated it ever since it was finished.

Never mind the Austin, what happened to the Panzer IV ? Yeah, the halftrack has full engine & transmission and super detailed interior. It even has all the under floor torsion bars, etc. Maybe I should go full strip down. It came in a deal with Rommels version. Much more stowed kit & a radio aerial. Looking forward to that. /pic

Evening. What happened was....... I got all fired up about building the AMT 1/25 D8 dozer and then opened it up & had a look. It's a big old lump, but more importantly it's a big old, not massively detailed lump. I think I've been spoiled with this modern 1/35 stuff. I had a look for some photo-etch for it, but at 21 quid it wasn't going to change much except the most glaring problems. So, I need to get myself up to speed on the Cat D8 & prepare for some scratch building. It's bloody big though. There may be some rust/ wear & tear involved. So it's back to 1/35 for a Takom kit with many parts & lots of detail. It's got all the opening hatches so should be some fun.

I think It's done. As usual, t'would look better on a diorama. Or at least out in the sun. No chance of that this evening. Anyway, pics.

Was going to do leaves/ raccoon's nest but I might give it a bash. Scratch building .75 mm long hornets might be a bit beyond me....

Got an hour in this evening. Nearly there...