George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
This CSM kit looks like it's a very nice one. In particular I am impressed by the instruction booklet and the details on the parts. The booklet appears to be very well written and detailed, and the parts are nicely done as well. You will be cutting plastic and painting parts very soon !

Have you decided on which armored car you will be building ?

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
I like where you are heading with this... Now it makes sense why you have several German figures in the mix.
As far as the interior of the doors being white: Our tank interiors were white too. But ours didn't have the interior portion of the hatches painted in the white color. Instead our hatches were painted in a dark green on the inside. This was done to reduce the visibility of the tank when the hatches were open.

However, I'm not certain if they did that way back then. They very well could have been painted in white. There was a learning curve somewhere along the way...

I'll bet this thing was a beast to drive off road. Skinny tires and mud and / or shell holes are not a good mix... Remember the learning curve comment ? 😉 I believe it had manual steering too. I don't think power steering was invented yet. I can bet you it had a manual shift transmission too. I often say that a manual shift transmission is a "Millennial anti theft device".

Wow... a 76 MM cannon on this bad boy... Very impressive, especially for the era.

We do indeed have a common taste for our models. I was leaning towards one with a skull on it too... They just look so cool like that.

I finally got going on this build, and I started by reviewing the instructions. I plan to create a diorama around this armoured car, so I wanted to find out how much of an interior there was (it looks extensive and complete) and if the doors can be posed open (they can).

The first step of the instructions have you take the truck frame and remove a rather thick casting line. It is at this point I noticed two things: some really nice detail and some really large sprue connection points. There were also some really large sprue lugs to be dealt with. It took a while to get the frame cleaned up, after which I identified the parts to be added to the frame and cleaned up their sprue attachment points and the mold separation lines. There is a molded strap that holds the muffler onto the frame that is the point where it is attached to the sprue. The problem is that it is hard to tell where the strap ends and the sprue begins. I freed the muffler and its strap by cutting portions of the sprue that I was sure contained none of the strap. I can figure that out later.

There isn't much color information in the instructions on specific detail like the muffler and so on, so I decided to stop here and see if I can figure out some colors and what I can paint prior to adding to the frame.

Cheers everyone.

7 attached images. Click to enlarge.

A very nice start, George @gblair
That fixation of the muffler to the sprue is not the easiest one to remove indeed. Your subtle approach is a good way in getting it done nicely.

It is possible that that part of the attachment may not be that critical George (@gblair). Studying where this gets mounted might yield some clues about how much can be cut away. Short run kits definitely present challenges at times. Hey, if it gets too tiresome, you could go back to the APD for a bit! 🙂

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Hey George ! You are moving right along on your armored car ... You made me laugh with your comment about planning ahead... and the small details on the frame are impressive. I sent you a text on how we did with the hurricane Debby. Overall we did very well and it made landfall about 110 miles away from us. It was just some rain and wind, but nothing like the typical stronger hurricanes we occasionally get. I called it a training mission for the real ones. I hope we don't have anymore coming through our area this year.

Lately I have been using a photo etched saw made by Tamiya. It fits into the handle of a standard Xacto knife. These seem to work very well with trimming and cutting parts of the trees. It's quickly becoming my "Go To" tool for doing work like that which was required on the muffler.

George R Blair Jr (@gblair)
Yes sir, we got lucky this time. Those are the same blades that I was talking about. I have had great success using them to cut small / delicate parts from the trees.

But the downside is exactly what you mentioned. They will bend at the drop of a hat.

The Gold Medal Basketball Game really ate into my modeling time, but I did get a little done. I assembled the majority of the lower frame. I left several parts off till later because they need to meet up with parts that are applied later. I sprayed the inside of the frame with black primer that will serve as a base for the later armor green. I spent some time trying to figure out the colors for the details, as well as the interior and the exterior. There is no color info in the instructions, so you have to figure out the colors as you apply the parts. The only color into that you get with the kit is a really nice color cutaway in a separate pamphlet, but there isn't much detail info. I did a little searching online for the exterior color, and came up with 15 or 20 mixes for my preferred Tamiya paint. That's it for today. Cheers.

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.