1/35 Bedford QLR IBG Models

[Foghorn Leghorn]

One of my 3 holy grail wanted kits has now turned up for sale, the Bedford QLR. And it's a reasonable price at £30.

For those who are interested, the sprue shots are below. The moulding surface is a little bit frosty but I'd expect that to disappear after some paint. There is one obvious moulding flaw (see the last pic) where 2 of the 4 roof grills (on the left side of the pic) have sink marks in them. Annoying, but not the end of the world, as they're vents no doubt one of the aftermarket boys will produce replacements. And the sink marks may not affect all kits, maybe just this run.

I've put this in WIP but there may not be a lot of postings. I've waited all of my modelling life for a QLR kit and I just want to sit back, build it and enjoy it. The only dilema I have is whether to detail it or go OOB.

Neil

Edited March 17, 2014 by neilscrim

[Mr Grumpylee]

Me, I'd go OOB, but that's my choice. Is there much of an interior or is it a case of close it up and leave it!?

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Me, I'd go OOB, but that's my choice. Is there much of an interior or is it a case of close it up and leave it!?

There's a good basic interior with plenty of potential, the aftermarket boys will have a field day with add-ons. Not sure what to do about it though, I may put curtains on the windows and button it all up if I want a quick build.

[Mr Grumpylee]

Hmm I wonder if I can pilfer £30 from the wife's clothing fund?...lol.

Cheers Neil

Lee

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Hmm I wonder if I can pilfer £30 from the wife's clothing fund?...lol.

Well, here's some motivation for ya

Edited March 17, 2014 by neilscrim

[Mr Grumpylee]

Now that I do like...now where's my credit card??? Haha

[Foghorn Leghorn]

An update.

You really have to treat this a limited run kit, the gates are big and it's what I call a flat pack kit, ie boxes etc are built up from flat sides and other items are multipart, axles and chassis etc. It reminds me of the Riich OST I built a while back (here) in its complexity, but quality wise a league below. Some of the pieces are very small and one of them pinged off into the stratosphere while building the chassis and is probably just about to catch up Voyager and exit the solar system as we speak.

The plastic is soft (ala some of Airfix's recent releases) so this makes removing the parts a bit of a problem with the big gates. There's also a mould alignment problem on sprues A and B, with seams on most of the parts I've messed with so far. Again nothing major and what you'd expect with a limtied run kit.

In true bloke fashion I ignored the instructions and started on stage 20, the chassis. I don't like chassis and running gear parts so I decided to get them out of the way first. These were fiddly, the parts fit fairly well but the soft plastic means getting the chassis flat and square is very difficult. The engine is made up of 19 pieces, very nicely detailed but fiddly to put together. 2 hours of modelling only got me this far:

[Mr Grumpylee]

Looks detailed, looks a pain in the backside as well! :-/

[Paul Ayrey]

Looks like a good kit, hope you really enjoy it to make up for the long wait!

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Well, this WIP isn't turning quite as I'd hoped. This is a 'challenging' kit to build but sometimes you have to 'tweak' kits, it's part of the hobby. If you want a shake and bake kit then this isn't it.

This kit is VERY detailed but being a limited run kit the fit of parts is not great. I admire IBG for including so much detail but it's causing me problems and giving me details I could have lived without. I've decided to point out some areas that builders need to be aware of (the other versions of the QL kit that IBG sell may have the same issues).

The plastic is difficult to glue together. I always use Slater's Mek-Pak but this plastic doesn't seem to harden and fully cure when glued. I had to remove one part 48 hours after I'd glued it and it wasn't that difficult to pull off. As a result of this I've decided to reinforce all the joints on the chassis with superglue.

After another 3 hours modelling this is how far I've got, not very far ...



Note in the bottom left of the pic the fan has been removed from the engine, if you don't remove it then it's a tight squeeze with the radiator so it had to go. It's virtually impossible to see it when the kit is finished anyway.

So, points to be aware of:

S16:The axle pieces (B23,B24,B25) need to be aligned wth their keyhole slots, otherwise you'll be in trouble running the spigot through them later on.

S17: Join B75 to B43 before joining it to rest of axle assembly. This allows you to align the flat plates together, which are used to sit the axle on the springs.

S20 Make sure you put B13 (chassis cross member) the right way up ... I didn't

S21 Beware A13 and A14 (springs). What you may think is a sprue attachment on the rear end of the spring is actually part of the spring used to sit it into B64. Guess how I found out...

S21 The transfer box assembly is awkward. The plate that attaches the box to the chassis doesn't have a positive location to the box.

S21 Leave off B45 (some kind of sump guard?) until you've fitted the engine and radiator, which is done in S24.

S24 When fitting the engine and radiator to the chassis you'll have to trim the locating tabs on both of them so they don't foul B45.

Don't attach the axles to the springs until the end of the build. They're a bit vague in their locations so I'm leaving them off until I can put the cab and cargo bed onto the chassis and then align the axles to the wheel arches.

Edited March 19, 2014 by neilscrim

[Shermaniac]

For glue, are you using the Tamiya Extra Thin or Mr Cement S as these seem to work better than the usual Humbrol Poly etc

I should be picking mine up at Hinckley Show on Sunday - hope it's arrived Phil?

This will help me with my build so, thanks for that.

The wheels are the Post-War type I'm told so I may well be after the Hussar set originally produced for the Peerless/Airfix/Italeri Bedford QL

Keep going.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

For glue, are you using the Tamiya Extra Thin or Mr Cement S as these seem to work better than the usual Humbrol Poly etc

Slaters Mek Pak. And the plastic is easy to melt with Mek Pak (which I always thought was a mild cement) so I'm not sure I'd want to use anything stronger.

[John_W]

Came accross one of these at a military show. Outside was a faithful restoration, inside was a camper van

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Outside was a faithful restoration, inside was a camper van

Now there's a thought ....

[Foghorn Leghorn]

With the suspension out of the way I thought I was out of the woods and moved onto the cab. Alas, I was wrong.

Forget the instruction sequence for the cab, if you glue the mudguards to the cab floor first you're heading for grief. The best bet is to get all the components together (floor, back, sides, front, roof, mudguards), throw them up in the air and see if they all land together because that's your best hope.

For a start the front was warped and in the worst possible place, the windscreen. As the plastic is soft you can bend it but when I tried this later on, the right hand pillar snapped. That actually may be a godsend later on.





The best cab assembly sequence seems to be seats (and other cab bits) onto the cab floor, then glue the back, sides, front and mudguards, in that order. You're going to have to play around with the sides to back joint when they're drying and once you've got them lined up superglue them before they move out of position.

At the moment it seems the back is slightly too wide for the roof but I'll have to tweak that later. And leave off the roof as you'l need to put the windows in at some point.

And on the subject of the roof, the kit supplies both types, with and without cupola. I'd already decided to use the plain roof (there are pics of QLRs without the cupola) which means less can be seen in the cab. And that's a good thing as my patience is wearing thin with this kit and the sooner I can get it finished the better.

So, what's the problem with the mudguards then? They just don't fit, for a start they need to be aligned with the doors but the main problem is the lip at the back of the cab (see left pic, arrow). The solution is easy, just trim the lip, the right hand pic show the before and after, box on left shows before, arrow on right shows after.





Meanwhile I posted a question over in the WWII section (here) about the interior colour. The kit says light green, which seems wrong. Consensus seems to be cab colour will be exterior colour and the radio body interior is Eau-de-nil (or similar) for the top half and green on lower half. Thanks to all the guys who posted with the info. As I'm going to build it closed up, a rough colour match will be good enough for my needs.

So this is where I've got to so far, if you look at the front piece (left hand side as you look at it), you can see where the windscreen pillar snapped.

Edited March 23, 2014 by neilscrim

[Vally G]

Hi Neil,

Have you seen the PMMS Bedford reviews? I think a lot of the issues you are dealing with are covered there.

Kind regards,

Adam

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Have you seen the PMMS Bedford reviews? I think a lot of the issues you are dealing with are covered there.

Damnit! Get me my

Completely forgot about that. I saw the review a while back and thought "Oh yeah, must remember that" and of course I didn't. Yet another c.r.a.f.t. moment. I'm getting too old ...

Thanks for the reminder Adam, at least i know it's not just me screwing the kit up ...

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I felt I was getting frustrated with the fit of this kit so I put it to one side for a week. I've now reset my mind, this IS a limited run kit and it needs work and patience, go with the flow.

So, time to get the cab finished. A lot of fettling was needed to fit the front of the cab but I've got it to a reasonable state, the warped window pillars still need some work but I'll leave that till later. Fitting the mudguards on last of all is the way to go as they aligned up perfectly.

The roof is not glued and I need to do some sanding around that area but it's starting to look like a QL. The radiator can't be seen when you put the cab onto the chassis so it goes in the spares box. And I have to say I was delighted with the cab to chassis fit, spot on.

The spare wheel frame is like the chassis, broken down into side rails and cross members. Take your time and it goes together fine but be aware of parts B83 (x2), they have a hole in them and they're not exactly half way along. Get them the wrong way round you'll have problems attaching the fuel tank, also cross members B82 (x2) are chamfered to hold the wheel so make sure you get them the right way round. It's a good idea to build the spare wheel at this point as it'll allow you to line everything up,

The fuel tank is not good, the join between top and bottom halves is poor and it will need some filler, although I think some of it is down to me. The strengthening strips that wrap around the fuel tank will need trimming away on the bottom otherwise the fuel tank pins won't sit into the recesses on the wheel frame (parts B83).

With cab chassis and running gear done I moved onto the radio body. There's a number of boxes that hang below the body, the 4 closed boxes look easy but pay attention to how they fit together, you can attach bits the wrong way round.

The same goes for the 2 baskets, each one is made out of 6 pieces. They go together quite well but there's another point to note here, the underside strengtheing ribs should be to the front of the assembly, there's 3 cross bars but ony 2 of them have the ribs, if you have a look at the basket on the left you'll see what I mean.

Next step will be the radio body itself, a quick look at the sprues shows there are some very thick and chunky attachment points (see top of the side doors). I've had a play with these already, you have to use a razor saw (or similar) to remove these as a knife blade won't cut through that much plastic.

[Shermaniac]

I felt I was getting frustrated with the fit of this kit so I put it to one side for a week. I've now reset my mind, this IS a limited run kit and it needs work and patience, go with the flow.

The same goes for the 2 baskets, each one is made out of 6 pieces. They go together quite well but there's another point to note here, the underside strengtheing ribs should be to the front of the assembly, there's 3 cross bars but ony 2 of them have the ribs, if you have a look at the basket on the left you'll see what I mean.

Looks like the week off has paid dividends

I've just checked my kit which I got at Hinckley last weekend and the Cab front is intact which is good.

The sinkholes in the roof are a minor irritation but not insurmountable I think.

Are you going to be doing a 'fix' for the baskets?

[Killingholme]

Looks very nice, you've convinced me to buy one now. such an attractive subject.

I've built an earlier release by IBG, a Marmon Herrington armoured car and it dropped together. There were a couple of sink-holes like your Bedford kit to deal with though. That said- small beer for such cool subject matter in plastic rather than high-end resin!

regds,

Will

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Are you going to be doing a 'fix' for the baskets?

The baskets have been built the right way (according to the instructions) as the door faces outward and the ribs are the same way, unless I've missed something.

So I checked the boxart ... which shows a different kind of basket altogether. Hmm

A bit more checking with QLR pics show various layouts of baskets and boxes slung under the body that I wasn't aware of. The pattern in the instructions (box, basket, box) isn't one I've seen in pics whereas the lid shows box, box, basket and a different type of basket. In fact if you turned the kit basket 90 deg it looks like the boxart basket.

Confused? so am I

[tommy1drop]

I`m also thinking of getting one of these now, looking forward to seeing more of your build

[Foghorn Leghorn]

The radio body is a revelation after the chassis and cab. Beautifully moulded, great detail, thin walls and not a warp in sight. It goes together pretty well (but take care with the large sprue gates) and a few swipes with a sanding stick was all that was needed. It feels like a quality mainstream kit, almost as if the radio body was made by a different company. The doors are worthy of mention too, detail on both sides, very thin and the fit is good.

As the body was going to be completely closed up I doubted much of the interior would be visible so I decided to go OOB and paint the walls two-tone, as suggested here.

First step was a shot of Halfords primer.





I used Xtracolor Sky for eau de nil and then masked half way up the wall, taking the tabletop as the dividing line. I used Humbrol 86 for the bottom half and it looked pretty good.





I glued the left side of the body on and added the table and drawer to it, the back will be added later. At this point I dry fitted the back and roof to see how much you could actually see inside once it's buttoned up: virtually s*d all

My advice to anyone doing the kit closed up (like me) is don't bother painting the interior because you can see virtually nothing. And on that point, the interior comes with some radios and office equipment, save them for another project as you won't be able to see them inside.

I put the cab and body on the chassis for curiosity, a nice fit. The truck is bigger than I expected, the radio body gives it some presence.

[Mark_JS]

Liking this so far, this could end up on my to do list

Mark

[Foghorn Leghorn]

I glued the back to the radio body and offered up the roof. It's a great fit considering the breakdown of the radio body, just a little bit of sanding on the front bulkhead and it sits down quite well. The pic shows a gap at the front left of the radio body roof joint but that squeezes down fine and glue will hold it.

The rear mudguards are a bit of a vague fit but there's no problem in attaching them, just make sure they line up side to side. You can't sand down the rear mudguards to scale thickness (because of their shape and pattern) and they're crying out for brass replacements (as are the front mudguards), in fact there's a load of other stuff on the kit which could be covered by the brass merchants. If you're a brass fan (and I'm not) I predict you'll be in heaven with this kit.





2 cable reels sit underneath the body and they're in 2 halves. I thought this was going to be a real problem and I expected to have to wrap wire round them because of the join. I have to admit they went together very well, with a bit of sanding and smoothing over with glue they look the part. Once again I expect these reels will be covered by the brass boys.





Another area for the brass boys is the pole storage frame. It's moulded as a solid item, with solid ends at the edges (2). I felt it needed tweaking so:

I scribed the recesses between each pole to give them a bit more definition (1)
I made rough marks at the ends with a scalpel and drill bit (3)
A grinding bit opened up the holes a bit more (4)
I built up raised edges at both ends with plasticard (5)
Sanded and primed (6)





It looks a bit rough in the pics but bear in mind the thickness of the moulded piece is just over 2mm, in real life it looks fine. I decided to leave the moulded strap on as it would be a real b*tch to remove and if you went down that route you may as well scratchbuild the whole thing, which I didn't want to do.

On a related note some QLRs apparently had 2 of these storage frames, one each side. The kit has the frame on the right side (offside) of the body but I've seen pics of restored QLRs with the frame on the left so you could put the frame on whatever side you wanted.