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1:35 Scammell Pioneer Recovery civilian livery - Thunder Models


Kallisti

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Earlier this year I built the IBG Scammell Recovery kit as part of a diorama which you can see here:

 

 

I always wanted to build a civvy version of the Scammell Pioneer so to this end I have picked up the Tkunder Models kit to compare the two kits and I think it is safe to say that this is the superior kit!

 

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The inevitable sprue shots

 

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and here are some of the aftermarket that was left over from the previous build that can be incorporated into this build

 

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The civilian livery I've decided to go for is for the heavy haulage firm Wynn's.

I've not been able to find many photo references of specific vehicles apart from other models such as these

 

ht116a.jpg

 

ht116b.jpg

 

However I do have some reliable information from Allan Simpson of ASSAM models who has generously given me some decals for the company livery. These photos give an idea of what I want to end up with

 

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It will mean that there won't be much in the way of weathering on these vehicles as they were kept in pretty much pristine condition, just a bit of dirt!

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I am looking forward to this build, your other was fantastic

A chap who I used to work with has three Explorers in his family, one of which is converted to a civilian recovery

I have thought about replicating when and if the Explorer ever is made by Thunder Models

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An Explorer kit would be rather nice - I'd love to do a Circus one of those :D

 

First stages of the build are all about the engine - this engine is more detailed and has more parts than the IBG one, but it has some differences I seem to recall. It build up pretty well although there does seem to be quite a lot of the "Bronco syndrome" where parts appears to be broken down into smaller pieces for no other apparent reason than to increase the parts count! Here is the engine

 

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This is the radiator and as if to contradict my last statement this comes as one part rather than two in the IBG kit! :) This iss the sort of thing I meant by splitting pieces - circled on the instructions

 

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The other problem this kit displays is it does appear suffer from quite a bit of flash and ejector pin issues, for example on the two pieces to make the rear chassis spring: 

 

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and this is the front axle spring pieces with big lumps of flash which need to be cut off and the whole thing sanded down to fit properly.

 

Here is the engine after painting with a mix of Tamiya XF-71 Interior green with some XF-83 Medium Sea Grey plus some MiG Wash to dirty it up a bit. I added some lead wire which will be shaped to form some leads and some other detail is yet to be painted.

 

DSC_0904.JPG

 

 

 

 

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Love these big services vehicles in civilian guise.

The engine's looking great.

Funny that there aren't any pics of a Wynns Transport tractor. There's plenty of other stuff out there but not this one. I like the "no frills" approach.

 

Dave

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A few more day's progress and the winch has been assembled - this has a ridiculous number of parts - 22 in total

 

DSC_0941.JPG

 

The front axle assembly has been constructed after all the flash shown previously has been cleaned up - as you can see I've set the steering to be turning slightly to give the finished model more interest. In theory it is supposed to be possible to make this with movable steering, but I consider this a model not a toy :)

 

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The gearbox and first part of the transmission has been assembled and fitted to the chassis - the engine is just dry-fitted here to check the spacing and fit

 

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I suspect this feeling of "how many parts?!!!" is going to continue throughout this build lol

 

 

 

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Bit more work today - the rear transmission has been assembled and believe it or not there are about 50 pieces in this lot:

 

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Now I seem to remember the same stage of construction for the IBG kit had about a dozen parts - not nearly 50 - count em on the instructions here:

 

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I think this is getting to utterly ridiculous stages of parts breakdown - there are so many teeny tiny pieces that I am in constant fear that the carpet monster will have a tasty treat at any moment! Some of these parts are so delicate that getting them off the sprue is a very tense moment! There surely isn't any need for the underside of the differential hub to be split into two parts? Or that each side of the rear bogey is comprised of 8 parts when the IBG kit managed to make them in two parts without any loss of detail?

 

Edit: Here you go, the same stage from the IBG instructions, 24 pieces and it included the outer wheel hubs which are still to be fitted!

 

ibg+rear+transmission1.jpg

Edited by Kallisti
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Just one photo from the recent progress, showing the weathered seats and wooden boxes that will be in the cab

 

DSC_0946.JPG

 

The cab itself is in the shed having had an initial coat of light tan for the wood, then given an overcoat of hairspray and another coat of olive drab. That has had another coat of hairspray on top tonight and will tomorrow get a final top coat of matt red, which will then be distressed to show all the paint layers at different points of wear and tear.

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  • 2 weeks later...

... and we're back! After an enforced disruption for a week or more because of my GF visiting from Portugal, I am pleased to be able to return to this with the aim of finishing it by next Monday when we have our next club night.

 

As before, here is another example of the over-engineering of this kit. In this next pic you see on the left one of the front wheels assembled and on the right the parts that make up this sub-assembly - yep you are seeing 5 parts, including 3 that are SINGLE TREADS IN THE TYRE!!!! This is getting farcical to be honest, its utterly ridiculous to split a tyre into individual treads and have the builder reassemble them. It doesn't take much to get a little but extra glue in the joint and the tread is bunged up with melted plastic - its happened on the assembled one!

 

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Next we have the rear deck initial assembly completed

 

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This is nicely done with nice woodgrain detail and option of having some of the doors open, which is a nice touch missing on the IBG kit. The crane jib has been assembled as well

 

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This sub-assembly included a rather ridiculous bit of PE folding involving three narrow strip of brass, two of which had to be twisted by 90 degrees and then attached to the third piece - see the diagram here

 

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Its doable, but a total faff! On to less annoying stages and the winch mechanism has been put together and brush painted while being assembled 

 

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Its been painted with XF-69 Nato Black and the gear teeth have had some graphite pencil rubbed over them to give a worn, metallic look. I'll probably add a bit more to the various edges and points of wear and tear as time goes on. Finally for now a quick shot of the chassis having been painted with XF-69. This needs to be assembled and some grey wash to bring the details back out.

 

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More to come later in the weekend!

 

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Yet more wheel/tyre shenanigans... I was working on the 'rear' tyres this morning, then realised that for the vehicle I want to represent it wouldn't have different front tyres. Thankfully there are plenty of wheel/tyres in the kit so I can make up a couple of deep tread tyres for the front. However there is a problem... this is all the pieces needed to assemble 4 wheels...

 

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Yup, there are 3 pieces for each wheel, with the joint part-way through the tread pattern - slightly better than the front wheel yesterday! These then build up to each tyre, but there is a problem - the tread pattern has a gap in it which is not seen in real life tyres:

 

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Compare that to this

 

Im20110730FK-cc793.jpg

 

and then compare with the IBG kit

 

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which provided a part with the full tread pattern plus the two sidewalls and hub. This means the tread pattern is uninterrupted. The effort that is going to be required to fix this I reckon is quite considerable, so I have gone and bout some resin wheels from LZ Models which have a complete, uniterrupted tread pattern.

 

http://www.lzmodels.com/Thunder-Model-kits.html

 

Hopefully, these turn up before the end of the week! Thank goodness I skipped ahead in the instructions to do these!!!

 

 

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Bit more to update: I started getting the mudguards ready - these are so much nicer than the IBG kit which has moulded the upper part of the support frame to the mudguards so that they butt-joint to the supports, which is a very fragile joint and has broken on my previous model multiple times! By the way, my previous Scammell Recovery diorama is in this month's Airfix Model World magazine :)

 

Now, although I prefer the attachemnt method in this kit, the parts leave a bitto be desired - just look at the excess plastic around the ejector pin location 2/3rds up the frame

 

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The plastic on the mudguards is pleasingly thin so apart from the above problem, I think this are a much better set of parts than on the IBG kit.

 

The internals of the cab have been assembled and weathered

 

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The rear desk has been painted and then scratched to represent wear and tear

 

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The fuel tank and basket have been assembled - the footrest on the fuel tank is also pleasingly thin, unlike the lump that is on the IBG kit. I don't think this would need fixing with the Eduard PE set that is essential for the IBG kit. The basket is a complex construction of PE, comprising 9 separate pieces of PE, some rather small!

 

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More to come later...

 

 

 

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Back again, here are the fuel tank, basket and winch all painted up and weathered

 

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Quite pleased with how the fuel tank worked out with the metal effect. The cogs have had a graphite pencil rubbed over them to give them the worn look and the makers plate if fromt he Yahu PE set. I didn't in the ned use their instrument panel PE as the thunder models one is quite nice and fits well as you'll see... The cab has been assembled further

 

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and the outside has been painted and decalled

 

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I've started the washes as you can see on the roof and rear of the cab. The roof was only tacked on for the painting so that the inside window masks could be removed. The engine cover panels have also been painted and washed

 

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and then we have the rear deck - the crane has been glued in and the doors I'd previously left off have been fixed with PVA glue for now = I may come back and open them up once I've got the bits to go in them ready. Its also been decalled and weathered....

 

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The Wynn decals were provided by a club mate, Allan Simpson and they are superb and work perfectly in my humble opinion :)

 

The chassis has gone together well:

 

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This has been painted with Tamiya XF-69 Nato black and then washed with a mix of Mig Products Neutral wash and Dark Wash. The exhaust pipe in the first pic was painted with Mr Metal Colour Iron then dusted with Mig Light Rust pigment. More detailed pics - 

 

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Since I took these photos, much more progress has taken place and I haven't taken all that many pics, so please excuse the large jump in progress when I next post! For example, I've come to the conclusion that I'm not going to receive the resin wheels before this model has to go to the club meet tomorrow evening, so I've had to deal with the kit wheels and they've been painted and weathered, but I didn't take any pics of the progress :(

Edited by Kallisti
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Thanks Pete :)

 

As mentioned before, I had to accept that the wheels won't arrive in time so yesterday I started painting them. I used XF-85 Rubber Black along with a dusting of MiG concrete pigment.

 

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Note: I've checked and rechecked the front mudguards and I THINK they are on the right way round :)

 

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As you can see I've painted the hubs red with some of the nuts painted white. These are the nuts holding the wheel to the hub. The other nuts are those holding the wheel together so the were painted the same colour as the hub to avoid confusion when changing the wheel :)

 

So a lot has happened since I last took photos, but there is still a lot to do...

 

DSC_1146.JPG

 

As you can see, the cab, rear deck, engine panels and wheels have been added. This also involved adding the steering mechanism once the cab had been added, which included 4 parts to make the steering linkages plus the steering wheel. 

 

DSC_1150.JPG

 

Here you can see the crane hook and the winch cable. I've used some of the Accurate Armour pieces that I'd acquired earlier rather than the frankly pitiful hook that comes with the kit. By the way. the number plate was removed from this location when I realised I still need to add the rear mudguards...

 

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I decided to have the ladder and door closed in this version

 

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Next for this update, I've been painting up the counterweights for the front basket

 

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The two on the right have been painted black then given a coat of red over the top. This will get weathered eventually. in addition Some small PE parts have to be folded up as the brackets for the lights at the front of the vehicle.

 

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Finally, another fault with this kit - or rather with the instructions. The very last step is the attachment of the basket to the chassis and only now do they reveal two more PE parts to be attached to the side of the basket. This is really annoying as I'd already assembled, painted and weathered the basket so then to have to go back and add two extra pieces is very annoying!

 

DSC_1158.JPG

 

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I'm calling this finished for Phase 1 (Phase 2 may be mythical!) so here are a couple of shots for now and I'll take some proper one later. I made the deadline which was the model club this evening, phew!

 

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I'm relieved its finished to be honest, this was beginning to get a bit stressful! I probably will do a phase 2 which will be opening up some of the boxes and adding some tools and accessories. 

 

This will be appearing on the IPMS Farnborough table at Telford next month, so come say hello!

 

 

 

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That's really nice, and looks great as a civilian use recovery.

I've just sold a IBG one,wish I hadn't now after seeing this, and didn't seem to see any flash/injection stub issues with that kit like this one

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On 9/30/2018 at 2:02 PM, Kallisti said:

Yet more wheel/tyre shenanigans... I was working on the 'rear' tyres this morning, then realised that for the vehicle I want to represent it wouldn't have different front tyres. Thankfully there are plenty of wheel/tyres in the kit so I can make up a couple of deep tread tyres for the front. However there is a problem... this is all the pieces needed to assemble 4 wheels...

 

DSC_0997.JPG

 

Yup, there are 3 pieces for each wheel, with the joint part-way through the tread pattern - slightly better than the front wheel yesterday! These then build up to each tyre, but there is a problem - the tread pattern has a gap in it which is not seen in real life tyres:

 

DSC_1001.JPG

 

Compare that to this

 

Im20110730FK-cc793.jpg

 

and then compare with the IBG kit

 

DSC_1007.JPG

 

which provided a part with the full tread pattern plus the two sidewalls and hub. This means the tread pattern is uninterrupted. The effort that is going to be required to fix this I reckon is quite considerable, so I have gone and bout some resin wheels from LZ Models which have a complete, uniterrupted tread pattern.

 

http://www.lzmodels.com/Thunder-Model-kits.html

 

Hopefully, these turn up before the end of the week! Thank goodness I skipped ahead in the instructions to do these!!!

 

 

A bit late now for the build but it may help someone in the future making one.Thunder models have a update on their site about this, the instructions have the parts incorrectly marked, if you swop them around the treads will then line up

Now it says it's for the Tank transporter model, but looking at the sprues they seem to be the same tyre for the recovery, I wonder if they also got the instructions wrong on that one too

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