Airfix Land Rover Snatch Query

[dcrfan]

I recently purchased the 1/48 Airfix WMIK and Snatch Rover set.  I've been looking online at various Snatch pictures and have a query, is the Snatch as offered by Airfix correct for a Northern Ireland paint scheme?    

 

I'm looking at using the WMIK as the basis for a Shortland Armoured Car (with chassis back dated to Series 3 and Bedford MWD wheels).

[viper-30]

Pretty much mate leave off the desert antenna boxes..

[dcrfan]

Yeah thanks.  An excuse to stay out of the sun over the Christmas break 😊

[ivan-o]

You might want to consider these for the sides of your snatch.NI confidential No’s etc.

http://www.kingfisherminiatures.co.uk/

[RAFP8911]

https://www.joint-forces.com/features/military-land-rovers/17751-military-land-rovers-pt-8-cav-100-snatch
 

There’s some good photos here on this website, to me, the most obvious difference is the roof mounting for the various antenna & ECM gubbins.

[Black Knight]

Some of the BA Afghan Landies just got white paint slapped on them and some PSNI markings and were used during the G8 conference a few years ago. On some the white paint was put on so thin the desert colour showed through.

[dcrfan]

On 12/25/2019 at 1:05 AM, ivan-o said:

You might want to consider these for the sides of your snatch.NI confidential No’s etc.

http://www.kingfisherminiatures.co.uk/

I finally applied one of the yellow Kingfisher phone numbers but a total failure.  Can't see a darned thing as the yellow is completely translucent.

 

IMG_4278 by tankienz, on Flickr

Edited November 30, 2020 by dcrfan

[John Tapsell]

Yep - the Kingfisher decals are laser-printed printed onto clear decal film. Most small home/office printers can't print white so although the decals look good on the white backing paper, there is nothing solid under the lettering to make it stand out once you apply them to the model. You would have exactly the same issue with the red version of this decal sheet. If you were applying the decals to a white vehicle, they would stand out fine.

 

Some of the Kingfisher sheets are printed on white decal film but that creates the opposite problem - you have to remove any film from around the decals to avoid the white showing up where it shouldn't.

 

One solution might be to commission a custom set of decals from a company that can print with white ink. Typically these small-scale produceers use ALPS printers (a specialist printer that can use white ink). Such companies are generally not expensive to deal with  - I recently had an A5-sized sheet of decals (for several projects) printed for less than £20 (but I did supply the finished high resolution artwork so they didn't need to create it themselves).

 

The big decal printing companies use a silkscreen process that allows them to print white ink but these commercial printers are much more expensive so it only makes sense because they are printing larger quantities of each sheet.

 

 

Edited November 30, 2020 by John Tapsell

[Kingsman]

Archer make yellow dry lettering which might work.  Not sure what the sizes are.  But get it while you can as Archer have ceased production of their entire dry decal range.