Wolseley CP armoured car

[Model Mate]

Another brief update. I’m off on holiday for a week, so I thought I’d just catch up on the minor progress before I go.

 

I got my decals printed for the AA box. On the sheet they look fantastic. I tried applying one to a “mock-up” of the black painted planking to see how it worked out. Not great, I’ll be honest. I stuck it down with plenty of micro sol, but the film is clearly visible. It looks like it hasn’t silvered too badly but it’s really shiny. Obviously for the real thing I’ll cut the film a lot closer to the edge. Also, and perhaps more of a problem is the minimal colour density. Yellow over black was always going to be a challenge, but it’s worse than I imagined. I may have to use the decals as a template for painting yellow over, with a second decal over the top perhaps….?

 

For the posters on the side of the box I’ll be able to use the card originals, but anything on the wooden planks is going to remain a challenge that needs to be overcome!

 

I lashed up the lamp post from plastic tube, plastic card scraps and lead wire for the banding features with an iron wire running through the middle to allow it to be poked into the diorama base. This has had a lick of dark grey enamel.

 

It needs some glazing adding and I know it’s not entirely accurate, but as it’s not the star of the show I’ll let it go.

 

That’s it for now – catch you all later!

 

[GerryW]

Enjoy the holiday, and stay safe. 😎

 

Gerry

[Model Mate]

thanks Gerry - will do!

[Gorby]

The lamp post looks excellent! I thought the bit hanging at the bottom was the wire to attach it to the mains.

[Model Mate]

HaHa, I have actually considered witring it up along with the lantern on the AA box, but that might be pushing my luck a bit.

[Model Mate]

Back on the case at last! I had a very nice week at the seaside, followed by a few days in the Netherlands. That meant two weeks of quarantine, so I’d really hoped to be able to get this thing finally finished. Unfortunately, a number of the bits I needed were on my boat, and not where I was, so it’s taken a bit longer than an a fortnight so far.

 

There’s really not too much to be done:

·         Harnesses and hair on the horses

·         Glazing and final paint/weathering on the lamppost

·         Finish off the AA box with its lantern and signage

Starting with the last of these, I applied my homemade decals to a piece of clear packaging plastic and some pieces of white plastic card.

It would be nice to be able to use the clear ones, but the colour density is so low, they’d need bulking up somehow and I think I’m on to a loser with this idea. The white card backed ones look ok though.

 

I made up the rest of the lantern with plastic card and some scraps.

 

I love its little stove pipe!

 

This got a coat of satin black and just needs fixing to the box.

The top sign was made up from the decals on their plastic card backing, with a top and side frame applied with strips of plastic card. This whole thing was plopped on the roof of the box. A bit of liquid glue made its way onto one of the decal faces and melted it a bit. A bit of paint touch up was necessary here.

 

I applied the decals to the front of the AA box, cutting as close to the edges as I dare. I had tried an experiment of painting yellow oil paint on top of the decal and it seemed to work, so I repeated it on the real thing. I started with oil paint as the only bright yellow I had, but coverage was poor, so I ordered some Vallejo yellow and added a coat of that as well. I might yet add a further decal in top to get a cleaner edge.

 

Just the decal:

 

And with the paint touch-up:

 

Continuing in reverse order, the lamppost got measured up for the glazing, again cut from waste food packaging. It was tough eating all those cookies, but someone had to do it.

 

I applied a black oil paint wash.

 

And then a bit of dust.

 

For the horses, I decided to apply their very basic halters and harnesses using wine-bottle foil (didn’t go very well with the cookies, but no matter). I used my old rosie-rivetter to add a bit of stitching detail, painted them enamel brown and made up some silver wire buckles/rings for the ropes to attach. I used single strands from some embroidery thread, though so far I’ve only added one to the halter of one of the horses. The rest will be in the process of being tied on to the armoured car by Elvis and I’ll probably coat them in diluted PVA to get them to hang properly and reduce hairiness – although this stuff seems ok in this respect.

 

Onto the hair – I’d been dreading this bit to be honest. I ran a line of superglue down the horses’ necks and applied pinches of fake fur. The tails were glued into tail holes I drilled in their bums. Initially they look like some my-little-pony fantasy.

 

A trip to the salon and a quick trim:

 

Followed by the stylist, using diluted PVA:

 

 

Now there really is not much left – I’ll report back with the full finished product next time hopefully.

 

[Model Mate]

The last knockings!

 

Right, I’ve distracted myself with other little projects for long enough – time to finish off here!

 

I gave the horses a brush coat of Humbrol satin varnish as they were looking a bit too shiny/sweaty, but for some reason they came out even shinier! I’m worried that they’ll end up looking like they’re in aspic after all these varnish coats. I broke out the airbrush and sprayed a light coat of Windsor & Newton matt varnish, and at last they look as they should – I left the upper surfaces a bit satin to get their coats looking healthy.

 

A drop of black for the eyes, with some gorilla clear glue dabbed on for a twinkly shine and that’s them finished.

 

I made up the rest of the ropes – individual strands pulled from some embroidery thread for the thinner ones on the halters and three-strand ones for the towing ropes. All of these got a coat of diluted PVA and a bit of brown pastels rubbed on. I tied them onto each horse.

 

The horses were fixed in place and the ropes were fixed/draped/tied to wherever they needed to go. I “re-activated” the PVA with plenty of water to get the ropes to droop a little more realistically. This worked pretty well, but left a whole load of water stains on the road. Rather than try to cure this and have brand new tarmac, I went over the rest of the road surface adding similar water stains. I also mixed some Klear with a drop of black acrylic and dabbed it under the engine as an oil spill.

 

The AA box was finished off with some paint touch-up and handles, lock and so on fitted with bits of wire and foil. It got a dusting of “mud” pastels on the lower surfaces and some green for moss on the roof.

 

And that’s it – all done!

 

I’m pretty pleased. It’s been a long journey and a lot of fun. The finished thing looks a bit “clean” to my eye; a bit cartoonish even, but I guess mud and blood and doom and gloom aren’t always the way to go.

 

Thanks to everyone who’s commented – the invaluable advice has been greatly appreciated and your positive comments have really encouraged me throughout.

 

Here’s a single teaser – the will be in Ready-for-inspection soon.

 

 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Just ordered some nail caviar of my own. 
 

Just thought you should know. 🤔

[Model Mate]

yeah! have fun... looking forward to seeing your bling digits!

 

My top tip (at least what I did, there may well be better ways) is to drill holes slightly smaller than the balls so they rest in the holes, but raised. 0.7mm hole for 0.8mm balls for example.