Pierce Arrow AA Truck 1/35 Scratchbuild

[Model Mate]

The roll continues!

 

I made up a couple of hanging shelves to hold all those petrol cans, some looped brackets and a rather speculative fuel filler cap/tube. I based this on a photo that seems to show a smear or stain on the body in location, although it doesn’t cover this area directly so it’s a guess, but I quite like how it looks.

 

And that’s everything on the body, apart from the three sets (left, right and rear) of entrance steps. I’ll make these up from brass or aluminium as they need to be thin, so will add them after painting as they’ll be too fragile to handle my ham-fisted treatment.

 

And so…… primer time!

 

 

Back to the colour problem.

Thanks to Maginot for the excellent advice on colour – very helpful, but I’m still a bit stuck on where to go. I did a bit of surfing and came across a discussion on the excellent Landships II forum. It mentioned that Royal artillery kit was painted blue-grey with white markings which chimes well, but this might have applied only to big guns rather than vehicles(?). The same chat goes on to say that Royal engineers used light and dark Brunswick green – again, the dark sounds reasonable. Lastly, the thread closed with this statement….

 

Armoured cars used by the Royal Naval Air Service in 1914-15 were generally finished in a light or medium shade of naval grey. An exception was the Royal Marine Artillery Anti-Aircraft Brigades Pierce-Arrow armoured cars (with 2pdr. pom-pom AA guns) supplied in 1915; these were painted Daimler khaki-green, in accordance with Admiralty specifications.

 

 I’ve no idea what Daimler Khaki green might be, but this seems to line up with the spotted, camouflage photo (and coloured profile) I have of one (RMAAAB) car.

[Bullbasket]

Brilliant! Some of your work is just jaw dropping. Couple of questions for you. Where do you get those balls that you use for the rivets, and what do you use to glue them in place? Keep it up. It gets better and better.

 

John.

[Model Mate]

Thanks John, Highly appreciated comments!

 

I got the "nail caviar" balls from Ebay - little pots with thousands of balls, in a variety of sizes. The smallest (0.6mm I think) are a bit irregular in size, so need a bit of care, but the larger ones (0.7 and 0.8) are much better in that regard. I drill holes slightly smaller (0.5, 0.6 and 0.7 respectively), add a drop of Tamiya extra thin and then place the balls in using a cocktail stick - a touch to the tongue and the balls stick well enough to transfer them. I follow this up with a small flood of extra-thin afterwards. If they need fixing to ABS or PVC, I use superglue. The balls don't melt with the Extra-thin, but the surrounding plastic does, which seems to hold them fairly well. The primer also helps seal them in.

[THEscaleSHOW]

4 hours ago, Model Mate said:

The roll continues!

 

I made up a couple of hanging shelves to hold all those petrol cans, some looped brackets and a rather speculative fuel filler cap/tube. I based this on a photo that seems to show a smear or stain on the body in location, although it doesn’t cover this area directly so it’s a guess, but I quite like how it looks.

 

And that’s everything on the body, apart from the three sets (left, right and rear) of entrance steps. I’ll make these up from brass or aluminium as they need to be thin, so will add them after painting as they’ll be too fragile to handle my ham-fisted treatment.

 

And so…… primer time!

 

 

Back to the colour problem.

Thanks to Maginot for the excellent advice on colour – very helpful, but I’m still a bit stuck on where to go. I did a bit of surfing and came across a discussion on the excellent Landships II forum. It mentioned that Royal artillery kit was painted blue-grey with white markings which chimes well, but this might have applied only to big guns rather than vehicles(?). The same chat goes on to say that Royal engineers used light and dark Brunswick green – again, the dark sounds reasonable. Lastly, the thread closed with this statement….

 

Armoured cars used by the Royal Naval Air Service in 1914-15 were generally finished in a light or medium shade of naval grey. An exception was the Royal Marine Artillery Anti-Aircraft Brigades Pierce-Arrow armoured cars (with 2pdr. pom-pom AA guns) supplied in 1915; these were painted Daimler khaki-green, in accordance with Admiralty specifications.

 

 I’ve no idea what Daimler Khaki green might be, but this seems to line up with the spotted, camouflage photo (and coloured profile) I have of one (RMAAAB) car.

Absolutely amazing!
I have no words...
You are crazy 🤪

I love vehicles from World War One

MD

[Model Mate]

The next mini-project makes itself evident… the brass lamps.

 

Here’s the raw materials and tools… and the parts I made from them. I ordered some 6,5,4,3 and 2mm brass tube from ebay. Cost peanuts, but took a little while to arrive. No matter. Handily, they slide into each other, car aerial style, so they must all have a 0.5mm wall thickness.

 

I sorted out some correspondingly sized drill bits plus a 0.7mm starter-bit, some files, a razor saw (blunt when I started; completely knackered now) and my domestic drill. This whole exercise has made me dream of owning a mini-lathe…..hmm.

 

I shoved some of the 5mm inside a length of 6mm and spun it in the drill against a flat file to get a tapered cone, and ran the razor saw against it to slice off the final, tapered, one-and-a-bit mm ring.

 

This was pushed onto a length of 4mm tube, cut to length in the same way. The 4mm tube had a 2mm hole drilled through, and a cut piece of 2mm tube went right through. A couple of tiny lengths of 3 and 2mm were poked in the end and voila!

 

I then drilled a couple of 0.7mm holes on either side. One was opened up to 2mm and a slice of 2mm tube stuffed in. The tiny wire will fix over the top as a handle, and I need to fill the various little holes and make brackets using small (0.8mm) tube – which I stupidly left at the flat, and forgot to bring to the boat – grrr! By the way – be cautious handling sharp brass edges – this isn’t a ring of paint or a circle of clear plastic, but a peculiar cut! Made squeezing the lime for my evening G&T a colourful experience!

 

I dropped a little superglue in the central opening and it seeped nicely into all the joins. I thought about soldering this lot, but I’m not a great fan of soldering – at least not with a traditional iron and solder and I’m confident I’d have made a complete mess of this. Might need to try solder paste and a hot air gun though….

 

The colour problem persists. I’ve convinced myself that one of my reference pictures is a dark blue/grey and the other an olive type green with darker green splodges. Here’s my paint selection:

 

The enamel (Revell 69) is listed as “granite grey” and matches an ammo box I saw someone post somewhere as being Royal artillery grey, so I’m taking as a good colour for the first option. The other two look ok (maybe a bit dark) to match a colour profile I’ve got of the RMAAAB machine. The wheels will be grey regardless, but I’m still not sure which scheme to go for.

[vytautas]

Great job with the brass lamps!
What will you do with them - leave shiny brass or paint it? Bare brass oxidizes rapidly.
And be careful with sharp metal!

 

Vytautas

[Bullbasket]

Oh come on! You've taken the easy way out with those lamps. Where's the wick and the knurled nob on the side for raising and lowering the wick??

That's some seriously great work that you've done there. Those lamps look ace. Nice work.

 

John. 

[Model Mate]

3 hours ago, Bullbasket said:

Oh come on! You've taken the easy way out with those lamps. Where's the wick and the knurled nob on the side for raising and lowering the wick??

That's some seriously great work that you've done there. Those lamps look ace. Nice work.

 

John. 

I know - letting the side down.... I'll get the adjustment knob fitted when I get hold of my 0.8mm tube.... I've now finished the second big lamp and made a start on the smaller ones - they're a bit trickier....

 

14 hours ago, vytautas said:

Great job with the brass lamps!
What will you do with them - leave shiny brass or paint it? Bare brass oxidizes rapidly.
And be careful with sharp metal!

 

Vytautas

The colour profiles I have show them as brass - hence the brass material, so I'll avoid painting them. I did the AA gun barrel using brass, and an oil wash of burnt umber to add a bit of fake patina seems to have prevented it from oxidising which is handy.

[Maginot]

Well, the Pierce-Arrow is looking a treat with it's underwear on.

 

Quote

 I’ve no idea what Daimler Khaki green might be

 

I wonder if someone at Bovington Tank Museum might know?

 

I don't suppose the Thornycroft J Type with 13pdr AA gun on display at The Imperial War Museum would have a more-or-less authentic paint job that might inform your quandary? Some pics here: www.landships.info/landships/artillery_articles/13pdr_AA.html

 

Quote

be cautious handling sharp brass edges...

 

... and tiny petrol tins made from metal wine cork sleeves. I linished finger tip and nail instead of the work. Nitwit!

[edjbartos]

Brilliant work, lamps look amazing

 

Ed

[Muchmirth]

If I'd do e this I probably have hacked off my fingers in the process.  Hat off they look amazing, so precise.

[Model Mate]

I finished off the brass lamps – here they are with a bit of scale reference….

 

The brackets and handles were added using 0.5mm brass tube and I stuffed a few short lengths of the same into the 0.8mm tube holes, apart form those on the back of the smaller lamps, as these will butt up against the bodywork, so won’t be visible. The lenses were punched out of shiny wine-top foil and pressed into place to dish them a little. This was followed by drops of gorilla clear glue to form domed lenses. I’m pretty happy with these all in all. They’ll get a wash of very thin burnt umber oil to wash off the superglue residue and protect them from ongoing corrosion before I fit them to the car.

 

And to the car….

 

I decided on the dark grey colour scheme, and sprayed it with Revell granite grey enamel. I added a drop of black and misted the undersides, and added white to do the same for the upper surfaces. It’s very subtle.

 

I also knocked up a figure. He’s composed of left-overs from previous dioramas, so not very exciting, and it took a bit of work to get anything like a convincing pose; at least one of his original arms now belong to someone else, but I imagine he’s rather shyly posing for a photo. He got a coat of overall mid grey with black from the underside and white (all enamel) from above as a primer/pre-shade.

 

I’ve ordered some white lettering decals (1/72 RAF codes) which will hopefully be a reasonable match for the smattering of letters that adorn the car, so next up will be a Klear gloss coat in preparation.

[Model Mate]

I sprayed a couple of coats of klear all over the truck, but the grey enamel I used is very, very matt, and a bit grainy, so the best shine I could achieve was a slightly satin finish. I brush applied a bit of neat klear where the decals are to go in an attempt to avoid silvering.

 

And on with the decals…. These have an overall carrier film rather than individual bits around each letter, so careful trimming was needed, but they went down really nicely with a drop of microsol. It seems RAF aircraft don’t use the letter “I”, so these were “L”s with their legs cut off. I used the left-over legs to cut down into dots to apply between each letter. The “OHMS” still needs these applying. It was all very fiddly, so sticking the dots on after the letters seemed a sensible approach after faffing around with the first “C.I.”

 

The figure got an overall spray of Vallejo model air IJN brown, followed by helmet/face/hair etc. detail painting and then a generous wash of very thin burnt umber oils. I’ve found that repeated applications of this, sometimes with a bit of black added, and “dry” brushed cleaning using a thinner-moistened brush between applications do a pretty good job of filling in the shadows and picking out the highlights. It all gets very shiny though so can be a bit hard to tell how it’s progressing until it gets hit with a matt coat.

 

[Model Mate]

I accidentally posted this update in the diorama section - oops.....

 

I haven’t done a great deal since the last update, but I got the wheels on, so couldn’t resist getting a couple of pics up to mark the occasion!

 

I finished the decaling – fiddly! The small numbers on the engine box should have in three lines, but the letters were a little too large for this, so I employed a bit of artistic licence. I added scratches using….scratches. In this case, the grey primer is a slightly lighter grey than the main paint, so I simply attacked areas by scribbling and dabbing with the tip of a scalpel. I’ve found recently that I’ve been using wood to model wood, brass to model brass and so on, so it seems a sensible approach.

 

This was followed by a black oil wash, then a little burnt umber and burnt sienna. A drybrush of slightly lightened grey went on the wheels and a few spots like hinges on the body.

 

The tyres got a lick of enamel dark grey and it’s now ready for a matt coat.

 

 

[Lazy Modeller]

Pretty nice!

Cheers

LM

[edjbartos]

Absolutely fabulous, stunning job, looks brilliant...

 

Ed

[Model Mate]

Thanks chaps, it’s nearly there…I’ve really enjoyed this build!

[clive_t]

This is one amazing piece of work. Following, even though you've nearly finished!

[Bandsaw Steve]

That’s a great bit of scratchbuilding! 👍

[Model Mate]

A slightly hotch-potch update as the little bits get a little bit of attention…

The figure got a matt coat and that sees him pretty much finished.

 

I selected a few bits and bobs from my selection of WW1 figure kits; backpacks, binoculars, helmets and so on, and got them ready for paint, adding metal foil strap extensions to allow me to hang the bags from the perimeter handrail.

 

The other ancillaries I need are –

 

Wooden sand boards to hang from the side (a cut-down, trimmed and oil paint stained lolly stick)

POW petrol cans

Vickers guns.

 

I’d tried using a blue-stuff mould and milliput for the guns and cans, but the results weren’t great, so I broke out the silicone and resin casting kit.

I was worried that I might get bubbles trapped in the mould, so I glued thin rod onto the parts to act as breather tubes. I pressed the parts I needed into a block of plasticine and poured silicone over it, inside a rough box made up of plastic (HIPS) sheet. I used too little catalyst, and so it took ages to go off, but thankfully did eventually, and with no bubbles.

 

The mould was reversed and the second half cast, using decanted and brush-applied hairspray as a de-moulding barrier between the silicone halves. I tried to make sure all the rubber was covered, without touching the parts themselves, and it worked! The curing was much faster this time – I probably added too much catalyst this time as it went off very quickly.

This is my first attempt at two-part moulding, and it’s been pretty good – certainly better than the blue stuff effort. The gun handle was a failure though unfortunately – it just wouldn’t sit neatly in the mould for the second pour – but it shouldn’t be too difficult to scratchbuild for each gun.

 

I’ll knock out a few more copies and get it all on board before final weathering.

[Model Mate]

Another “bitty” update, but at least there’s a splash of colour!

 

The Brass lamps were glued into place.

 

I assembled a few of my resin and milliput fuel cans, added thick wine-top metal handles and painted them a selection of bright red, blue and yellow. They looked a bit like a tiny lego collection, so needed dirtying up. First a few spurious logos culled from spare (aircraft) decals after a Klear gloss coat, then a bit of grey chipping and finally a few black and brown oil washes.

 

I fixed them into their trays with a blob of PVA.

 

The resin guns got a dark grey acrylic coat, followed by black oil wash and then a rub down with graphite. The one with the brass pin will be mounted in an open hatch, the others inside the car on their storage brackets. I painted the kit bags using khaki brown, but it was too dark, so I repainted them with a lightened version and then applied some neat khaki for shadow areas and then oil pin washes.

 

And that’s it for now. I need to fix all the supplies on board and do a bit of final weathering and we’re done.

[echen]

Like the kit bags. Your painting process inspires me for some items I need to get ready for stowage on a number of my kits.

[Bandsaw Steve]

Looks wicked! 👍

[Bullbasket]

Nice work Mate, especially on those oil lamps. Are they going to be tarnished a little?

 

John.

[Muchmirth]

Those brass lamps are insane!!! Flawless, how you worked on something so fine I’ll never know. Better than most models you could actual buy. You’ve inspired me to try my own cack handed scratch building. 
Paul.