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Mercedes-Benz 1628 Chassis Truck


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Hi guys, I'm building three Benz 1628 trucks for Revell GB and this is the first one I've finished. I've built the 1628 before, so if all goes well I'll have four of them in a couple of months. 

 

This is the kit, it's the original 1981 boxing in fact. The kit builds really well and after building the first one, I loved it so much that every time I saw one on the second hand site I bought it, so that's why I had three more to build.

 

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As the title says, I built a chassis truck (or chassis cab) from the kit, so modifications were necessary. I used only the front part of the kit chassis which contained the front axle and engine mounts. I scratch built the rest so I could extend the wheelbase and turn it into a bare-bones chassis. The "story" behind this truck is that it's sort of a barn find, which the Van Dordt company only recently took possession of. It's from some other country, I forgot which, and it has no license plates and such. It has been standing still for quite a while but the guys saw possibilities so I'm sure they'll be able to restore it and put it to use. It will be hauled to the shop on a beavertail flatbed, the only thing is, we haven't built that one yet 🙂 

 

Anyway, enough of that, here's a WIP picture of the chassis so you can see how I modified it.

 

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Full WIP here.

 

KFS hubs and rims were used to replace the kit wheels as these are not very good. 

 

So here's the end result. 

 

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Plumbing and wiring was added as it would otherwise have looked very empty in this case. I had no intention of displaying the engine so that was not wired up. 

 

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If you look closely you might be able to see the cracks in that right inner tyre. This set of tyres came from a couple of very old (built, but mostly falling apart) kits which I bought for parts when I built the first Benz a couple of years ago. I thought they would fit nicely, and I almost didn't have to weather them!

 

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Full album here.

 

I have to say, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, almost exactly like what I had in mind. I hope you like it too!

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13 hours ago, Anteater said:

Great weathering. On the topic of KFS, I'm pleased to see it's much easier to place an order since the business changed hands.  

The new kfs site is great. I squirreled away a heap of rims and such just before the previous owner stopped.

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23 minutes ago, desert falcon said:

When are you going to show us the Van Dordt garage facilities?

Nope, not going down that rabbit hole 😆

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This must be one of your best so far Jeroen, it's really amazing. I really like the combined work using kit parts, after market, scratch and creating the lot of fine detail, then painting and weathering it together to make it appear as if this is what it was in the first place. Top class work!

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1 hour ago, Bengalensis said:

This must be one of your best so far Jeroen, it's really amazing. I really like the combined work using kit parts, after market, scratch and creating the lot of fine detail, then painting and weathering it together to make it appear as if this is what it was in the first place. Top class work!

Thanks Jörgen! You're making me blush ☺️

 

1 hour ago, mostrich said:

Very cool and rare subject. Also great modeling skills!

Reminds me on the German television show "Auf Achse" from the late 70's / early 80's. Loved watching it as a kid.

Thanks! I'd never heard of this show, I don't think it was on here. Looks pretty action packed on Youtube 🙂 

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Love it Jeroen. That's the way trucks should look imo. Nice paint job & great weathering. So realistic I'm  sure I  passed it while out this morning.

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2 hours ago, Old John said:

So realistic I'm  sure I  passed it while out this morning.

That's a good one John, thanks 🙂 

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Hi all, I was asked how I achieved the weathering on the chassis. I didn't really elaborate on it during the build so I thought I'd try to remember what I did and post it here 🙂 

I learned a lot from watching other builds, picking up ideas and trying stuff, so maybe this will help someone else. Maybe you'll find some useful bits and pieces here and if not, that's fine too!

 

So, if I'm not mistaken these are the products I used for weathering the chassis on this build. This excludes the engine, cab, exhaust and wheels. 

 

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From left to right, it's Tamiya Desert Yellow XF-59, Flat Earth XF-52, Vallejo Model Colour Medium Brown (german cam.) and Flat Brown. These are my base colours in this case. I do plan ahead a little bit by figuring out if the model should look more dirty / rusty or more on the dusty side. In this case I went with somewhat darker base colours for the dirty / muddy look. 

 

Then, there's Vallejo's Dark Rust wash, Rust wash, Old Rust pigments and Rust Texture. Below are Lifecolour's Rust Base, Light Shadow and Dirty Black. This was the first build where I used the Lifecolour stuff, it's awesome paint. You can make a wash which will run into nooks and crannies and it will lay down a nice layer because the paint is so pigmented. 

 

These are products I'm familiar with and which work for me, I'm a fan of the acrylic stuff. I have oils and I use them sometimes but in general they dry too slow for me, I usually work quite fast. Special note on the brushes, these are the ones I use for weathering. They start life as regular flat brushes, but when they get a little older they move from the "nice brushes" jar to the "let's finish them off" jar. Once I start using them for weathering they end up like this.

 

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These two will be good for quite a while although they don't get cleaned, I just wipe them sort of dry. Sometimes they get dunked in water for a bit. 

 

The chassis base colour is Tamiya XF-1, clearcoated with the X-22 gloss clear. Note, the plumbing (brass rod) was added before painting black, the wiring (rubber wire) was added after painting black. 

 

The first thing I want to do is to get the shine off and that's where the Tamiya paint comes in. I spray a very thinned layer of the Flat Earth, more in some places, less in others.  Then, a little of the Desert Yellow but not too much as this is what I would use for the dusty look. I make sure those wires are getting enough of the paints so that they don't have that rubbery shine anymore.

 

That's it for spraying, from now on I use only brushes. I use Tamiya paints for these first steps because they spray so much better than the Vallejo stuff which I use almost exclusively with brushes. I know there are lots of people who can spray very well using Vallejo, but the clogging and cleaning just annoys me and I never got good at it, it probably doesn't fit my spraying style. 

 

Now it all gets a little random, I wouldn't be able to reproduce this result exactly. I made a wash with the Dirty black and ran that on the inside of the chassis beams, down in the corners. This was done with a pointy brush from the "nice brushes" jar. I also applied some of it on the outside of the chassis beams, with a regular flat brush, in a downward motion which gave a hint of streaking. 

 

I will use a hairdryer (lowest heat) to dry the paint every now and then, especially the washes. 

 

After the first washes I started with my nasty brushes. I made a little palette of the Vallejo colours and the dirty black as well, all the paints as they are in the bottle this time, no thinning. I dip the brush in one of the colours (or a little from everything) and wipe the excess paint on a rag, but I don't wipe as much as you would when drybrushing. I guess it's "semi dry brushing" 🙂 ... I will add a little more paint, leaving the brush a little wetter, on some edges and spots (in this case, for example on the top and bottom outside edges and the tops of the chassis beams), softly sort of dabbing the paint. In general I will define edges and such on all of the parts, and brush mostly in a downward motion, or sometimes just randomly. If there's not enough paint, nothing much will happen, if there's too much paint you're actually painting and that's no good. A little bit should appear, just enough to hint at dirt and such. Repeat until satisfied, mixing the colours, just making sure there are no spots of just the black paint left. 

 

For the leaf springs, I used some of the Lifecolour rust paints in this way, maybe a little wetter to get that rust colour on properly. But also, after that, the Vallejo brown paints and more mixed colours, the colour should never be uniform. I'll go round and round the chassis in this way, while keeping the paint on the brush just "off dry" so to speak. 

 

I make washes by adding water to the paints and running it along edges and such. 

 

For this chassis I also used the rust pigments, I mix those in the pre-mixed rust washes so it's a thick sludge and apply with the little pointy brush. I've found that I shouldn't go too heavy on the pigments, they can be really "on there" when they dry. So just small spots. I load my brush with the wash/pigment mix and apply some in random fashion, in appropriate places. Maybe spread the sludge our with a little bit of water if it's too thick where I left it. 

 

I use my finger to spread paint or wipe it off when there's too much. Like I said, it's all quite random and I don't really have a plan or anything, I just run with it. I'll usually spend an hour or two like this, then look at it the day after and maybe add some more. 

 

I never use more varnish, I'll clear coat before weathering but I leave it like this after I'm done. I have no idea if paint will start falling off at some point, if it does happen it's just natural weathering 🙂 

 

Anyway, that's about it. I like the process, and the mess it creates with bottles of paint and bottle caps filled with paint and pigments in all colour combinations everywhere. 

 

Here are some pics from the WIP, showing some of the various stages of weathering. 

 

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Here you see how the Lifecolour paint wash leaves a nice layer in that bottom corner of the chassis beam. I think this is one of the rust colours. 

 

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I hope this helps someone in some way!

 

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