¹⁄35

Chevrolet C8A HUW

Furniture and fittings in the RT Cabin

At the same time as the main various works were going on, on the resin conversion set I was also thinking about the furniture and fittings for the inside of the truck. I had decided to use a set of the Formations No 19 radio gear for the communications equipment and thanks to Sean Dunnage and John Dukes here on Armorama I had some good reference pictures to help guide me through what might look appropriate.

When the RT cabin had been assembled I set about making a radio table, and right and left stowage units. I had no specific measurements for these items and used the pictures, space available inside the RT cabin and a fair bit of the Mk 1 eyeball to construct these as close to the reference pictures as I could. All the basic furniture was made form available plastic strip and rod. Heights and depths were guess work based on the size of the No 19 set, and various pieces of 1.35 kit I intended to stock them with. I built the RT table first and then the RHS stowage unit. These were test fitted and adjusted as necessary until I had what I felt was a fair representation of the references Sean and John had provided.

I was a bit stumped on the LHS unit as I only had a picture of the front end of this unit and I knew that at the rear was a compartment for a Chorehorse generator set. Also on the LHS and rear LHS there was what I believed to be access panels into the truck. There was some talk of the LHS panel opening onto a window but I could see no reason why this might be so. and after a fair amount of thought I then built the LHS stowage unit, again from plastic strip and rods as I believed it might have looked.

When these were built I thought about the equipment to go in them. I used some of the excellent Accurate Armour Batteries both for power under the table for the 19 wireless set and as stowage items in different parts of the left and right hand side furniture. In the RHS stowage unit I also added some small haversacks, water and oil cans, batteries and a small tarp. In the LHS stowage I added batteries and a selection of maps, with compo and biscuit tin boxes below.

On the RT table I added a No 19 set, No 19 high powered amp, mike and home made headphones from lead wire, and plastic rod and the variometers and various fittings. The radio equipment was plumbed in with lead wire, the wires extending over the front cabin wall to fit into the antenna points above the front cab. l added some magazines, pamphlets, maps and documents to this area.

I made the two rear seats for the RT cabin from the front seats of the M3 scout car, adding some I beam feet and milliput to give the material some shape. I added home made webbing to the back of both seats. I made the webbing from individual rolled pieces of lead wire. Each shoulder strap being made up of 3 separate pieces attached to a rolled lead wire belt and Tamiya/Italeri ammo pouches. I added brasses from very small plastic rounds.

I added a fire extinguisher to the LHS doorway, plus a hanging water bottle. A Sten gun hung on the rear seat and a copy of life on the cushion along with a signals case and situation map board more or less finished off the internal RT cabin stowage.

On the inside of the roof I added beading as per the pictures I had seen, I also added a small light made from a grenade and wired in. On the inside of the hatch I added the fittings to represent the catches on the hatch plus a small canvas strap used to pull the hatch open/closed. I think there should have been two straps there but one will do for me. The final thing that needed adding was some wiring on the LHS by the door entrance to feed into the outside antenna mount that would eventually be placed there.

On all the doors I added handles made from brass wire and mounted into very small ‘rubber’; rounds cut from slices of the smallest drilled round I could find. On the rear door I made a foldable table from plastic strip and rod.

Windows: I hate trying to do windows lol. For the RT cab windows I chose to show two of them partially open, this I think draws the viewer into the kit and in truth it is easier than trying to fit whole windows. The divides and windows were provided in the conversion set and although not perfect give I hope the desired effect.