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LAV-AT: Lesson in Frustration?

Painting

I decided to paint the exterior in NATO black-red brown-green and did not weather it very much because the vehicle should represent a “public day” appearance. After adding the colour, all those areas on the hull, which are prepared as a guide for locating the parts for other versions of the LAV appeared. Although I sanded them off previously they now popped up. To correct this it would have been necessary to remove all parts from the hull, fill these areas with putty and sand them. I tried to fill the gaps by airbrushing Gunze clear acrylic paint in and over them but I was not patient enough and added a thick layer of gloss paint on certain areas which resulted in paint-tears on the hull. I was too furious to break out into tears my end and tried to brush off the gloss paint with thinner. I exaggerated here as well and the Revell acrylic-email base colour started to dissolve. Unlike acrylic paints, this paint is creating a sort of skin on the plastic surface and finally I had to peel off almost the whole paint from the upper surface. It was interesting that no parts broke off. I had to paint the whole thing again, but finally I could do nothing else than to add a winter camo and some flags to hide the worst areas.

Copyright ©2002 - Text by Werner Kampfhofer. Photos by Wolfram Bradac. All Rights Reserved.