Hi Guys,

Well with the airborne trailers pretty much complete I'm about ready to move on to the 2nd of my Airborne Jeeps for the Op Market Garden Campaign. It runs until December if you have a mind to join up;

Link here
http://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/136186&page=1

This is time I'm going to try the SIgnals version and James should be publishing a review on this soon.

Just a flavour of the kit as I still have to upload all the images etc.



Al

Al,

Cool, another jeep!

Tony

Hi Tony,

Yip , have a bit of a jeep thing going on at the moment.

The donor Kit;







The missing part of the 2nd spur are the drivers parts I have passed on to a good home.

I shall probably use these for the crew



plus the para radio Operator I have already built



Al

hey alan this looks great and yet another jeep =]

im buyin bulk of the willy's jeep when i gather some money together and will be turned into airborne jeeps =]

but for now just an s.a.s jeep north africa ( tamiya ) will surfice for now

ill keep an eye on this

good look

tony

Hi Tony,

Remember if money is a bit tight you could use the standard Tamiya kit as an airborne jeep. Echlon troops has standard British issue equipment only those jeeps designated for airborne drop would have been altered as far as I am aware.

Al

Hello Al,

I am building the Tamyia kit for the Wheels campaign. My daughter bought the kit for me for Father's Day. I think I will be building it straight from the box with some minor add ons. I am looking forward to watching the progress of this kit.

Tony


edit for spelling error

Hey Tony,
You should consider picking up MiniArts British Staff Car w/Crew kit #35050 when it becomes available.
It's the same Bantam BRC 40 Jeep as the one with a Russian crew, kit #35048 or the U.S. crew, kit #35014:





I picked up the Russian kit and looks like a nice build.
FYI - Not many were built but the Bantam Jeeps were give to Britain, the Commonwealth and the Soviet Union when they were in production, as well as the Willys and Ford versions.

Russian Bantams

Bantam Jeep Photo Album






Hey Al,
Certainly using a great deal of your expendable income of late on these Resicast kits !!
You are certainly on a Jeep kick of late !!!
Looking forward to see the completed Jeep with the trailer.
Cheers

jjumbo

Hi John,

You know I tend to build things in 2s/3s or even 4s lol, lol. There are several carriers pending and at least 2 more jeeps lol, lol.

Researching Market Garden opened up the possiblity of a Para U/C too which might be fun.

Cheers

Al

Hey Al,
A British Airborne UC
That's a new one, never heard of the Paras using carriers, definitely would like to read up on that.
I know that 19 - 20 Tetrarchs were carried by Hamilcar gliders during the Normandy airdrops for the British 6th Airborne Armoured Recce Regiment.
Also that the 6th AARR replaced the Tetrarchs with Cromwells in August 1944 but also used some Lend Lease M22 Locust light tanks in Operation Varsity in March 1945.
And that the Tetrarch was further developed into the improved Harry Hopkins variant.
I'd love to see anything you have on the "Parrier" !!
Cheers

jjumbo

Hi John,

They landed 10 carriers during Op Market garden, 2 per Battalion

Al

Hi John,

Here's one that might interest you, a Dingo of 6th Airborne, and a nice set of Vickers MG Carriers. Thanks to KT.



Al

thought I'd start on the crew first, progress so far and a test fit in the RA Jeep








Al

hi alan
this looks great =]

so your saying if i am going to build an airborne jeep i need to buy the resin kit for the axles etc because they were modified??

this picture of the dingo and vickers carrier looks great where about did you come across these??

cheers
tony

Hi Tony,

No, but you will have to alter the bumpers and the bonnet, add the fittings for the rifles. strengthened supports inside, alter the dash board, and a few other things depending on which version you decide to build. If you look at the RA build blog you will see what needs altered and added on the basic vehicle.

The axels only allow you to position the wheels at an angle, so are not necessary if you do not want to do that. You will need to make the other alterations from plastic sheet/rod and add the front bumper tools and rear fittings. You could make all these from plastic if you choose.

What I said was that if you were short of monies you could do a rear echlon vehicle as these were only the standard British jeep the most noticeable alterations being the side lights on the bonnet..

Hope that helps.

Al

Al,

Looks really great so far. It's fun watching the progress. I like the figures you've chosen.

Tony

Hi Tony,

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the last blog.

If anyone is particularly interested in the signals Jeep you might want to check out this link:

http://www.visualcollector.com/OBLI/JeepSignals.htm

Made a start on the chassis and underside, removing the sink marks and flattening off the rear bumper. Also cut away the offside step. Instructions part 1:



Al

Thanks for the link. Very informative.

Tony

Hi Tony,

A review of the jeep can be found here:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/4324

Some work on the chassis. Added the replecement front axel, that will allow the positionable wheels, also the reduced repalcement front bumper along with the springs and exhause. The rear bumper has been flattened and thinned down a little.



Some cleaning up of the sink marks:



and a test fit of the parts



the kit has a nice set of wheels but you do get a replacement spare in the conversion set.



Finally a little mroe work on the figs



Al

Al,

Good review. Thanks for sharing. Where did you get that little map the figure on the left is holding?

Tony

Hi Tony'

Thanks, the map comes with the figures, there is enough to make 2 maps.

For Tony Roberts.

Scratch build details.

Hi Tony,

Iif you are following this and want to convert your jeep without the kit, then follow these steps. Remove the two projections on the rear bumper. Sand it smooth. Use the Tamiya front axel as normal and build the chassis. On the front bumper saw off each end at the point on the rear where the fitting bracket is (either side). The front bumper should be 25mm in length, then attach 2 small lifting handles (3mm in length) either side of the the starting handle hole. The hole will need moved so that it is central in the bumber. (Also just to clarify the starting handle hole is correct but you need a central point of reference to work from .) Look on the reverse and you will seen a small injection mark. The hole on my example if about a mm off, so drill another to give you a central point of reference.


Saw off the right hand step up on the jeep as shown - OK so far? On some examples of the jeep both steps were removed but it was the right hand one that caused the problem getting the jeep loaded into the Horsa so it was always removed.

Tidy up and seems lines etc on the chassis as normal. Clean up the injection/sink marks on the main frame of the vehicle. That will give youo the squat square look the jeeps had.

Al

Edit : Oh, and drill out the end of the exhaust.

Hi Tony R,

If you're looking in here's an alternative front bumper. I sanded one of my edges at a bit of an angle so replaced the ends to square it up but if you're careful this shouldn't be necessary. You will need to add a support bar to the rear I used a bit of H beam.





One the build side I've removed and stored the side light from the radiator and fitted the dash, so not much done today.

Al

Hi Guys

well as mentioned above not a lot done yesterday build wise, just fitted the replacement dashboard and removed the side lights on the radiator.



However, I did have a bit of fun trying to convert the Tamiya parts,

The rim on the bonnet will need reduced by about 0.5mm but I only had 1mm L bean so used that. For fixation points I just used plastic rod although H beam might work better. Width 22mm length 19mm, depth 0.5mm.

The dashboard needs altered to fit the airborne configureation, and still needs some rivets on the 3 panels. I added some slightly larger switches and also the missing horne The tandem towing bar was an experiment from the last RA build in case I messed up the PE part.



Al

Hi Al!
Jeep is looking very nice.
I hope You will paint it as well as You build this Jeep.

Nice build so far Alan. Im enjoying these conversions.

Hi Frank,

Thanks for looking in.

Added the engine and battery. Part a17 comes with the battery attached to it so probably best to cut it off and glue it as a separate item.





Some work on the kit parts, added the 12 rivets to the 3 small panels on the dashboard along with some more switches and knobs and finished off the bonnet box.



Hi Karol,

Painting is painting, I hand paint every thing so I don't get that perfect finish but then that's not what I'm after, won't be quite like this:



more like this:



The setting is just having come off the gliders so the jeeps would have been fairly clean with just a little dust and normal wear and tear.

Cheers

Al