Greetings,

I am building my first military ground vehicle which is a Tamiya Humvee. Can someone please tell me what color the muffler is supposed to be. The instructions call for hull red. For some reason this doeosn't seem right.

Also, I would also appreciate some tips on how to weather the under carriage. I am doing the OIF desert colors. I already primed the pieces and sprayed a layer of flat black and went over that with a sand color. I was just looking for some ideas on a wash and dry brush color.

Thanks in advance

cbreeze

Hi Charles,

Ah, the many nights I have slept under a HMMWV! Deluxe accommodations!
The muffler is stainless steel. It is a dull silver.
An overall wash of raw umber works very well for desert vehicles. For drybrushing, just lighten the base color.

The muffler and tail pipe is made out of stainless steel and should be silver. It will rust lightly.

The frame and body underside is black. The engine and tranny are bare steel, aluminum, and black in color. The fuel tank is white plastic.

Once the vehicle is driven around a bit, the whole underside just looks dirty and covered in dust. I wash it in a couple different dust/sand colors, then drybrush in another dirty color, maybe a little rust on the muffler.

Here is an actual rolling frame of a civilian H1, but it is basically the same as the military version.


Muffler is tube on upper right.



You can see the stainless muffler and tailpipe in the factory shot here as well.


Here is a really nicely rendered chassis by Brent Sauer here on Armorama too.



That should get you started.

Mattt,

Thank you so much. I also had the same question about the gas tank but a little reasearcy on the internet revealed that they were made of plastic and were white. There was nothing out there on the muffler.

Thanks again,

cbreeze

Thanks for the photo's, best reference yet.

Though there doesn't appear to be any standard to the frame color question. I have seen some black, some desert sand color. Most recently, I have seen a number of brand new Humvee's and other vehicles on the expressway being carried on flat bed trailers. I noticed that the underside is the same sand color as the top.

Once again, thanks for the excellent pictures. Now I know what direction to go.

Cbreeze

It depends on where the vehicle was painted. Usually, if it was a factory paint job, the frame will be black. If the vehicle was repainted by the military, it will be overall sand or green, whichever color it was painted. The undersides are not usually taped off when repainting them. The "new" ones you saw were more than likely either newly repainted or military rebuilds that were repainted by the military, not at the factory.