Oh man, I wish I had learned about this counterweight a little earlier! I appreciate you guys trying to straighten this out for me. I could technically tear the gun apart but I think at this point I may just leave it on. The sheild is on and all I have left to do to it is the wheels. I think mabe I'll make a rag/small blanket to cover it. I won't tell anybody whats under there if you don't. I don't think it's that unlikely that someone may have thrown something on there to help keep dust out of the breech. Or perhaps it is an old grease rag for when they are working on the gun? Always thinking I am.wink wink.

Comments are more than welcome.

Subscribed.

I have three or four of these kits on the shelf waiting for me to assemble them. I have no idea why I have so many of them. When they popped up, I grabbed them.

Yes this is a great little kit for being around for soo long.

I've found that the gun was more fiddly than the tractor itself. I gave some thought to cutting off the counterweight but decided against it as I knew I would risk breaking off alot of the little pieces. And I just didn't want to tear it apart. I did get it done however.





Next comes the limber..

Matt,

Before you go much further, the piece of tube you have added to the muzzle instead of the brake is not at all correct. Guns without the brake were not fitted with anything that could possibly accept a brake, so the barrel was smooth all the way to the end with a slight flare (slight) right at the muzzle. The thickness of the barrel was also noticeable and resulted in a bore that is significantly smaller than the rather large bore of the piece of tube you've used here.

The 25pdr bore was 84mm in real life, which equates to 3.307" or .095" in 1/35 scale. If you use a solid plug to finish off the barrel (ignore the flare unless you have a lathe. It's not quite right, but hard to see unless someone is looking for it) you can then use a 3/32 drill bit to drill a hole to represent the bore.

Paul

You might find this useful

https://armorama.kitmaker.net//features/3250

Al

Thanks for the how to on the gun barrel Paul. Can't ask for more than that. I only put that on there because the kit comes with a similar piece to replace the muzzle brake. I have some picutres of the 25PDR. but they have the muzzle brake.

Thank you for the link to the pics Alan. It makes it alot easier to see what Paul was talking about. Would the tip always have been black like in the pictures?

Limber carrier is done. I ended up gluing the wheels on the limber and gun trailer
do to the fact they were loose and wobbly. The inside piece of the wheel made to turn just isn't snug enough. I will add valve stems to all the wheels before everything is complete.

Well, it was a nice day so I threw some paint on this today. I was attempting to do light mud but am not sure how close I came.



I took this pic outdoors to try and show the true colour.

It's really hard to tell in the late afternoon light, but it looks about right. As a theatre colour, there was a lot of variation.

There were some vehicles in only the light mud, but from what I've read, the Black was very common. Very.

No mattrer how new the colours were on these vehicles, the very first day of use they would have been incredibly dirty with layer after layer of yellow dust. The dust was ubiquitous. It was everywhere and thickly caked everything.

The current fad of chipping and rusting finishes is grossly over done. The lifespan of these vehicles was short and violent. They were generally completely clapped out after 6-10 months of use so there was very little chance of rust or fading. But dirt? Damage? Breakage? Oh yeah. Lots of that.

Paul

Thanks for the comments Paul. I know what you mean about weathering. I've seen some of these overdone. I would expect a little bit of chipping and even a little damage maybe. But not the extreme weathering as seen on some tanks that had seen alot of service. Alot of dust from on and off road use.

I'm assuming the black camo would be the Mickey Mouse pattern? would the limber carrier and gun be light mud, any camo on these? And would these light mud vehicles be the same colour underneath and inside or would they have started out green?

Thanks

Not necessarily. It would be slightly more likely to be the MTP46 sheme. You can see the relevant section of the actual pamphlet here:

http://bcoy1cpb.pacdat.net/mtp_46_pt_4a_painting_mt.htm




Yes and Yes.



They would have started out some other colour, either SCC2 Service Colour (= dogsh*t brown) or Light Stone. Light Mud was a theatre colour and only provided locally.

Hey, waitaminute...

If Light Mud was a local colour and the Brits got vehicles painted at the factory or depot (and they did) then the depot to paint the Light Mud would have had to be in North Africa or Sicily. The Canadian troops didn't land in North Aftrica before the invasion, coming straight from England. The G3/G4 scheme had been out of fashion for 2 years at that point, so, I amend my previous guess! I think the Canadian vehicles all landed in SCC2 with maybe the SCC1a camouflage in the MTP46 or Mickey Mouse Ear pattern.

Bugger, why didn't I think of that before?

The Brits did paint their kit in Light Mud before the invasion, but the Canadians didn't get the chance. They'd have most likely gone in with brown vehicles, the current standard in England. They could have been in Light Stone, but vehicles going to Tunisia were already being painted in greens and darker colours so the Sicilian vehciles were probably the same, darker tones.

Your Light Mud model isn't wrong, it is just more appropriate for later in the Campaign, say the time of the invasion of the Italian mainland. Our units had had several weeks off between the end of Sicicly and their beginning in Italy. That would have been time to repaint.

So, in answer to your original question:


They would have been brown or light stone and generally the interiors & undersides of the vehicle & limber would remain that colour throughout the vehicle's life.

If you go to this page on the Maple Leaf Up forum:
http://www.mapleleafup.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2961

you can see several photos and a good discussion of how the patterns should look. There are three photos in the middle of the page from "Cletrac"
that should not be taken as accurate. These are of an Australian FAT and do not comply with any Brit pattern. They might be OK for an Aussie pattern in the pacific, but not for anything in Italy or NW Europe.

Paul

This is really fantastic work from you. I've always been fasinated by the look of this vehicle. A darn good start.

Thanks ti, this is a fun little kit. Unfortunately the lack of info on these vehicles and their service has been holding me up all along. I have to give a BIG THANKS to Paul Roberts (tankmodeler) for helping me out. He is well informed on Canadian Military subjects.

Once I get some black on this I'll be able to start the weathering. LONG LIVE DIRT !!! I think I'll go with Paul's suggestion and paint the interior and chassis the probable original color "crappy brown" as well.

I got the camo on as well as painting the inside and chassis brown.



Now it's time to touch up, add decals and weather. I'll start by finishing the interior, chassis and adding the engine.

That's looking really good. Bloody well done.

Thanks Paul. That first link up above was a good help. I now have a better understanding of the idea behind the MTP46 camo.

I brush painted the black but you can only notice the brush marks up close. I didn't have anything to mask with. But that's okay as I've seen alot of people do a great job by hand. I don't live close to a hobby shop so I make do with what I have at hand. I didn't have any Nato Black so I mixed some cheap craft black with a little Tamiya brown and blue so as to have a slightly richer colour.

Hi Collins

It looks very nice so far, congrats

I'm following your tread because eventually, me too, I bought this kit (just the tractor)

But, as I said HERE, unfortunately i'm not an allied vehicles expert so I really don't know were i can get some references to do a correct work with my QUAD (especially regarding the camo schemes and some others walkarounds).
Would you like to give me some advice?

Thanks in advance and again congratulations for your nice work

Cheers

Unfortunately I don't know much myself. The information on these Canadian Ford Fats aren't all that plentiful. Very few pics and what there is is not good quality. Luckily Tankmodeler helped me out with this.

I would just pick what country you want to represent and go from there. Ask around, there is always someone you can point you in the right direction. I know that England, Canada and Australia used them but not sure who else.

Matt,

For masking over oddball or intricate shapes, one thing you can use is, wait for it, Silly Putty! If there is a toy store nearby, you can probably buy Silly Putty and use that. You can get several uses out of it before it doesn't want to work anymore.

To help Mauro, you could piece together our recent emails and either post them here or just PM them to him, I'm OK with that.

Paul

Okay Paul will do.
I was actually going to use some of my little guy's silly putty but I didn't think he'd appreciate that. I could have used Tamiya tape cut to shape as well. The route I took was the easiest and quickest way. The only drawback is that in certain light you can see the brush strokes. I painted the black in two coats when I should have used more thinner coats. However, for the most part you can't see the brush strokes. I don't know if they actually used a brush on the 1:1 or sprayed it.

I'm in the process of weathering and adding decals at the moment. To bad those guys back in the day didn't think of us future modelers and took some good close up photos.

Paul, Collins thanks a milion both of you
I hope to repay your kindness soon

Looking good there, can't wait to see the rest of the painting process finished up!

I agree with the lack of info on these things, same holds true for the Canadian built Chevy's of which I want to build a Quad

Hi jeremy...Unforunately I've noticed

Furthermore, i've noticed also that Italeri Chevy's tractor kit...



now is out of production

If you're in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, you can view this whole rig up close and personal in the flesh at the Canadian War Museum. They have the whole thing from the front bumper all the way back to the cannon if my memory serves me right fully restored.

Been really enjoying following this build. I too have one of these kits in the stash but havn't built it yet, mainly because I needed better references.

I do have a question though and I hope this makes sense.

Maybe I missed it somewhere but the mix ratios Paul gave were for light stone. Is that the mix you used to paint it with? I only ask because you keep mentioning light mud now. Those are 2 separate colours correct? Is your kit in light stone or light mud?

Looking forward to seing how this turns out.

Cheers
Jeff