Some of you might have already seen the review for this kit:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/179055&page=1

This is the build log. As it says in the title I'm building the Navy version in Ocean Camouflage.



Before you begin this build I would suggest taking a good luck through the instructions to plan how to paint various sub-assemblies if you plan to build the vehicle without the roof. The interior will be very visible without the roof and hence a decent paint-job there is desirable. If you have ever built a 1/24 car kit then the same sort of rules apply for sub-assemblies. If you haven't built a car kit I'll hopefully be able to show you what I mean in the progress of the build.

So without further ado lets get on with the build!


























Thus far there has been no real problems at all with the build. In fact it has really fallen together beautifully and I'm having to slow down so I can consider what to do for sub-assembly painting.

Some bits will go together almost without glue. I dry fitted the under-frame and it could have sat nicely without any glue and the outer-frame of the vehicle (no pictures yet) is such a nice fit it just clicks on over the chassis.

The only annoyance I encountered were the three pedals on a single bracket- they are very flimsy and I broke one off trying to clean the sprue attachment point off. I got it glued back on but I'm not going to try and clean them up anymore as I don't want to end up with three broken pedals!

Anyway, more to come later.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

looking forward to this one Karl.
howcome no digital camo? I figured you would be up for the challenge.

btw your link to the photo is broken

hay karl whats up !!! nice build are you going to remove all the sink marks on the fire wall and floor ????
dave

Dylan- Thanks for stopping by! I will definetly be doing the digital camo on another one of these- I want to build at least another one (maybe two) with Voyager's etch set and I'm collecting references on the suspension so I'll be detailing the next one a bit more. I just had to give this Ocean Camo a try- got to brush up on my free-hand airbrushing too- its been a while!

Dave- whats up with you mate, any new builds on the go? I've got the sink marks on my to do list- I have to dry fit the seats, doors and dashboard yet and then I'll see which ones are still visible. Hopefully most will be covered !

The broken link is supposed to show this:



-Karl187-

Nice start Karl, I do want to give this time kit a try sometime? I really want to try the digital camo.

It will be interesting to see the PLA navy camo, will make a difference to usual green/sand paint schemes.

karl i'm doing a M-48 over on the american tracks campain you should check it out can't wait to see soom paint on this one
dave

Great building log, thanks!

I bought this kit when it was released, a bit unusual subject matter but great detail and interesting camo/markings options.

Cheers,

Christophe

Scott- Thanks for checking in. Hopefully the blue will stand out like you said!

Dave- M48 is cool- one of the first kits I ever built- I plastered it in decals ! Good luck with it.

Christophe- Thanks, much appreciated.

So there's some more progress on the build. I have some sub-assemblies ready for primer:







The grab-handle on the right side of the dash is 0.3mm brass tube- the kit part is fine but the brass is strudier.

I'm working on the side and rear doors right now, should have pics up later today.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Side doors and rear hatch:









These are real nicely detailed on the interior and exterior faces. The PE represents mesh pockets on the inside of each door and just falls into place with a little superglue.

The side mirrors are great too- very solid and they attach to the door very positively- plus you get nice shiny PE for the mirrors- I'll put that on after painting.

Only problem was the rear door- the instructions has you assembling it upside down (no idea why) so I ended up fitting the interior face upside down and realised my mistake when I went to fit it. In the end I got it sorted but look out for it.

Engine Grilles on the frame:



Also, before I forget- there is a PE part, number 16, which goes on the rear left side of the back of the vehicle- beside the second light from the top. I believe this is supposed to represent a fuel/water/oil can attachment point. I think it is too small and flat to represent this so I left it off.

Anyway, I'm spraying the seats and dashboard right now so I hope maybe to have pics of them tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Looking good....

Just came across some pics that may help with details, even if the pictured model is a BJ2036C, and not a BJ2022JC

http://www.webcars.com.cn/bjautoworks-yongshi-4056/photo/ (41 pics on 2 pages)

Frenchy

Frenchy- thanks for that link- I stumbled across the same website only I came across it via this page:

http://www.webcars.com.cn/bjautoworks-yongshi/price/beijing/.

Some good pictures. I found another decent site two with some more interior and exterior detail:

http://www.che168.com/1176/

http://car.che168.com/pic/series_1176/t3.htm

These have been helpful in getting the interior colors right- a lot of greys!

Okay, so I have the next batch of photos. Took longer than I expected- mostly due to painting small, fiddly bits and masking and airbrushing others.























The inner door panels were painted separately as was the dashboard. The inner door panels were mostly Vallejo Air Dark Sea Grey with Vallejo Black Grey for the door handles and door pockets.

The floor of the vehicle was painted Vallejo Air Dark Grey Blue, the firewall (the panel in front of the engine block) was painted Black while the centre console was Vallejo Air Light Grey with black for some details on the shifters. The pedals (and foot rest) are flat black.

Light Grey was also used on the dashboard with flat black for the instruments. The compass/horizon thing on the left top is a mix of black and Andrea ArmyG Green half and half and then coated with gloss varnish. The GPS panel to the left of this is Vallejo Olive Drab with gloss varnish over the top. The speedometer panel is the kit decal and the wheel and indicator/wiper stalks are Vallejo Black Grey.

Fit problems were non-existent but the lack of a paint guide for the interior is a real problem- I guessed the colors from reference photos- the kit painting guide has only one vehicle, the digital one, with the inside shown painted and the colors are wrong for the dashboard/centre console and floor. These are called out as 'Black' in the painting instructions but they are light grey/mid grey and dark grey respectively.

As you can see I fitted the fram over the undercarriage floor and chassis and it simply clicked into place with no fuss- there's no need for glue here. The hood isn't fixed yet but simply slots into place and the wire grille fitted behind it goes on with precision and looks fantastic.

(Only one set of front headlights is painted, I did it before they were fitted and then realised they could be easily done once the kit is painted- I intend to add all lights and glazing once the camo scheme is done so I don't have to mask things off and risk hitting them with paint!)

I'm working on the seats and front bull bars- more on that tomorrow.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Karl outstanding love the cupholder!
Dave

Looking good Karl.

David, Scott- thanks guys !

So, the seats are done:







Several problems here accuracy wise- nothing too difficult to sort out and really not all that important but I'll mention them anyway.

1. The driver and passenger seat halves are joined in such a way that there is a seam down the middle. The stitching on the real vehicle is at the back of the seat sides not in the middle, hence the seam needs to be removed. A bit of sanding and Mr. Surfacer 1000 sorted this out.
2. The rear seat folds in half. So at the rear the bottom seat panel should jut out and the join between the two halves should not be flush as it is in the kit. This could represent a fabric panel that covers the folding halves so its not that bad.
3. The front and passenger seat have seat-belt bucklers moulded on the sides- the rear sheet should have two in the middle. I have not added these.



The roll-frame went together well but make sure it is sitting in the correct shape before the glue dries.







Front fender, bull bar and winch assembly:



There are actually two styles of front fender to choose from- one with a winch and one without. However, this is only called out after the instructions to assemble the one with the winch so if you want the one without make sure to swap it before you put the bull bars on. The above photo also shows etch D rings on the top of the fender- as you can see below I replaced these later with 0.3mm brass rod as the PE seemed a bit flat to me.





The front and rear licence plates are also etch parts as you can see.

So thats pretty much the construction done. I will be adding the glazing (lenses etc), roll frame and seats after I finish painting.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Time for paint!

I masked off the interior before beginning this.
I'm using Vallejo Model Air paints. I'll also be using a Premi-Air G35 (cheap Iwata clone) as I want to see what it can do in regards to a freehand scheme, compared to my trigger action Iwata Revolution. I recently used the G35 on a hard edged JGSDF Type 90 camouflage that I masked using silly putty and I must say it performed brilliantly. For the first two paints the G35 has performed much better than I ever expected.

Primed with Tamiya Fin Surface Primer:



From what I can see in the kit painting instructions and references the light blue color is most prevalent (although not by much) and it is easier to spray dark over light rather than light over dark. Hence, I chose Light Sea Blue for this which I found to be a good match.



Next up was Light Grey- there are only four splotches of light grey on the vehicle- one on the hood, one on each side and one on the rear.



I will hopefully get the next two blue colors done soon enough.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Looking great Karl can't wait to get back to my c1 look like you'll be finished before the weekend is out
Dave

It's shaping up nicely, Karl.. I like this light blue!

By the way, how do you airbrush these Vallejo Air paints? I tried a couple of times.. once as is from the bottle.. and once diluted about 50/50 with water.. and both times failed. How do you make them work so well?

Hisham

Dave- yeah you'll have to get cracking on the C1. Seeing your build makes me want one aswell!

Hisham- I find the Model Air paints to be fiddly at times- I seem to get ones that are very dilute and others not so much. I've never diluted them as they spray quite well as they are. However, one of the blue colors I'm using is very dilute and I'm having trouble controlling it. If I spray too much it starts to splotch and spider on me, too little you can barely see it. What I do here is increase the distance between the nozzle and what I'm spraying- you loose a little fine detail control but that can be corrected. Layering it on nice and gently (not too much air at about 15PSI) usually works if the mix is quite dilute. If that doesn't work try playing about with the air pressure. It took me a while to work out what was good for Model Air paints compared to Tamiya or Lifecolor. Good luck with it mate.

Well the free-handing didn't go quite as well as expected.

Ended up with things looking like this:





Things started to go a bit awry when I started with Model Air Blue- initially the consistency was like a thick ink- it kept spidering on me but I managed to just about control it. Then the Blue Angel Blue (for the darker blue color) ended up coming out in a similar fashion.

I took the tops off the bottles and gave the mixes a thoroughly good stir. I was trying to correct the lines with the light blue color but it also kept spidering and wouldn't hold a fine line longer than a couple of strokes.

At this point you could have half-fried an egg on my Silver Jet compressor and I actually had to take it outside to cool down.

So I tinkered with the pressure, shored up my two handed grip but no matter what I still couldn't get a fine line everywhere. Some places were good, but in others the slightest difference in angle and air flow would ruin the line.

For field applied camo I think this would be okay and on a vehicle that was going to be weathered decently the overspray and line demarcation wouldn't be such a big issue but since I'm trying to get, literally, a parade-style finish this just won't do.

So, %$£* it! I'm getting the silly putty!

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Hay Karl keep at it you'll get as for the C1 I would love nothing more then to be building but I have to work this weekend to night is my last night and then I have 6 days off and you know that I will have pics up by Friday
Dave

Apologies for the length of time it took to get another update done. I was kept away from the bench for a while and just got finished this today. I actually think freehanding it was much easier than masking but then thats just the way of it sometimes.

I also started to appreciate just how small the actual painting surface on this vehicle is- about the same as one sideskirt on a 1/35 Abrams- and to get four colors onto it following a certain pattern is tricky enough.

As far as I know all the Yongshi's used at the 2009 Parade in Ocean Camo were painted in the same basic scheme- the colors all in roughly the same area, perhaps not inch perfect but close enough. (Someone on here once said the camo schemes were applied like this to make counting and identification of inidvidual vehicles more difficult.)

Pics:



















The paint is on but still a bit to do. More updates soon.

Thanks for reading.

-Karl187-

Looks like you showed those Model Air paints who's the boss

I really like how the camouflage turned out.. looking forward to seeing the whole thing done.

Hisham

Looking good Karl, now you need some PLA parade soldiers from Bronco