But first, how I got in this fix ....
I had been rooting around in my books & things & found a picture or two of the 11th Hussars in the Western Desert. A little while later, a Squadron flyer showed up with the JMGT Rolls Royce Armoured Car as the pre-order of the month and that tripped the Pavlovian response to BUY IT. My brain was all excited & fogged & all that & I didn't even pay attention to the price.
When it showed, I was disheartened -- the cost and what I got, or better didn't get, for all those bucks !!!! Then it really got ugly -- I haven't come up with but a dozen pictures and most of them are of the 1915 pattern car, not the kit 1924 car -- so I have little to go by to work on this thing & fix it up.
Next, the kit. The good part is that there is a kit of this vehicle, and the outline & proportion seem to be about right. But there's a lot wrong:
-- the resin is way too thick
-- the vision ports are a bit heavy and do not match up on the inside & outside
-- the chassis is pretty bare -- no drive shaft, no steering gear, etc
-- no accessories, kit bags, boxes, etc, and no storage points
-- the hinges, hasps, and handles are pretty low detail
-- the turret ring doesn't fit into the cut-out on the body parts
Well, with this much money spent, I better finish it so SWMBO can see it !!!! Aside form that, I'm a "Brit buff" and especially love the North African campaign, so I gotta do this thing !!!
Right now, I'm working from a few very grainy small photos -- i.e., I'm winging it.
So, HELP #1 -- I need references !!!!
So, HELP #2 -- any advice on what I am doing, how I am doing it, or better what I can do to enhance this thing will be greatly appreciated.
OK, here we go -- there are more photos in the Rolls Royce Armoured Car Album. of My Gallery
Here is the kit box, just to give you a picture of the vehicle.
Here is the chassis -- not much to it. There is a big frame with an oil pan & such but little else, to which you attach a front piece, two front springs & a front axle, and two back springs & rear axle. There is a transmission lump with what appears to be a u-joint but no driveshaft supplied so I made one from another kit & Evergreen. There is no steering gear other than an arm on each side of the axle, so I've started one by building a tie-rod.
It looks to me that the front wheels may not have had brakes, I'm not sure, so my plan is to run brake lines to the rear wheels only. I think there are some other details I could add around the springs, especially in the front, but I don't have a clear picture of same.
OK, now to address the over thick resin in the driving & fighting compartments. I worked it out to about a scale 3 inches or so which is excessive even for a Rolls. I want to open the driving compartment doors, at least one of them, but don't plan to open the rear doors in the fighting compartment, at least not today -- could change tomorrow.
Also note that the turret ring is too big for the joined compartments, so the mark here shows what I have to chop out to make it all fit ...
That philosophy means I don't have to rebuild the whole car from Evergreen which was my original (sinking) thought. Much of the over-thickness won't be noticeable (well not too obvious). So I plan to fix up the drivers compartment & the turret itself.
Here is my stab at the driving compartment. I cut out the doors and then re-framed them with Evergreen angle & quarter-round. I'll make new doors from .030 Evergreen & add some decent vision-ports -- matching on both sides.
What I lack at this point is a clear view of what the doors look like, inside & out and I don't have much detail for inside the compartment, thinking mostly of hooks & knobs & things where I can add accessories.
The same problem exists with the fighting compartment -- ammo storage, exact weapon mountings, etc, etc.
OK, time for Rivet Reviewers to shine !!!!
And Thanks in Advance !!!
