Thanks for the good wishes chaps.
I decided to leave the final detail painting and decal tone-down on the oil trailer until I'm able to get some more paints. Some colours I need for mixing have dried up, and, as I'll be passing the local art shop tomorrow, I'm hoping they'll have what I need in their relatively small Humbrol stock. If not, then I'll have to order on-line.
So, I've decided to make a start on the ammunition trailer, as described below.
The Ammunition Trailer - Part One.
Part of the diorama will depict boxes of .50 cal ammunition being unloaded, with a ground crew member preparing belts to load into the ammo tanks onboard the B-24.
Study of war-time photos and videos showed that various modes of transport were used to get the ammo to the dispersal points around the airfields, with trucks, bomb trolleys and bomb trailers being used, as well as standard smaller trailers.
I had thought of using the bomb trailer included with the Monogram B-17G kit, which I've had lying around for many years, but these were normally piled high with ammo boxes and such ordnance as smoke markers etc,
As I only have ten ammo boxes ( I could scratch-build more I guess), I decided that a smaller trailer would be better, and this would also prevent the view of the aircraft being "masked" on the diorama base. The cargo load can be "bulked out" by stacking some of the boxes on top of "mock" boxes, which wouldn't be fully visible, and adding other types of boxes / crates representing smoke markers, flares etc etc, some of which I have in various Tamiya figures and accessories sets.
Consequently, I decided that the truck back from the Airfix
1/72nd scale Bedford MWD truck could be converted and added to, to produce a typical trailer which will resemble the US "Ben Hur" cargo trailer, at least to an extent.
The Airfix parts for the trailer bed, side walls and tail-gate are being used, with 1/48th scale wheels from the Airfix version of the RAF oil bowser trailer, with the front wall, chassis and draw bar being scratch-built. I'm also hoping to use modified mudguards, taken from the old Airfix
1/76th scale re-fuelling set, which has been in my stash for around 30 years, more of which later.
The Bedford truck back has "internal" wheel arches, meaning that the floor and sidewalls have apertures / arches that needed to be blanked off, and this was done using plastic card, with the floor then being engraved to continue the planked effect of the kit part. There are a couple of small gaps around the filled-in floor apertures, but I'm not concerned, as these will be covered by the cargo load. Likewise, the outer faces of the side walls still have the shape of the wheel arches visible, although blanked-off internally, but these will be covered by the larger wheels and wheel arches, and not visible.
Once the apertures had been filled and cleaned up, and the planking engraved, the Airfix parts were assembled and allowed to set, before starting work on the scratch-built front panel.
This was made from plastic card, with the plank effect being engraved
before cutting the piece from the sheet. The external framework was then added, using thin plastic strip, and the wall cemented in place.
Once set, vertical supports were added inside, made from wider, laminated, lengths of plastic strip and, when set, the horizontal lathes were added, to match the Airfix side-walls, again using thin strip.
I'll let this set overnight and, sometime tomorrow, start work on the scratch-built chassis and draw bar.
Pics below show the progress so far, and thanks again to all for the continued interest and kind comments.
(PS - I'll try to remember to include a known object in the next set of pics, as a size comparison.).