I've put the ammo trailer aside for now, as it has reached the painting stage, and might as well be painted at the same time as the tractor. Consequently, I've started work on the Revell "Clark" tractor, described below, and I'll be back with the trailer once it's painted, and the ammo load sorted.
The Clark tractor - Part One.
This is part of the Revell Ground Equipment Set, from 1996, and no longer in production. I picked this up for £7 a few years back, without the box, hoses, decals or instructions, but all the items are simple and straightforward, so no problem. The set pops up now and then on e-bay and used kit dealer's sites, and I've just seen one offered at £27, plus shipping !
I downloaded the instructions from the 'net, but they're rather vague, so only partly useful.
As this is a simple kit, with few parts, I thought it would be an easy, relatively quick build, as only minimal extra detail will be added.
WRONG !
All of the main parts have a multitude of heavy, raised ejector pins all over the place, like a bad rash, with some in places difficult to reach. Some of these actually foul the fit of parts, and others are in ridiculous places, preventing the parts from fitting all together !
The latter was particularly true of the engine, which itself was a poor fit anyway, and some pins were discovered inside the engine halves, where the locating slots are positioned, preventing the assembled engine from bedding-down onto the body frame.
This was only discovered after assembling the engine, and doing a trial fit, so, after already spending around two hours removing the other pins, I had to start again, laboriously filing inside the very confined space between the engine halves.
The engine was fitted in place, sort of, eventually, and there are gaps in some joints, but fortunately these won't be seen once the bodywork is in place.
I had considered adding ignition wires and fuel hoses etc, but this would be
very fiddly in the confined space and, as these would be virtually impossible to see when the tractor is in its final position on the diorama base, I quickly binned that idea !
The engine was left to set, and then the basic painting was undertaken, with some detail painting yet to be completed.
Next step was to look at the chassis, which is a one-piece moulding incorporating the underside of the engine, gearbox, transmission and basic representations of the steering arms and leaf springs. These are just plain "lumps", but do have the ends of the spring layers moulded in. As the fronts of the front springs, and the rear of the rear springs will possibly be visible, a half-hearted attempt has been made to engrave lines to represent the individual spring layers.
The entire underside was then painted very dark grey, which will be "dirtied" later, once the exhaust, springs and other details have been painted.
The remainder of the kit parts have been cleaned-up to remove mould seams, ejector pins and sprue attachments, and a plastic rod frame added to the rear of the driver's seat, to improve the appearance a little.
That's it for now, and I'll be back sometime over the weekend with another up-date.