Bedford and Vacation (1/35)

After a pause, I had time for work on the Bedford O tipper again. The work on the cab interior was challenged by missing parts. In fact everything except seats and dash board were missing. Once again the spares box came to my rescue (must write a tribute to the spares box one day!). Steering wheel came from a scrapped ZIS-5 lorry, gear lever and hand brake from the Italeri Bedford QL while the little box is the unused battery from my recently built Kapitän. I didn't bother to fit pedals as they can't be seen anyway. I added a small bag on the passenger seat and a British army fire extinguisher (from Resicast) on the cab rear wall.

Before painting. A horrendous sight - I can't say I managed to get things lined up here!

Cab interior painted and ready to be fitted inside the cab.

I fitted the last small parts to the chassis and aligned them with the tipping body. The spare wheel had to be trimmed a bit to make the body sit just right.  I didn't glue chassis and tipping body as I wanted to be able to paint the two parts separetly. To make sure everything would fit together effortlessly after painting I dry fitted cab, radiator and bonnet several times to check the fit and position of the parts. Finally I glued the radiator in place to act as a solid point to start from when fitting the painted subassemblies.

The cab interior was air brushed with Vallejo's 'Verde Oliva' 967, details brush painted and finally weathered. Fitting glass in the windows is alway rather tricky on resin kits, where hardly any opening is exactly the same size. But with determination and experience from several resin kits it wasn't too bad. I only had to throw away two pieces of glazing that turned out too small with the last stroke of the file. Glazing was glued with Kristal Kleer that dries up shiny and clear. I then closed up the cab and fitted the dash board which is best done through the still open doors and glued from behind (that prevents spilling glue over both wind shield and dash board).

After fitting of bonnet the lorry is now ready for painting. I have designed decals and they are currently being printed - license plates and all. It'll probably be a while before I get to paint the lorry as I'm off on summer vacation. While I like to model while in the summer cottage, I only paint models at home.

My Bedford O tipper ready for primer. Cab, bonnet and body will be 'Verde Oliva' while wheels, grill and mudguards will be black. The company name will feature on tailboard and cab doors.