The engine and cab are now firmly attached to the chassis. It was a nerve racking moment making sure it all aligned correctly. There are no actual locating tabs! There are raised runners under the cab floor but nothing to channel the alignment. It basically just locates over the fenders using the arch profiles as a guide.
Moving onto the running gear, with the intention of displaying both the
L4500 and trailer abandoned in a ditch at the side of the road, the
height of the truck will mean the underside of one side will remain
highly visible. With this in mind, I needed to create a well worn and
mucky chassis.
The fact that only the one side would be visible meant the next process could first be experimented on the dark side.
To start proceedings, a selection of dark coloured Abteilung oils were
chosen, squeezed out onto a piece of card and left for an hour to
ensure they would leave a nice matt finish. These included grease, raw
umber, brown wash and light mud. So as not to end up with a splodgy mess
selected areas were applied dry and left for a few hours. These
included all the moving parts like the propshaft universal joints,
steering linkages and differentials with grease. Raw umber and brown
wash colours were, much like a pin wash, but added dry, to recessed
areas that would capture dirt and debris. Finaly light mud was added to
areas where the tyres would rotate.
The trailer I choose was an old Azimut resin kit that I purchased from SMC many moons ago. It was a pretty basic kit but somehow Azimut managed to still managed to supply one of the side panels 20mm short. The axles were also lead items so collapsed under the weight splaying out the wheels. It was pretty terrible OOTB TBH and although I fixed it up it went straight to the shelf of doom.
Being a simple cuboid I figured a snazzy camo job would liven things up.