Captain Blood's Western Desert: P.124 - Krupp Protze mit farben

[moiterei_1984]

Good to see you’re back at WW2 

[Johnny Boy]

If I could pick your brains Captain, which adhesive do you use for the Rubicon Resin kits. I have an Sdkfz222 that I was going to start putting together. Many thanks
JB

[Blackwolf]

The little Flak gun ie great, love the heroic NCO ready to stand off with his MP 40

[Captain Blood]

Thanks Guy. These characters seem to just emerge 

If I could pick your brains Captain, which adhesive do you use for the Rubicon Resin kits. I have an Sdkfz222 that I was going to start putting together. Many thanks
JB

No worries. I use something called Plastic Magic. It’s weird stuff - very thin and evaporates very quickly once applied, but it’s the only stuff I’ve found that seems to work on the hard ABS plastic that Rubicon use. My usual Revell Contacta liquid polystyrene cement, which dissolves and bonds most plastic figure joints almost instantaneously, just doesn’t work on the Rubicon kits. I’ve been told that Tamiya ultra thin cement is also good, but haven’t tried it myself.

I’ve built the SdKfz222 kit (somewhere way up above in this thread!) It’s a very nice kit. Enjoy

Edit: The Rubicon SdKfz222 is a plastic kit BTW. Their resin items are fairly few and far between - for more esoteric items with presumably very small production runs. For their resin kits, I’ve just used Gorilla superglue.

[Johnny Boy]

Many thanks Captain, I do actually have some Plastic Magic that I bought with something in mind but I'll be damned if I can remember but at least I've got a use for it! It's never been opened. . . .

[Captain Blood]

Well good that you've finally found a use for it

Meanwhile, rounding off this latest lift of vehicles... A Rubicon Valentine tank (built as an early war V2 - the kit contains, as ever, multiple options), and the Perry Indian Pattern carrier, a resin body with a few metal parts.

The Rubicon plastic model is excellent as ever - even the tank commander is a very nice little figure. I've left off the exhaust cowling, because I think the model will just look more interesting without it covering up so much lovely detail down one side of the vehicle. There's lots of nice optional stowage included, with very little room to accommodate it on the vehicle itself, so a number of useful bits and pieces (jerrycans with WD arrow stamps!) have gone into the bits box for redeployment. The kit allows you to build several variants, although interestingly, there aren't instructions included for all of them - so even though there are six or seven types of main gun included, right up to a 75mm whopper, there are no instructions on where / how to use these components.
I guess more sophisticated modellers and WW2 AFV enthusiasts will just work it out for themselves...

The Perry resin model is actually a very finely moulded piece, with some exquisite exterior and interior detail which has survived the moulding process very well (uncharacteristically for resin models of this type). The casting was fairly clean, requiring only a light scraping all over to defuzz the edges of resin veiling.
The few metal components don't fit terribly well to be honest - they never seem to. Just have to hope the superglue holds (although I have reinforced the underside of those tenuously attached hatches with little patches of Green Stuff). I've also added a couple of bits of plastic stowage.

The three Indian Army crew figures supplied are pretty sketchy and not well cast - massive Perry fanboy that I am, I always forget how ropey and dashed-off their metal figures can sometimes be. The metal Bren and Boys weapons supplied were frankly unusable. The driver was particularly bad, but you can't really see him thankfully. I've therefore left out the other seated crew figure, and substituted a standing Bren gunner cunningly kitbashed from a Perry plastic Desert Rat with a Perry plastic turbanned head from the Afghan Tribesmen set.











So, I now have 11 vehicles / AFVs to paint, plus around 30 assorted drivers and crew figures... Should keep me busy for a few months! 

[Digits]

Interesting looking carrier….almost looks back to front!

[Captain Blood]

Yes, it's a peculiar looking beastie. Fairly widely used by Commonwealth forces apparently.

[has.been]

I like it, & have one to do in 20mm.
Looking forward to seeing your paint job on these.

[voltan]

That Valentine looks lovely, I need to order myself some more rubicon kits soon.

so even though there are six or seven types of main gun included, right up to a 75mm whopper, there are no instructions on where / how to use these components.

It could be common sprues for the two kits, I think at one point there was only going to be one kit for all the variants.

[Helen]

You are going to be busy Richard painting up this lot. Nice work in construction and detail.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Very nice.

I had never noticed the exhaust pipe so far forward.

On the guns etcetera, have you looked at the instructions for the later models to see if they are shared sprues?

[Captain Blood]

On the guns etcetera, have you looked at the instructions for the later models to see if they are shared sprues?

It could be common sprues for the two kits, I think at one point there was only going to be one kit for all the variants.

Hmmm. There's only one Rubicon Valentine kit for all variants as far as I can see. You can build a II / III / IIICS / IV or V from it. But there are several guns included which aren't referenced anywhere in the actual assembly instructions. Which seems uncharacteristically incomplete for Rubicon, who are usually incredibly thorough about absolutely everything.
Ah well, no matter... I've built the version I wanted anyway

I've added a rolled tarpaulin cover from Green Stuff atop the Indian Pattern carrier. Have seen this arrangement on several wartime photos, plus it adds a bit more character and helps cover up the (not-very-well-fitting) metal rear glacis panel...

I've also added a Bren to the Loyd carrier. Seems improbable that they would have been completely unarmed.





I've also found a use for those dinkly little WD arrow stamped jerrycans that came with the Valentine

[gamer Mac]

Nice

[Captain Blood]

Nice

Thanks Colin

Just primed the lot 

It's going to take a while to work my way through painting this little lot, plus 30 odd crew figures
I've also just invested in an airbrush, which might speed up the process. We shall see!







Although this will take my WW2 Western Desert / Syria collection to almost 50 vehicles and AFVs. So I suppose that's something.