Italeri Type 82 Kubelwagen
Randy J. Ray
because of some obnoxious house guests, but they're gone, and I'm getting back
on track.
The Italeri kit is not a new kit, but it's a decent kit, and I'm told that it
is better than the Tamiya, though I have not personally seen the Tamiya kit to
compare. Besides the car, you get parts for three figures, a few accessories,
and a table, chair, and tent. These all went to the spares box.
Construction is pretty straight-forward. The sheet does not give the placement
of a few detail parts very well (the siren and such the mount forward of the
front doors). Good references will help here. Part fit is above average, but
does have a few areas that suffer, such as the front and rear fender areas.
Interior detail is sparse, but so was the real thing. I replaced the handles
on the engine access doors with brass wire somewhere in the 0.006" range. I
forget. But it looks better than the molded-on handles. I removed the molded-
on door handles from the outside and replaced them with handles cut from
0.001" shim brass. The insides of the doors did not even have handles molded
on, so I put some there. It was at this stage I found the biggest boo-boo. The
indents on the inside of the car do not match the ridges on the outside. On
Kubelwagens (and on the later VW 'Thing' that is still on the roads today)
there are a series of ridges on the outside, that have corresponding grooves
on the inside, where they were pressed from the metal. Fixing this would have
been a LOT of work, so I didn't. Next one, I will. And I will do another, as
I really like softskins.
I gave the car a complete coat of Floquil Panzer Gray and let it dry for a
week. Then I gave the outside a coat of D.A.K. Yellow, stopping at the bottom
and leaving the underside Panzer Gray. Before this was completely dry, I took
my dry-brushing brush, dampened it very lightly (I mean *very*), and "dry-
brushed" away the DAK Yellow from high points, such as the aforementioned
ridges. This gives the impression of a hasty paint job, consistent with a lot
of the Afrika Korps vehicles, most of which were rushed over there from the
European theatre.
I dressed it up with a few Italeri jerry cans and some Tamiya personal
equipment. It wasn't until later that I finally found some of the Verlinden
Kubelwagen Sand Tires! And they would have looked so nice on it, too.
Overall, I'm happy with it. I took it to SoonerCon in Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma, on March 27, and got a 3rd place in the softskins category. I
still have several contests I can take it to, yet. You can make a decent
staff car from this kit without going to the extra work I did, or threaten
to do on my "next one."
Randy
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Randy J. Ray -- U S WEST IT/CSD rr...@lookout.mnet.uswest.com
Phone: (303)595-2852
"Imagination is more important than Knowledge." -Albert Einstein
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Jesse Thorn
>I gave the car a complete coat of Floquil Panzer Gray and let it dry for a
>week. Then I gave the outside a coat of D.A.K. Yellow, stopping at the bottom
>and leaving the underside Panzer Gray. Before this was completely dry, I took
>my dry-brushing brush, dampened it very lightly (I mean *very*), and "dry-
>brushed" away the DAK Yellow from high points, such as the aforementioned
>ridges. This gives the impression of a hasty paint job, consistent with a lot
>of the Afrika Korps vehicles, most of which were rushed over there from the
>European theatre.
There is a guy here in NC who did a bunch of Afrika Korps vehicles a
few years back. He used this same basic painting technique only
instead of dry-brushing dark gray over the yellow finish or removing
it with paint thinner, he would get fine steel wool and wear away the
yellow paint to expose the underlying gray. It looked real good and
I've never seen anyone else duplicate this 'paint-showing-through'
effect so well. Of course, I have never seen Randy's VW!
--Jesse
David Emery
in this case) with blotches of rubber cement. Then spray the top coat
(DAK yellow), and use a "rubber cement pick-up" to remove the rubber
cement. This works wonderfully. Just be careful to keep the rubber
cement away from small parts that could be removed when you remove the
rubber cement. You might want to spray a sealer coat of gloss over
the base coat before the rubber cement, and then follow up with a
layer of dullcoat when everything is done. (A good idea in any case.)
dave