Sunday 7 October 2018

Humber scout car restoration

A little job, long put-off. My Humber scout car model, made about 10 years ago, has been collecting dust (literally) for about 6 years, broken in places, and a spider was living inside it. Hence the many cobwebs it was under. On a rainy Saturday afternoon I set about renovating it.

I haven't done much 1/35th military modeling, mainly because if I'm painting tanks I want to play games with them, but this scratched an itch to try out various painting techniques (and use an airbrush), like weathering powders. It was a trial piece for a larger project, to make my grandfather's Churchill in 1/35th in an Italian campaign diorama. First, I thought I'd trial the techniques, see if I enjoyed the whole fiddly process and, to boot, get a Humber to add to the diorama in the end.

Well, the Humber was all I got to, and frankly, it took ages, and the thought of doing it all again with a Churchill and 5 crew stalled me. I got back to painting tanks for wargaming pretty quickly, having just dipped my toe into the 'serious' business of military modeling.

Still, the poor Humber was now in urgent need of some tlc... or binning. Time for a restoration job, with much careful dusting, cleaning, fixing of antenna and broken wheels and evicting the spider.

Here it is being restored, interior de-cobwebbed details and all. My only daliance with pure 1/35th modeling so far. I like it, just making it was a bit too torturous for my patiences. The Churchill, 5 crew figures and added detail kits remains unmade in a box in the loft. One-day, maybe.

 Humber scout car, liaison vehicle with HQ Troop, 51st RTR, Italy, 1943. 

 New aerial added, after the last one broke off. Both front wheels had also broken off.

 Interior detail of engine compartment

Crew compartment and former spider's lair. Now cleared out, so you can see the radios again.

 Back to wargaming in future...


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