I had to estimate proportions from the photos. The other two armoured cars were based on different truck chassis so I can’t take measurements from photos of the others. This is the basic shape made form 1mm plastic card.
Yeeees, I know it would need a lot more gubbins for this to be accurate, I just want to make it look like there isn’t a big empty space down there and for something to attach the wheels to. I think you’re making the mistake of thinking I’m a proper modeller or something. 🙂
As the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin an armoured car. This is how I do the knobbly, rivety bit, using a riveter, 0.25mm plastic sheet and double sided tape. The important thing to remember is to rivet the inside of the ‘skin’ so that the raised rivets show on the outside. It’s also important to remember that double sided tape is a LOT stickier that you think it is and if you get it in the wrong place it isn’t easy to get off.
Circular bits are a little different. The ends need to be glued or they gradually unstick. Don’t use plastic glue/cement as it’ll just melt the rivets. I use super glue gel, although that’s a great way for you to become part of the model. Ask me how I know. 😳
Done…...well I thought it was, then I decided the front armour and the radiator flap were much too thick. The armour on Panserbil 21 was so thin flicking a wet teabag at it would have knocked it out of action.
I normally like to do camouflage, but that’s only an attempt to avoid the full horror of trying to make a single colour look interesting. I was going to do that speckly effect that people do so that the final coat doesn’t look to uniform, and then I thought ‘can I really be bothered?’. Then I heard a voice deep down in the dark recesses of what for strictly medical reasons I have to call my brain, where my innermost laziness resides. It said “Not really”, so I didn’t.
I’ve tried the ‘Oil Paint Blob’ thing before, although this is the first time I’ve used it for 1/72. As you can see, I sort of got carried away and over did the blobs. 😳
I made a complete Jackson Pollock of it as you can see.
It didn’t look too bad after a very thin coat of more grey, so probably best forget that embarrassing episode. Move on, nothing to see here. 😳
Incidentally, this photo is before the extra coat of grey.
The headlights are hollowed out sprue with super-glue clear.
The reg is printed on paper from Inkscape, stuck on with non water based glue and then a brush swipe of varnish to seal. I don’t know what the reg was, this is my best guess based on the reg of the other Panserbils.
I also have no idea if it had rear lights. It seems a lot of early armour didn’t, possibly for the reason that if you run into the back of an armoured vehicle, you’re the one who is likely to regret it more.
I assume there would have been a spare. So I bunged a resin copy on the back.
Norway had a very relaxed attitude to acquiring armoured vehicles. It wasn’t until the mid 1930’s they acquired three truck chassis which they converted into armoured cars. There’s some disagreement to the spelling, I’m going to use Panserbil 21, 22 & 23. Soon after they also bought one light tank from Sweden.
Then Hitler invaded Poland and then it was SHIT!!!!! 😮
As a measure of the military value the Norwegian army placed on their new mechanised armour, they left all four in storage when the nazis dropped in for tea. Oh yes, and a tiny slice of total occupation as well.
Of the three armoured cars I’ll be scratch-building Panserbil 21 in 1/72. It was built on a Morris chassis (possibly a Morris Commercial CDSW) and it turned out to be the less usable than the army hoped it would be as the engine couldn’t cope with the weight of the armour. If I were to place them from first to third, Panserbil 21 would be lucky to come fourth.
So why am I building an obscure Norwegian vehicle? Okay, admittedly I often build obscure things, it’s a Norwegian oddity because it’s part of a memorial group build on another site for Jens H. Brandal who passed away earlier this year at only 59.
