Painting, Decals and Weathering

I painted in batches as not all of the kits were ready to paint at the same time.  My paint of choice was Vallejo Lifecolor using an Iwata Eclipse CS airbrush.  I love these Vallejo paints. The bottles allow for precise drops and when mixed with Vallejo thinner and retarder, they sprayed easily without too much clogging at the nozzle.

I opted against going with Mickey Mouse camouflage as that requires a lot of masking and there were eight vehicles to do. So, an early war scheme was chosen with paint mixes taken from a fellow Internet modeler’s documentation of Khaki Green #3 and Dark Green #4.  For the first couple of Beaverettes, I didn’t add any scale white but changed my mind for the latter six.  Given that the six Mk IIIs were all different sizes in scale, the fact that they weren’t painted the same didn’t seem implausible.

The first color was Khaki Green which I then over-coated with Future to prevent the masks from lifting up the base color (on some of the Beaverettes, I got bolder on the latter bunch and dispensed with the Future). Then I masked with Silly Putty which is quick, lifts easily and doesn’t take the Lifecolor acrylic with it.

Here is with the Silly Putty removed:

After all this was done, I applied Future and let it sit for 48 hours.  Decals were applied, the decals cured and then covered with Future again. Finally, weathering.  I like to use dot filters and you can see the first stage of this here on the Sgt’s Mess Mk III (no amount of weathering was going to cover up this kit’s faults)

I opted against pigments for mud and its cousins as this was an inspection scenario so the vehicles would be tarted up for the big smells.

A few words on decals.  I used a combination of these decals:

• Road Transport Images – RAF Vehicle Markings – the yellow circles
• Aleran Miniatures UK – BEF 1940 Transport Markings – vehicle registration numbers
• BW Models RAF and Command Markings Pre -1945 DC 49 – now available through Matador Models – the RAF roundels and the F/13 markings for the rear panel.
• Archer Transfers Mini-Series Lettering Black and White DT575 – for the number ‘5’ placed on the yellow circle.

I never used the Extratech decals. No other kit had any decals included at all.

Purists will have plenty of reason to quibble over my choice of vehicle registration numbers. But, may I remind the gentle reader that we’re dealing with an eventual diorama here of an inspection of hastily-assembled Beaverettes in Britain’s time of need. Poetic license liberally taken.

Frontline Wargaming Beaverette Mk I/II and Mk III

Like the Sgt’s Mess “kit”, these two examples are intended for the tabletop wargaming crowd.  There wasn’t much to these hard resin guys:

Look at the sides to the crew compartment on the Beaverette Mk I/II – they are molded so thick that were it armor, it would stop an 88mm shell fired at point blank range.  There was no way I was going to thin that out.  The Mk III at least wasn’t oversize like the Sgt’s Mess example.

Sgt’s Mess Beaverette Mk III

Ugh.  My first foray into ‘kits’ primarily intended for tabletop wargaming did not yield a very attractive model.

Here are the parts (no instructions or decals or detail bits):

Look at the oversize fittings on the turret or the hatches!  The metal was not smooth at all and in some cases, not even cast in a plane. A good example was the rear panel which I attempted to even up with putty. You can also see the oversize detail on the rear hatch.

There was so much wrong with this kit (it was considerably bigger than its sister Beaverette kits) and it would take endless hours to smooth out the surfaces and reduce the fittings – but it would still be oversize.  So, I opted to build it out-of-the-box (or out of the plastic bubble wrap) per se.

Gramodel Beaverette Mk III

Apparently, Graham Baker, the proprietor of Gramodel, did the master mold for the Bull Models’ Beaverette Mk I/II so I was looking forward to his Beaverette Mk III.  While I have a lot of respect for anyone who can do masters and then cast copies from molds, there wasn’t much to the Gramodel Beaverette Mk III.

The kit comes wrapped in packing material within an envelope. No instructions (not that you would need them) and no artwork or painting guide.The one thing I did like was there was an open top turret allowing me to pose a figure (not supplied). No other Beaverette supported this option out-of-the-box.  There were two downsides to this kit:

Issue #1 – The hull had many mold bubbles that needed to be filled and sanded. The primed surface accentuates the pit holes as you can see:

Issue #2 – Another disappointment were the rear “half” wheels. On one wheel, the tire was molded but the wheel rim failed to capture any resin. You can see this in the parts layout in the first photo – compare the rear wheel halves left versus right.  I thought I would give a go at molding a replacement using, as a master, the good wheel. I tried some Composimold but botched the placement of the master in two tries. Feeling disappointment with this kit anyway, I took a spare wheel of the right size from an Airfix vehicle kit and bisected it.  Good enough.

Bull Models Beaverette Mk I/II

This was my favorite kit of the bunch.  The proprietor, Peter Bailey, was a delight to deal with. The kit was well-molded, had lots of interesting detail, and had three superb figures to go with the model.  It is 100% resin and hence I could put the soldering iron away.

I didn’t take any pictures of the assembly as there was nothing of particular difficulty. Everything fit fine. The only bit that was tedious was removing tiny rods from resin pour blocks with my razor saw. But I didn’t have to roll out any PE into perfect circles so I was happy.

Instead, I’ll discuss the figures.  The Beaverette had a crew of three but seats for only two so one poor guy has to stand up as behind the driver. This was going to make for a crowded compartment what with seats, legs, steering wheel, Bren gun and rear panel. Test fitting revealed that the Bren gunner would need a different arm that was closer to his side than the one provided in the kit. The driver’s buttocks and shins needing some sanding to get him to fit as far forward into the compartment so the standing guy had a place to put his feet while still allowing the rear panel to fit snugly..

But, as you can see, with a little clamping, everything fit and I even managed to get the standing guy’s hand to rest on the side of the compartment as intended.

Lead Sled Beaverette Mk III

I have no idea when this was made and was lucky to find it on eBay.  One clue is that the instructions appear to have been composed on an IBM Selectric typewriter. The kit does come with a simple instruction sheet and is 100% white metal.

You can see there is even chassis detail, something only the Extratech also had.  Given this was a rare find, I opted not to learn how to solder white metal with this kit and went with 5 minute epoxy instead. Assembly was straightforward.

I used highly diluted phosphoric acid to clean the parts. Much filler was required. I think I put too much on and this took quite a bit of sanding to make look decent.  Clamping is crucial with epoxy.

Somewhere amidst all the Beaverettes, I lost the white metal rod for the gun and replaced it with a Bren gun cut from the arms of an Airfix British soldier figure set.

There’s not much more to say.