Battlewagonesque

I showed you this sorry mess in the last post. It's sad remains have been sitting round in my hobby box room for ages but I finally decided to tackle it's restoration.

First up was a thorough dip in the Powerspray. Whatever the previous owner had used for the black was horrible sludgey stuff and took ages to get off what I did. It's not perfect but it'll do for me.

After scarping the plastic around the glue deposits and smoothing them down with a hobby knife I drilled out the broken old axle with a 4mm drill.

It did mean that I had to remove the driver out of his cubby hole. I had to take him out of the hole at the rear of the cockpit by cutting him into bits first.

Once the hole were drilled a new axle was mounted using 4mm brass rod on front and rear. The wheels all needed drilling out as well.

Once the wheels were on it was a case of building up the rest of the wagon. The door and the exhaust as well as the two front mudguards are from the original spurs and it was a bit of a thrill cutting into classic plucky sprue.

I then added bits from the current truck kit that I had. Gun, roll bar and boarding ramp all seem to fit pretty well.

The original model has a rather baroque guard rail round the passenger compartment but I instead went for some bolted on spikes that fit with the detailing form the new parts. In addition to this I added a panel at the rear next to boarding plank and an armour plate on one of the wheels.

And then the whole thing got a coat of matt black. Hopefully first painting will start tomorrow. I think the best thing to do is go for an aged metal finish all over then I can pick out panels of paint and others bits and bobs to give some 'ping'

I also had a sudden rush of blood to the head and attacked my other truck. I mounted a little turret next to the driver (mainly so I didn't have build a figure to use the heavy shooter!)

I added a panel to the side to cover the underneath of the turret and added a glyph plate from the battlewagon kit.

If your in the habit of reading the comments in the posts then you'll know that Erny and I have discovered that, between us, we've got a full battlewagon (nearly) so in order to decide who gets to keep the wagon we figured we'd play a series of Gorkamorka games with the bits of the Battlewagon as loot. At some point someone will (hopefully) win all the bits and they will become the proud owner of a new wagon! I'm looking forward to it.

And just to relive my youth and complete the pun of the post title