Chevrolet of Canada CMP C60L 3-ton Truck (No. 13 Cab) conversion

[Chris Bucholtz]

I started this 11 years ago, but my cat got ahold of it and chewed apart the stretched chassis and ate the fuel tanks. The cat is still alive. 

It started as IBG's 15cwt C15A, and everything behind the spare is scratch-built. The larger wheels came from IBG's Holmes Breakdown kit; details from PART helped dress it up. Decals were pieced together from the Matchbox Monty's caravan, various 1:72 sheets, and the IBG sheet. The unit sign was made by trimming the corners off a Portuguese flag decal, with white "72" numbers swiped from the numbers jungle on the Airfix USAAF Bomber Service set's decal sheet.

Something I learned was that, when the Commonwealth forces were ordered to paint the white star on their vehicles prior to the Normandy landings, many Canadian units applied the markings crooked to differentiate themselves from the Americans! (A good website for Canadian vehicle markings is https://www.canadiansoldiers.com/vehicles/markings/vehiclemarkings.htm.) 

Weathering included everything from oils to MIG pigments. 

The bed's cover was made from toilet tissue, and the stores in the bed came from Italeri, Academy, Prieser and my own scratch-building. Note the cases of beer back there - since it's a Canadian truck, I'm saying they're Elsinores. 

 

[Nick Filippone]

Chris, Nice work! Can you give a little more detail on how you used the toilet tissue to make the canvas cover so convincing? Nick

[Chris Bucholtz]

"Can you give a little more detail on how you used the toilet tissue to make the canvas cover so convincing?"

It's brutally simple, Nick. I had good photos of the cover on the real thing, so I cut two pieces - a front piece, for the cab-facing forward part of the cover, and another piece that covered the rest of the bed, with a slit in the back for the opening. It was a little like sewing, actually! I placed the pieced on the stays, and then applied a diluted white glue mixture carefully with a brush. I have a spray bottle I use for scenery with clear matte "dissolved" into solution, but if you don't use it for a couple of weeks much of the matte medium settles out, leaving a cloudy, watery solution on top. The weight of the water caused the tissue to droop with gravity into place. I carefully nudged the front piece into place, and arranged the rear opening the way I wanted it, and then left it overnight. About six hours later, it had dried tight as a drum. I painted it with slightly-thinned enamel (faded OD, ModelMaster). 

It's a technique I used when I built 1:32 armor as a kid - I had a lot of armor that was heavily overloaded with bedrolls, duffel bags, etc. made from tissue. I've seen ship builder use a similar approach for sails, so the cover on the truck seemed like a good application. It would also work well for tarps over stowage, tents, tablecloths, draperies, etc. 

For an far more amazing application of paper, ask Vladimir Vakubov about his CA-impregnated 1:700 3-inch gun shields. Good grief!

[Nick Filippone]

Chris, Nice, lucid explanation. Thank you. And I am aware of Vlad’s Ca impregnated paper for small parts. It works well and has been described as ‘poor man’s photo-etching.’ I have used it to make propellers in 1/144 scale. Nick

[Mark Deliduka]

Magnificent recovery on this model and I'm glad the cat is still alive. Fantastic description of how you did the 'tilt' and I'll be taking notes. 

[Ron Bell]

I used the same technique on the canvas walls of this DD Sherman. It works quite well. 

[Firemodeler1]

I've used facial tissue for tarps rather than the heavier material.  Two ply with no imprints does a pretty good job.  Here is the result of the process on the CCKW done a year or so ago.