Van Body Truck

I am working on the WWII US Army truck collection and those from the immediate post war era too.

Mostly they are getting repaired, assembled, converted or restored as needed.

Then they get an overall spray paint of olive drab, from Testors.

After that painting engine grilles, tires, windshields, canvas get the paint brush.  Mostly Tamiya but Testors spray paint and jar paint for the olive drab.  The spray and jar are a perfect match and very little change over 40+ years of using it too.  Windshields get painted Tamiya gloss black.  If you look at a windshield on a vehicle on a sunny day they often look black because it is usually darker in the vehicle than outside.

A while back I took some damaged Roco Dodge trucks, both the ambulance and the cargo box version and used the cabs to make a pre-WWII American halftrack, four of them actually.

So what to do with the leftover Dodge parts?

After scrounging around my spares and junkyard I found a few different truck cabs from various sources.

So in this case the former ambulance body became a van truck on a sort of pick up truck cab.

The cab is resin and the van is Roco, held together with bits of plastic and epoxy.

The US Army used lots of little van body trucks for small arms repair, electronics repair, and many other supply and maintenance tasks.  Civilian automobile and truck manufacturing was stopped in early 1942 and all the different car and truck companies made vehicles for the military for most of the war.

If you review any of the standard catalogs of military vehicles they are filled with odd little trucks, not unlike this one.  And now I have one.  Airfix USAAF military policeman.
 

Bits and Pieces

Johnny Lightening and Hot Wheels from my Horror Collection.  Halloween is approaching so it is time to start looking for horror stuff.  I did find a few mummy figures at Dollar General, small 54mm size.

My Roco upgrade project has picked up steam as the Kiss Kiss Club project has been winding down.  Here I am painting wheels, windshields, and tires and seats and tarps on some trucks.  The Roco 37mm anti-tank gun is getting put back together and about 2/3rds are getting mounted on bases.

Kiss Kiss Club with all the major parts put together.  The base will be replaced with a slightly larger one, there will be more palm trees and foliage, and maybe a few dancing people.

Dance floor with the dancing girl doing her fire walking routine. 

Hot coals ready for the fire walking.  Actually a pile of sand.  I placed a washer over a bit of styrene plastic and poured sand into the hole.  Then dropped very liquid super glue onto the sand as I removed the washer.  Then I painted the sand using red, orange, and yellow transparent colors by Tamiya.
 

Rhedosaurus Body

The Rhedosaurus body is very well cast.

1/72nd scale police officer for size.

Head and lower jaw for fit.  Looks good.

Lower Jaw alone.

Look at the size of the tongue, it's as big as the cop!

In the movie a New York City police officer fires his service revolver at the monster as he advances towards the beast.  Sadly, the monster eats him alive.  However, the officer bought time for civilians to make their escape.  He died while he protected the citizens of the city he had sworn to protect.

This figure is shown here for scale in small honor of those real police who face "monsters" every day at their work, at peril of their own lives.

Back to the model, head, tongue and lower jaw together in a test fit.

Pretty scary really.
 

Rhedosaurus Parts

The monster was very well packaged, although the exterior box was crushed, the model box and the model are in perfect condition.  It also arrived a couple days early.

The instruction manual is one sheet of paper, but the kit seems pretty straightforward.

It's made by a company called Star Ace, which I never heard of before, but they seem to make lot of monster kits.  This is a limited edition of 400.  I only need one. 

The exterior box was in rough shape.

The interior was well packaged and there was no damage to the box or the model thanks to plenty of bubble wrap. 

  

With the bubble wrap removed you can see the parts of the model. 

 The individual parts are sealed in plastic.

I guess Rhedosaurus meat spoils easily so they have to be packaged like this.  The parts all seem flash free and pretty sturdy. 

 

 

I don't really know what these parts are supposed to be.  Maybe eyes?  

 

 

Body, jaw and tongue.  

  

 

The main body part.  I think they did a good job of designing the model, full pieces rather than body and leg halves which would make the model much harder to put together.