US Army Water Tank Truck Italeri 1/35

It is a water tank truck which is so old that I don’t know when I bought it. There seems to be a new box picture package now.

I don’t know if the plastic has deteriorated or if the Italeri plastic was originally like this, but one of the chassis frames was broken. I think the old Italeri kit is initially hard and fragile.

I reinforced the broken frame with a piece of plastic.

The rear wheels are double, and there are many parts. A spare tire is also included.

If I look closely, the power is transmitted to all six wheels. The shaft is connected.

The Italeri logo and “Made in Italy” are engraved on the back of the track steps.

It is a small matter, the two valves at the top of the tank. These valves are easy to break when glued and later when other parts are assembled. I should have glued it at the end.
I left this kit alone around here for about a year. Maybe it was too much bother to move on to the painting in the middle of the building; I was looking for another kit.
(2021/08/26)

At this point, I can finally confirm that the six wheels are correctly grounded on a flat surface. This time, it was grounded cleanly without any trouble.

I’ve been making other kits for a while. It is challenging to assemble a plastic truck model with an extended front. It takes time and effort to adjust the figure in advance and paint the driver’s compartment inside. When I finish around here, the rest is almost as usual. The work stopped before the painting was in the driver’s compartment.

This Italeri kit includes a driver figure. Since this is an old kit, the face’s mold and appearance are not so good, so I changed the head at least. The body and head are part of one piece, so the neck is cut off with nippers. The joints are not that good. I made it into a natural pose by turning it slightly to the front.

The meter panel was equipped with a decal.

The clear parts were masked with masking tape. If left here, the paste will deteriorate and become dangerous, so I want to proceed to paint as soon as possible. Come to think of it, I’m getting worried about a Russian aircraft kit of Academy, which is left so long with the canopy masked.

Overall, there were a lot of burrs. I have cleaned the places I can see.

I loaded various additional parts. It might be a good idea to wrap the chain around the hook in front of the truck later.
(2021/08/31)

I painted it black for the first. I don’t need to paint primary colors because I can hardly see the bottom of the track. I might paint the back of the tire a little.

This time again, I mixed the NATO green and olive drab colors. I will add a little more shading to the Jelly can later.

A large water tank is installed on the loading platform. A water tank truck from the U.S. Army was completed. When I saw the box, I thought it was a gasoline tank truck but a vehicle to supply water to the ground troops. The truck’s tank was able to hold 2,650 liters of water.

I didn’t have a plastic plate with the right thickness for the Jelly can rack, so I used a thin plastic sheet. It was easier to make if it was a little thicker.

Since the basic coating is monotonous, I did a lot of irregular weathering, such as marks of raindrops. These vehicles tend to be overused in the back of the frontline, so the hard weathering might not have been an exaggeration.

I’ve forgotten what it was like to build an Italeri WWII US truck. This time, I put a figure on it, so I painted the inside. The inner painting was not mentioned, so it was painted with olive drab. Vallejo, the Model color olive green might be OK. Then, the inside painting and the driver that I tried hard to paint would not be seen if it was through the glass.

I think one of the reasons why they gave up the work is that it is troublesome to paint the inside of the driver’s seat. If I move my airbrush and brush a little bit, it’s nothing serious.

It is an old kit, but I managed to complete it. It’s been about a year since I started. It is one of the logistic support vehicles that support the U.S. Army. It is an indispensable vehicle for ground troops.
(2021/09/15)