Shorland Armoured Car

[wasdale32]

Hi

While rummaging through some old copies of MM I came across this...



So I thought "why not?"

The article uses two Tamiya kits - the "Pink Panther" and the "Land Rover Ambulance" but I'm using the more recent Italeri Land Rover 109 as my donor kit...



Regards

Mark

[scottie3158]

Count me in looks like a very interesting build.

[wasdale32]

Started by cutting the templates - first question - "inside the lines or outside?"....



and then attacked the plastic sheet ….



No template for the roof & one of the "B" templates is actually the "E" template...

Then the kit arrived - there are going to be a few left-over bits including the entire interior

[Lee Drennen]

Me too I like what I see

[SimonT]

Excellent Mark :thumb2:

I made one based on the old Heller/Humbrol 1/43 Landy that was in dayglo green plastic - should have some reference pictures (actual photos - way before digital). If you need them I can try and dig them out

[wasdale32]

I've got another MM article somewhere with more "in-service" photos - I need to dig it out.

My first problem was that the Italeri kit may be slightly narrow compared to Tamiya - The first attempt to build up the body shell was about 3mm too wide - even cutting "inside the lines" it still comes up too wide so I had to recut some parts.

As this is very much an "old school" build there's going to be a lot of trial and error fitting.

Mark

[Guest]

Mark I will tag along please, love these conversions

[Guest]

Started by cutting the templates

Part of me doesn’t want to know if you cut up the magazine for those …

My first problem was that the Italeri kit may be slightly narrow compared to Tamiya

You have me wondering now … so I went and measured a Tamiya Land Rover ambulance and an Italeri SAS Land Rover I have. Both are 46.5 mm wide across the front wings.

[Steve Jones]

Definitely in for this one. One of my wishes further down the road so will be watching with great interest. Good luck Mark

[wasdale32]

Jakko

I photocopied the plans and checked the measurements to make sure there wasn't a scaling error. I built the Tamiya pink panther a while back and had a spare front panel (radiator grill & the front of the wings - I just compared with the Italeri panel and there is approx. 1mm difference with the Tamiya one being wider- I suspect the Italeri Pink Panther is an earlier tooling than the 109 model - the headlamps being mounted in the grille rather than the wings (same as Tamiya) - so I wonder if they actually just measured the Tamiya one.

Anyway the original was basically a welded box so for my purposes as long as the shape looks OK I'll be happy.

I've got the basic box attached to the chassis but it needs a bit of adjustment and I've made a start on the turret ( it seems a bit lower in profile than the plans - when I match the templates to the full plans there is a slight discrepancy but it looks OK )








mainly scratchbuilt - the 30-cal is from the spares box and the searchlight is the business end of a panzerfaust cut in half

MArk

[Guest]

I photocopied the plans

Colour photocopier, then? Because they were blue, I was a little bit worried you had cut up a 40-year-old magazine, which I would think a waste.

I've made a start on the turret ( it seems a bit lower in profile than the plans - when I match the templates to the full plans there is a slight discrepancy but it looks OK )

The turret is the same as on Ferret armoured cars and Saracen APCs, to the best of my knowledge, so you could use a spare one from a kit if you (or someone else) have one. The one you built looks a bit low in the photos, but it’s hard to say from the angle if it really is, or if it just seems that way.

[wasdale32]

Jakko
I did colour copies as the grey scale ones didn’t have enough contrast.

I don’t have a ferret etc hence the scratch job I am going to add a thicker base panel which should bring it up to the right height .

[Guest]

If you have a scanner (or an “all-in-one” printer) for your computer, you can scan drawings like this and tinker with the colours, for example invert them so the white lines become black, and then adjust the levels so the lines become even more black and blue parts (almost) white. Here’s a very quick illustration of what I mean using one of your photos:

[ATTACH]344218[/ATTACH]

This was done in software that comes with every Mac (the Preview app, to be precise); Paint, that comes with Windows, can do similar things, so it’s not like you need something expensive like Photoshop

As for the turret, I just measured the one on my 1/35 scale Ferret, and it’s about 9 mm from floor to roof.

[wasdale32]

Thanks Jakko

My turret is coming up about 8mm so a 40 thou (1mm) extra floor panel would be about right and should merge in OK

Mark

[Guest]

Great stuff Mark and nice to see the old MM article. I once remember an article by Norman Abby where he scratch built an Humber (?) armoured car - he turned the wheels from broomstick handles. Those were the days!