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Nowadays, the more high-end sets of 1/35 scale German and British jerrycans come with an etched piece that goes between the two halves of the jerrycan’s body to produce the ridge that’s there on the real one, where the two halves were welded together:
Older sets of jerrycans don’t provide this, however. Don’t despair, it’s really easy to make this yourself and cheaply
I needed British jerrycans for my LVT(4), and found this oldish Tamiya box in my stash of accessory sets that still had all ten of them in it:
View attachment 325891
I took the halves off the sprue and glued the ones without locating pins to a bit of Tamiya “pla-paper” (0.1 mm plastic card):
View attachment 325887
Then let it sit overnight to make sure the glue was thoroughly dry. After that it was a matter of cutting them out and trimming the plastic card to the outline of the jerrycan, using a good and sharp blade and taking care not to go “under” the jerrycan half.
View attachment 325888
I then just trimmed the locating pins off the other halves and glued them on:
View attachment 325889
All that remains was to add the handles and spout:
View attachment 325890
(Sharp-eyed readers will notice there are only eight cans with spouts. Here’s a free bonus tip: cut one, and one only, spout off the sprue; glue it to the jerrycan; repeat. If you cut five of them off, you may find one jumping away into oblivion when you’re trying to get them away from the edge of your work surface, and another to be lost when you accidentally hit it with your knife blade
)
For those wondering why I said these are British jerrycans: they are. You can tell by the markings (which are legible in 1/35 and the photos above) that they’re not German — British ones have W↑D stamped into them on one side, with the year of manufacture below. Quite a lot of modellers used to think (and probably still do) that the old Italeri set had six American and twelve German cans, when in fact it has six each of American, German and British
Older sets of jerrycans don’t provide this, however. Don’t despair, it’s really easy to make this yourself and cheaply
I needed British jerrycans for my LVT(4), and found this oldish Tamiya box in my stash of accessory sets that still had all ten of them in it:
View attachment 325891
I took the halves off the sprue and glued the ones without locating pins to a bit of Tamiya “pla-paper” (0.1 mm plastic card):
View attachment 325887
Then let it sit overnight to make sure the glue was thoroughly dry. After that it was a matter of cutting them out and trimming the plastic card to the outline of the jerrycan, using a good and sharp blade and taking care not to go “under” the jerrycan half.
View attachment 325888
I then just trimmed the locating pins off the other halves and glued them on:
View attachment 325889
All that remains was to add the handles and spout:
View attachment 325890
(Sharp-eyed readers will notice there are only eight cans with spouts. Here’s a free bonus tip: cut one, and one only, spout off the sprue; glue it to the jerrycan; repeat. If you cut five of them off, you may find one jumping away into oblivion when you’re trying to get them away from the edge of your work surface, and another to be lost when you accidentally hit it with your knife blade
)For those wondering why I said these are British jerrycans: they are. You can tell by the markings (which are legible in 1/35 and the photos above) that they’re not German — British ones have W↑D stamped into them on one side, with the year of manufacture below. Quite a lot of modellers used to think (and probably still do) that the old Italeri set had six American and twelve German cans, when in fact it has six each of American, German and British
