ICM 1:72 Ural 4320 army truck - chassis.

Building the chassis was quite straightforward, with only a couple of very minor niggles;

Its made up from 42 separate parts, most of which fitted together well with only a little cleaning up, mostly mould lines and ejector pin marks. There was some flash, but only minimal as you'd expect from injection moulded kit, and a little filler was required on the transfer box which was moulded in two halves, and to fill in a couple of un-needed holes in the front bumper.

All of the moulded holes needed opening out with suitably sized drills, and I drilled out the end of the exhaust pipe. The only real problem encountered was with the fuel tank, which needed shortening slightly to prevent it fouling the mudgaurd behind it.

To make painting easier I drilled a 2mm dia. hole in the top of the engine/gearbox moulding, so that a length of brass rod could be inserted to be used as a handle. The chassis was cleaned with soap and warm water using a soft brush, then primed using a can of Tamiya Fine Surface primer, a product that I'm quite impressed with;

Once the primer had dried for a day or so I applied the top coat, spraying Tamiya Nato Black (ironic really...) thinned with Tamiya thinners through my trusty Badger airbrush.

Looks good I reckon, although there's a couple of spots that I managed to miss with the airbrush. But they won't be noticeable after final assembly. I'll probably do a spot of detail painting anyway.

Load bed next.

Paul.