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Building Army Car Two


Special Weapons (10 pieces)
Product #
RW014
Manufacturer
Suggested Retail Price
$12 USD

Armor (36 pieces)
Product #
RW009
Manufacturer
Suggested Retail Price
$12 USD

N (1:200) Tread Plate Sheet
Product #
PS-157
Manufacturer
Suggested Retail Price
$5.05 USD


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companycmd writes:

Stan does excellent work so by shopping his stuff you're in the right store.


Revision Log
17 June 2019page first published

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©1994-2024 Bill Armintrout
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Personal logo Editor in Chief Bill The Editor of TMP Fezian writes:

In my previous article, I converted a toy car for use in post-apocalyptic arena combat games. This time, I'll take the same type of toy car and do a different conversion.

Road Rage

Going back to the Road Rage rulebook, this time I'm basing my work on the car design on page 40, 73 Custom V-8 Vega. It has one visible weapon – a fixed, forward-firing 20mm chaingun. (I'm assuming the oil sprayer and smoke generator are not visible.) The car also has an upgrade: Rear Armor Plating.

Car design

The Gun

The gun is the easy part. Stan Johansen Miniatures doesn't sell any chainguns, but they have several 20mm 'miniguns' in their Special Weapons set. Google Images seems to think that miniguns and chainguns look the same, so that's good enough for me. grin

Special Weapons catalog image

As I did with the previous car, the minigun is primed camo green, washed with green ink, and highlighted with Kelly Green. The gun barrels were painted black, drybrushed silver, then given a black ink wash.

Painted minigun

Window Armor

Since this car is supposed to be heavily armored in back, I want to cover up that large rear window with some armor.

Armor set

Again, the armor set from Stan Johansen Miniatures comes in handy. They make a large, perforated armor plate that happens to fit perfectly over the back window. Since the window is not flat, I press the armor piece over the window to conform it to the curve. Then the armor is painted up as before, except that I used a lighter highlight to emphasize the texture of the armor.

Painted window armor

Rebuilding the Car

Meanwhile, I have taken the toy car apart, painted it as I did in the first article, and reassembled it (and yes, I cracked the windshield again!):

Reassembled car

The only difference this time is that I used an X-Acto knife to slice the rear bumper off the bottom car piece. So the back of the reassembled car looks like this:

Reassembled car rear end

Rear Armor Plating

Now I needed to add armor plating to the back end of the car, but I was out of convenient pieces from the armor set.

Fortunately, Plastruct makes a useful plastic sheet: N (1:200) Tread Plate Sheet, which is 1.5mm thick styrene. I measured the toy car, and used scissors to cut out two pieces from the small sheet.

Pieces cut from patterned plastic sheet

(Scissors weren't the best choice, as the smaller piece warped when I cut it out. I'll use a knife next time.)

The armor was painted in the same manner as the window armor, and superglued to the back of the car, holding it in place until the glue set so it would match the slight curve of the vehicle.

Armor in place

Final Assembly

Now, I can add the other parts. I was afraid that superglue might haze up the clear plastic, so the window armor was glued into place with Tacky Glue (a white glue):

Window armor in place

Where to mount the minigun? Since the hood slopes, mounting it there would make it appear to be aimed into the road. Therefore, I mount it on the car roof. The car is then based as before.

Completed car

Finished Car

Completed car

Completed car

Completed car

Completed car

Completed car