Gorby's Biddy Little Stalwart – Finally, something I can describe as an ACE build.
Commentaires
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Good work!
Looks really awesome for an ACE kit 👍
Seriously, I really like it.
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Coming from you Simon that's very welcome praise.
It's wasn't the easiest build but you'd make a much better job of it, hint, hint! Go on, give it a go, you know you want to. 😄
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Well, actually, you do not have to build anything anymore. Just tell us about it. It surely will be entertaining enough. 🙂
Kidding aside, I enjoyed the model - which is on my wishlist too - and the build report just thd same. And, having put my Adaquate 1300 Unimog kit aside again for reasons you so elegantly described, I suppose I can judge the effort you invested for this Ace build. Well done.
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Wow, it looks really good my friend. A pleasure to see (and read 😉 )
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That made me laugh out loud Michael. The thing which helped me finish this kit is purely down to shear bloody-mindedness. No sodding heap of plastic is going the better of me. Mind you I've never had the guts to attempt a Mach 2 kit 😄
Thanks very much Spanjaard mate. Glad you like it. 🙂
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Very cool topic selecrion Gorbs and well executed 👍
I see tthe matchsticks pics are trending 😋
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Thanks very much Lukasz. 👍
Fortunately Zsolt hasn't got around to registering the matchstick photo as his own yet. 😉
Album info
1/72 ACE FV-623 Stalwart Mk.2 Limber
Not a lot of people know this…..I was born and still live in Coventry. Gasp!
Stalwart was built by Alvis in Coventry, at the time I was kid. I'd often see them driving down the roads or parked with Scorpion tanks outside the factory (which is now a retail park). Even though they were a common sight for most of my childhood, I always stopped and gawped in wonder. It was a thing of fascination to me, and still is. It also reminds me of a time in the distant past when Coventry used to be packed with factories which actually made things. Sometimes even things the rest of the world wanted to buy.
It was an 'interesting' build. The kit has many fiddly little parts, although surely, most rational people would assume that a small vehicle in a small scale will have small parts and in this case, every part needs to be cleaned up. Not so much the flash, more the very prominent mould seam line. There are some parts with a lot of flash to the point you don't know where the flash ends and the kit part begins. Maybe Ace should consider changing their name to 'Adequate'. The kit is quite detailed, only to be let down by the poor moulding and damaged decals. I replaced the steps on the side of the cab as those in the kit are very chunky; improved the headlights and searchlight and I added four airlines to the limber. Admittedly I made a few mistakes which I'm not going to tell you about because then you'll think I'm a mere mortal. 😉
The transparencies aren't very good and with skill and determination, I managed to make them significantly worse. I've kept weathering to a minimum partly because I suspect the British army wouldn't allow them to get too dirty, but mainly because I'm not very good at it.
Having said that I'm glad I built it as it's one of my favourite vehicles. I'd even consider building one in a larger scale if there was a kit which is affordable. Maybe I could mess the windows up on a bigger scale in the future. If the childhood version of myself would have been told that one day….one day I'll be able to actually build the Alvis Stalwart in 1/72 he would have said “Yeh whatever”.