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DAK Meng Kubelwagen

Robertp

Active member
Well this brutally cold weather has kicked someone in the rear. This is the Meng Kubelwagen which I cant say enough about. The fit is every bit as good as Tamiya with more detail. I screwed on the car top. It does look like it is faded.
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The seats on Kubelwagens were not leather. They were I believe a heavy canvas type cloth on Kubelwagens.
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I am sure Africa Corps vehicles were probably cloth as the leatherette would have been unbearable in the desert. The fabric would and could get torn up a bit, but usually wore quite well for the most part.
A restored vehicle in panzer grey.
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The Schwimmwagens had the leatherette due to water.
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A Kubel front seat back

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The cloth color could be any number of colors, could even be leatherette which I have seen in blue, grey, sand color as well as cloth.
 
The seats were canvas. Now what? I am not a happy modeler right now.

It isn't an issue, we all learn stuff as we go. The weathering on the seats you did is really quite good. Learning how to do research to get ideas of how it is supposed to look has a pretty rough curve to it. Been doing research for a long while and been researching VW's since the 80's since I was collecting the real cars back then. You might be amazed at how much people "don't" know about the old VW's and beetles.

As to weathering here are some things to think about. German armor and aircraft early war had good paint and were quite well maintained. The paint didn't chip and flake off like an old piece of machinery left in a field or an old truck up north where they have snow and LOTS of salt. Sometimes a little weathering will give more effect than a lot. If you think you have over weathered the seats a bit, just make a bit of a wash of the brown paint and lightly work it over the areas you want to un-weather or to lessen the weather. The brown color is fine for the most part. Keep in mind that the photos I posted are restored vehicles. While the restorers try to return them to as close as possible to original, in some cases it is best guess or closest material available.

Someplace I have some OLD film photos of a couple of mostly original "unrestored" Kubelwagens that I got to crawl all over. Someplace.
So, don't sweat it. If you now don't like the seats change them. Part of building is also figuring out how to fix OOPS, or make changes.

On my Ju88 build, I ripped out the old Eduard PE control and instrument panels (which would have looked perfectly fine to most folks) and replaced them with newer Quinta Studios panels. Was a bit of a "Oh crap, do I really want to do this?" decision, but ended up being no big deal and they now look SO MUCH BETTER!

I learned years ago that fixing screw ups taught me more than I ever learned from a straight build that went together without a problem.

This plane was my biggest FUBAR:

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It is a 1/72 scale He-51 Floatplane put out by Hasegawa. I had it assembled and was putting paint on it. The paint was not going on very well and I decided to strip the paint and redo it. At the time, Easy Off Oven cleaner was basically used to remove paint and chrome. (1980's the dark ages). So I was removing the paint and the whole model started falling apart. the wing struts broke off (fell off actually) the whole thing fell apart into big pieces. 😧 😲:bash:
I cleaned the pieces put them in the kit box and set it on a shelf for about 6 months. Finally pulled it out again, (yeah it was a disaster) and redid it to a greater amount of detail than I had originally. It got me several 1st place awards including at a IPMS Regionals. If it had just gone right together to begin with, it would NOT have turned out as nice, and I learned a lot from fixing it. Most folks would have pitched it.
BTW all the rigging is stretched sprue. This model is now about 35 years old and I am as proud of it now as I was back then.

Don't sweat the small stuff my friend.
 
I used this efffect years ago on one I did for my Karl Gerat dio. Seat painted in an acrylic brown and dusted with pigments, then gently dry brushed in a darker color for dirt and wear. ? POSSIBLE SOLUTION

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Easy enough Robert. We always critique each other's builds. It is never meant to be critical as much as to help each other to do better by pointing things out. More eyes on the subject are better. Also photos tend to make things pop out that you might miss with just looking at it with the Mark I eyeball.
I have one of the 1/9th scale Kubelwagens that was part of the way together, then the more I looked, the more there was that was NOT correct. As of now it is mostly broken back apart and back in a box. It needs a LOT of corrective work to make it correct WWII. The sad part is in many cases as they were used and driven as just vehicles for years, original engines would be changed out and the model companies don't necessarily do diligence in research. The one part that I built then tore down and redid "mostly" to correct was the engine.
The old original engine was 25HP and while later engines had larger displacement and power, the parts all changed a lot. Thus I had to do a lot of research.

At some point soon I intend to delve back into this. I have much better skills and know how now and tools to do the things that I was not able to do back in the day.

Here is the engine for grins and giggles. Not to highjack your thread Robert, but this is a Kubelwagen engine. The rest is in parts in the box.

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This engine model is about the same width as your 1/35 Kubelwagen and about 3/4 the length. Pretty good size.
 
The detail on that engine is phenomenal. It would look good to get a couple of figures and have them changing engines. Update on the seats. They look like incredibly dusty seats, not canvas. I will not give up. Meanwhile I am having interruptions doing daily chores
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Seeing that chicken, the crazy chickens I once met in Australia come to my mind - ages ago - my wife and I were driving somewhere in the outback, saw a sign pointing to a gas station. When we got there and stopped, three chickens stormed towards our car as if they were about to attack us. The guy from the gas station then said that they do this to every car to pick off the insects from the radiator and bumper.
 
The Sparrows, Chickadees, Magpies, etc always check out the buffet when the car is parked in the driveway during bug season.

Cheers,
RichB
 
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