Its done! The Volvo FH16 is finished...well as far as I am going it. You may wonder at the title of this post - V is for Victory. Sometimes you just feel that the model is fighting with you to stop you making progress. Maybe it wants to be a Shelf Queen. The last couple of weeks in trying to finish off this kit have felt like a battle on several occasions. Some of it, well probably most of it, down to my stupidity but others where you think 'how did that happen?'. Stupidity illustrated by the fact that despite being an FH16 the grill badge is for an FH12! Did I stupidly put the wrong decal on? No, I did fit the FH16 decal. I however stupidly put the decal on the grill before attaching the grill to the body shell then finding out there was only one way the grill would fit. As you will have guessed it was not the way I had anticipated so the FH16 badge was upside down! No spare decal apart from the FH12 one so that is fitted. 'How did that happen?' illustrated by the fact that the front lower panel attached to the chassis fouled the cab tilting. I had tested everything before finally gluing in confidence that it all worked. Came to finally fit the cab to the chassis and suddenly the cab won't tilt! ' How did that happen?' only solution was to adjust the lower panel by breaking the joint with the chassis. Had it been any other part that I did not need to break it would have fallen apart. Not this joint though and some considerable force and a prayer that nothing would break ensued to separate the part. Would it glue back on after adjustment? Took me four attempts to get a solid joint. Anyway I am sure that other modelers go through similar experiences so I will leave it there but conclude by saying it felt a victory to finally finish. If you do have a similar experience I would be interested to know -leave a comment.
I did say in an earlier blog that the cab needed to be toned down from pristine white to match the weathered chassis and that is what I did with a mix of airbrushing and weathering powders. There are areas where things could be better but overall pleased to have created a look of a truck that has been out on the winter roads for some days and needs a wash! I will leave you with the pictures and let you judge as to whether my weathering (pun intended) has worked! You will note that I left the side skirts off the chassis feeling that the chassis looked more interesting without them. In addition I also added some airlines to connect the truck to a trailer. Made from electrical cable wrapped around a tube with plastic tube connectors. It adds a bit of interest to the model.
Well time to move onto something else but more on that another time!
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