Revell Big Game Country Pickup

[Kurt H.]

There is still a month left, and there has not been an automotive subject in this GB. I think it is time for a pickup truck.

 

 

 

This is the Revell Big Game Country pickup. The kit was originally releassed by Monogram in 1977. This kit depicts a 1978 GMC Long bed 4X4 pickup hunting truck. 

 

The kit is about what you would expect from late 70s monogram

 

 

Low parts count, good detail... pretty good but at this point they had no quite turned the corner to the great car kits that really upped the model car game in the early 80s.  There are only two things which bother me with this kit

 

First, the grille:

 

 

The turn signals look too big. Not much can be done to fix that outside of scratchbuilding

 

Second, I could not get it all into one picture is the Fuel induction system, The kit appears to have a 1950s style mechanical fuel injection setup.  It seems like an odd choice for a late 70s pickup. I will look in my spare parts for a more suitable setup.

 

From what I could gather, this kit depicts a hunting truck.  since I do not hunt, or know anyone who does, I did a little research. It seems like a hunting truck is a truck someone takes in the woods to go hunting, and they seem to usually have 4 wheel drive, and can be anything from an old beater, to a highly customized new vehicle with an elaborate roll cage and seats in the back. 

 

This kit seems to be more of a beater with a camo paint job.  The kit includes decals for the Camo scheme depicted on the box. I think i will airbrush the camo, and paint all the chrome trim black. The interior will be either blue, or burgundy, and under the hood, I will paint it a factory color Either white, blue, or red to give impression it was repainted in the owners backyard.

 

This should be fun. I am pretty tired, so I will dive into construction and painting tomorrow

 

see ya next time.

[phantom]

Neat .I should find one of those and turn into a radio command post vehicle. Still remember the CF plate number of the one I drove around till I transfered to the CF Medical Service.

[Kurt H.]

I found a suitable Carb, intake manifold and air cleaner in my spares. I just finished spending two hours cleaning flash and mold parting lines from the parts. It would not have photographed well, but sheesh ... so much subtle flash and mold lines which are hard to see, but will look awful with a coat of paint. 

[Kurt H.]

I had to do a lot of sanding and filling just to get started. I spot primed the body where I sanded the mold parting lines

 

 

 

I will take a closer look later but my initial impression was that the mold lines were gone and little if any follow up is required.

 

I may be too picky with the frame, but there are some noticeable sink marks, so I filled and sanded, and spot primed

 

 

This looks ok too. I also primered the engine, but forgot to take a picture. I need to pick up the pace to finish in time.

[K2Pete]

... don't worry about the deadline ... you've still got LOTS o' time!  

[Kurt H.]

On 1/5/2019 at 5:42 AM, K2Pete said:

... don't worry about the deadline ... you've still got LOTS o' time!  

 

Thanks for the Encouragement K2Pete!

 

I had the spray booth going after painting the F-5e, so I decided to primer parts on this truck. I have a bottle of AMMO One Shot primer, which I understand is repackaged Badger Stynlrez. I hosed it on with my Patriot 105 with the F (.5) needle setup

 

 

I have a bottle of chevy engine blue on the way. I still need to decide on an interior color.

 

ok.. well talk to ya later

 

 

[phantom]

Mud, mud is the interior colour.

[Kurt H.]

I did a little research. Thanks to http://www.oldcarbrochures.com/ I found a list of available colors for the 1973 Chevy pickups. I decided that the original color of this truck would be blue. I have a bottle of Mr. Color "bright blue" which seemed reasonably close to one of the colors on the page I printed. I decided on RLM 75 for the interior

 

 

I masked the radiator so I could paint the core support. I also masked the dash to avoid getting too many layers of paint on the instrument cluster.

 

 

And then ... throught he magic of airbrushing

 

I painted the parts of the body that might still be the original body color if someone had painted the truck in their backyard 

 

 

and the inside of the cab, my research suggested some of these trucks had no headliner and it was just metal on the roof

 

 

and the interior parts.. I will use weathering techniques to make a mess in the interior

 

 

see ya all next time

 

 

[Els]

It is looking good.  That web site you posted is pretty cool.  I just clicked over to see what it was and the next thing I knew almost an hour had gone by while I was looking at all the cars/brochures that are there.  You have gotten me in the mood to build a car model, it has been a few years since I have done that.

[Kurt H.]

On 1/10/2019 at 6:14 PM, Els said:

It is looking good.  That web site you posted is pretty cool.  I just clicked over to see what it was and the next thing I knew almost an hour had gone by while I was looking at all the cars/brochures that are there.  You have gotten me in the mood to build a car model, it has been a few years since I have done that.

 

Oh yeah ... I should have posted a warning about that site ...

 

Any way, I have been quiet but I have been pressing to finish this model

 

I decided to go for the look of rancho shocks, so I painted the shocks white. I used tamiya flat white

 

 

Then I painted the frame Tamiya semigloss black, and it came out just as I imagined

 

 

I decided to paint the bellows of the shocks red

 

 

I hand painted the red with Ammo. I could have airbrushed them, but I did not feel like masking these. It ended up looking ok.

 

I brush painted the mufflers and gas tanks with MM aluminum enamel. It came out kinda messy. 

 

 

I have since painted the pipes with steel, but forgot to take a picture

 

Here is the engine and the dash, I paint detailed the molded in detail on the engine. 

 

 

I think I have all the parts painted .. so my next task will be to assemble the chassis and running gear. Then I will weather and dirty it up.

 

I started assembling the bed, but .. ugh .. it is really warped. I will figure something out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kurt H.]

I am making a push to get this done.

 

I think the chassis is ready. I had fun weathering it. I watch videos, and I also have two copies of "Weathering" magazine, published by Ammo.

 

So I used various techniques and products, and ended up with this:

 

 

It looks sufficiently corroded and dirty.  i will work on the wheels and tires, and paint job for the body next.

 

[Kurt H.]

I just finished a long session at the bench. I was so focused, I did not realize hours had passed.

 

First thing I wanted to do was to paint the trim pieces, the bumpers and the grill, etc.

 

I wanted the recesses of the grill to remain the primer color ... I thought about how to mask it, and silly putty seemed the right tool

 

 

I painted some stuff for the F-5, and then I painted the body, starting with Olive Drab

 

 

I took a break, then went on to flat black, lightened with a little white, then fs30218, lightened with white. I used Mr. Color lacquers thinned with MLT and my first Extreme 100g™  

 

 

 

It does not match the decal sheet but i like it. 

 

I should be able to wrap this up this week.  

 

this just goes to show, even a quick fun build requires a considerable amount of effort. 

 

 

[phantom]

Nice kind of looks like the US paint jobbed CUCVs I got to drive around in the 90s.

[Kurt H.]

Almost there....

 

 

 

 

You could argue the model is done, I want to dirty it up to match the chassis.  I had some problems with the wheel/tire assembly, so at least two of them are a little wobbly and not quite seated properly on the wheel. 

[Kurt H.]

I decided to use Mission models "transparent dust" to see what it would do. I wanted to give the impression of a dirty windshield that was cleaned by wipers

 

 

I am not sure if I got the wiper arc correct... Any way, with a good coat of dust all over the model,  it seemed to help blend the camo together, I think this is what is referred to as a Filter. I tried another technique I see in Armor modeling videos which finally helped me achieve my vision for this model .. Ammo of mig mud, and pigments on the tires to make them look really dirty

 

so Now I am done, here are some quick pics. I will take glamor shots tomorrow. 

 

 

 

 

 

Yay! I made it before the deadline and finished in 1 month and a day. Probably my fastest ever. Sometimes working on a deadline is a good motivator. It was fun to try all the weathering techniques and products. 

 

 

Edited January 30, 2019 by Kurt H.

[phantom]

Dirty sure helps, looks good!

[Kurt H.]

here is a preview ... more pics in the gallery

 

 

 

Edited January 31, 2019 by Kurt H.

[Spectre711]

Great job Kurt!

[airmechaja]

That looks NICE. Love the dirt and mud and grime.

[K2Pete]

The mud spots, and the dirty windshield are just subtle enough to look great!

And all the weathering techniques you've tried on this will really enhance any thing else you build!

 

Nicely done Kurt H !

 

Pete

[Kurt H.]

Thank you for your feedback, I appreciate your kind comments.

 

This was a fun project. This is an older kit,  and pretty simple.  To make a great model from it would require a lot of work, but as you can see, a cool model can be made easily. This was especially interesting for me, I tried several weathering techniques and products for the first time, and I think it came out well. It looks better than I expected. 

 

The only part that disappointed me with this kit was the tires. The tires are directional, but they are all identical and only fit on the wheels one way. I got around this problem by removing the inner ring on one side of the tire, making it possible to reverse the tire. The first one I did came out fine, but I butchered the other tire. I was able to hide this with a ton of pigment. I wanted to document this problem, but I was in a bit of a hurry to get this model done.  The wheel back to wheel bearing fit is wobbly so it looks like the truck has horrible suspension problems if I do not position the wheels carefully.  Aftermarket wheels and tires from  would really improve this kit.  That being said, I am happy to see a square body GM pickup available. These are among my favorite trucks of all time.

 

Thanks for looking, I hope this build helps to answer questions about this kit, or inspires you to try weathering your models.

Edited February 1, 2019 by Kurt H.
typographical errors

[dnl42]

Dang! Nice job on the weathering!  The pix in the completed build thread look great!

 

You certainly did an excellent job getting past those problems you described.

[Els]

You nailed the weathering.  Great job.