Freshly Finished Hummer!
Status: Runner
Date: 10-Nov-2003
Comments: 0
Well I finally finished my 2002 Birthday present -- a lovely Hummer!
Its a pretty stock build, just a extra ball diff (those old style gear diffs are awful -- well unless you lock 'em up for rock crawling), a one way bearing in the front gearbox & fully ballraced. I used a Futaba Radio with a MC330CR speed controller (its the one Tamia are rebadging for their new Adpsec Radios) and its a VERY good SC :-)
Where I did spend the time was the body and wheels, I didn't want the standard 3 color camo job, and a desert scheme is easy to spot in the long grass. Its a pretty simple paint job to get right, but the hard part is to make it tough, especially those polythene Wing Mirrors!
So a couple of coats of auto primer then 3 coats of Tamiya Sand (TS46). A wash of thinned down Burnt Sienna Oils paint and then 2 mist coats of the sand color again (this only really worked well on the wheels). I dry brushed the shell with Vallejo Sand Yellow about 6 times, to bring up the details. I then painted the lights, washed them with balck ink to tone them down a bit, drybrushed some wear on the door handles (gunmetal) and some mud (leather) on the wheel arches and topped it off with the stickers and 5 coats of dullcote!
Oh those wing mirrors -- undercoat with PVA glue, paint as the rest of the body then varnish with PVA before the dullcote -- u can tie them in knots and the paint won't flake off!
However the first time out I rolled it on tarmac, I was VERY sad to say the least, but the paint held up extremely well, only a few small scars...
So I painted the chips with some rust color I made up, brown ink washed them to tome them down then and varnished them with a few coats of dullcote -- and the scars became part of my paint job!
Anyway the car runs like a dream (stock 540 and 3300 Ni-MH cells) for about 20 mins a pack, its not the most stable vehicle ever made, but it looks realistic next to my XR311 and Tanks...