Ford V-8 truck 1936/37 - ACE of Ukraine 1/72nd injected kit

 I just bought from the PM Store in Ukraine this beautiful truck (my second, as I was impressed with the box contents of my first purchase) to use as a photography prop for my model airplanes, and also as a way to support both the Ukrainian manufacturer and vendor. 

 (The completed model is here:

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/12/ford-truck-1936-ace-172nd.html

The PM Store provides good service. They included (also in other items I have purchased before from them) a kind package of sweeties and a fun brochure explaining the not-so-fun shenanigans the frigging Poo-teen subjects their country to:

Nicely molded, well detailed sprues with optional parts for variants:

A bit of P.E. items to dress the kit up:

Nice decal options:

Detailed instructions:

This is a well-detailed kit that requires care and attention. The parts are well molded, but there is a bit of flash here and there, sometimes thin and sometimes not. The Sprue arrangement and injection gates mostly negate the use of a Xuron or similar tool to excise the parts, as the unavoidable lateral pressure will brake them. I am going the route of a new, sharp razor blade, protected on one side by tape, but beware,  do not hurt yourself. 

I started by deciding which version I wanted and getting rid of the parts not pertinent to it, besides the ones crossed in the instructions. 

Pay attention, as sometimes what may look like tiny flash is actually a tiny detail on the part.

Some parts have tongues that insert into slots. The molding is fine, but the tolerances may not be that precise, so check the fit before committing. These needed some touching-up:

The parts seem sometimes to have been engineered sometimes to facilitate painting (for example, the inner upholstered part of the doors, or the upholstered sections of the seat), but on occasion may hinder it (its not easy to assemble the cabin and paint the interior). I can't stress enough how important it is to carefully look at the drawings to avoid sanding minute pips or tongues that are not flash:

As mentioned, a number of parts are discarded as they may belong to other boxings (crossed in the instructions)

Beware that the three options in the kit also have specific parts, so pay close attention. Here some parts that are easily identified have already been removed from the sprues and cleaned up to remove flash and the remainder of the gates, but beware that there are other parts not used that are not crossed in the instructions. The drawings depict only the second and third options (that is they don't describe the flat windscreen associated with the first option):

The first option has a flat windscreen, thus the cabin front and roof are specific parts:

The other two versions have an angular windscreen with its own parts two:

The 3D-printed original nature of the parts for the mold is visible with magnification. So is the engineering: minute locating devices present throughout may offer a bit of a challenge some times. For some parts another kit maker may have resorted to butt-joints, but here the parts are keyed. The general impression because of the level of detail and the amount of parts is that you are building a 1/35 kit that was scaled down. I like it.

To give you an idea of the size of the parts:

When cleaning look carefully. Here some slots outside and little pips inside, all locating devices:

Same here:

The cage is easily assembled, taking careful note again of slots and tongues. Excellent fit. Let's hope this is a harbinger of things to come:

Ideal modeling weather:

I don't think this is a practical break-down of parts as it creates seams in difficult to correct places, not to mention alignment and angle issues; this required a different solution:

After careful cleaning the parts are glued:

Trying to glue together parts that can be painted the same color (seat base, floor, front panel, and seat base and back):

There is another part (unused) that could have been matched to a complete windscreen front and roof, not sure why the designer missed the point, creating instead a sensitive step for the modeler:

 

The fit so far, provided a good cleanup, is excellent.

Working now on some components for the chassis. The gear box is a two-part affair with three holes, the third is where the shift stick goes!:

The transmission is a multi-part assembly, good fit if the cleanup was done (nothing major, just mold lines and such). I love this little truck and it's multipart approach:

As mentioned above the gear box -peeping from below- has the locating hole for the shift stick, the floor makes space for it. The photo-etched fret provides nice detail parts. The metal is very soft but it's not easy to bend on a constant curve, it tends to angle:

Four small P.E. parts need to be placed at this point. They will be virtually invisible:

More than 30 parts are already glued to the chasis:

Additional P.E. parts need to be added to complete the chassis:

My evil plan to facilitate painting of the sub-assemblies. The hood still needs to be clued to the cab window/roof section:

For all purposes it is like the kit maker tried to reproduce every significant feature of the truck in good detail. As mentioned, fit is good provided you test-fit and do a fair cleanup. The instructions can be confusing at times, but a little thinking is all what's needed in most cases. If you didn't obliterate the very small molded pips that key-in some of the parts, you should be ok.

Airbrushing session applying as many colors I could at this stage:

The kit's decal sheet is very nice, sharply printed and with colorful options. I have only one question:

Why o why manufacturers insist on putting products in a plastic pouch that is EXACTLY the size of the product (decal sheet, P.E. fret, masks, etc.)? This makes putting the product back in the sleeve a very annoying and frustrating task. What's the reason for this stupidity? not to buy a pouch that is 2mm larger? Heaven knows. These pouches/sleeves need to be reusable. I needed, for example, at this stage to use ONLY the instrument panel and put back in the protecting sleeve what remains for future use. C'mon, larger plastic sleeves,  please?  It won't break the piggy bank for sure.

Just to remove the decal sheet is a pain:

And you try to put it back in:

More painting:

The kit doesn't include any transparencies, in fact, it doesn't even include a section of clear sheet to use with the patterns provided for the windows. The "lights" they provide are just normal plastic, I guess to be painted:

That won't do, so I reamed the housings:

And will be gluing home-made lenses:

The exterior rear-view mirror will in turn be enhanced with a punched disk of polished aluminium foil:

One more session with the airbrush (to "chrome" the bumper and mirror holder seen in gloss black above) and it should be ready for final assembly.

Beware that tires and hubs are keyed by a system of tabs and recesses:

The instructions part with the clear part patterns is photocopied, and pasted on clear sheet with water-soluble glue (stick):

The individual windows are cut:

Mine required trimming down a bit by trial and error. The kit parts are intelligently molded providing recesses for the clear parts on the interior sides:

The instrument panel is glued in place (neither of the ones in the sprues seems to be a good fit) as well as the pre-painted radiator. The final assembly in progress. The red part at the front interfered with the chassis given in the instructions as the correct one, and perhaps would have fitted better the one the instructions tell you to discard. Some scrapping and sanding improved the fit, but these adjustments are not what you want to do in already-painted, fragile parts. DO NOT, as I did (see below) glue the cabin floor to the chassis, but instead to the rest of the cabin first, otherwise you will create a fit problem (that I had later in the build have to struggle with):

(As mentioned above, in retrospect it would have been better to try to glue the cabin floor to the cabin shell, as the fit on final assembly proved to be very difficult)

The locating devices to affix the cargo frame to the chassis did not work in any position I tried, no pip coincided with any recess, whatsoever. Others may be luckier. I finally glued it in place following photos with CA:

As said above, the final steps were troublesome. The Cabin wouldn't fit properly at all (others should try a different assembly sequence) and the cargo frame did not really fit in any position I could tell of. Again, others may find a way where I didn't:

The decals are nice. Just a caveat: like most decals that are white or have a white background (in this case for the yellow on the biggest decal), the ink makes them more fragile and not pliable. I broke one but managed to restore it. Unfortunately ACE did not realize that they could have included the thin red trim on hood and doors with the decals that go exactly on that area. Pity, as it's up to the modeler to figure out a solution:

I used Humbrol, gloss 7 and 20 enamel paints that to me look like a very good match.

Now, for the option I chose, there are these very, very tiny "V" decals that go on the wheel hubs. To accomplish this almost impossible task (you try and tell me), ACE provides just ONE spare. Including a few more would apparently have lead to bankruptcy. After a hair-rasing morning, I managed to put them all (using the one spare and praying to Styrene to guide my hand). Superficial tension and capillarity will make for a very exciting decaling time, especially with the counter-sunk back wheel hubs:

One of the minute P.E. parts (the logo on the hood in this case):

Doors, fender, license plates, mirror are added:

Waiting now for good weather to do a photo session and post the completed model article:

Taking advantage of another build that I dropped (twice) while painting and completely smashed, I made a companion for the truck to pose as a derelict:

It's a Mercedes 1914 racer:

(The completed model is here: 

https://wingsofintent.blogspot.com/2023/12/ford-truck-1936-ace-172nd.html