Ferret Mk. 2 armoured car

[Jakko]

Very nice, Jakko. The red and yellow are real standouts.

It looks better than I had expected. Before putting on the green, I thought the yellow turret may end up making the whole model look a bit garish, but I must say I think it looks better than the red- and white-turretted Ferrets I’ve seen photos of.

Looking rather colourful.

That was my sole reason for picking a BATUS Ferret

Military green is a real can of worms.

On the positive side, there’s so much variation in the real thing that it’s hard to go wrong as long as you put on a medium, grey(ish) green, I think.

Mask making for the numbers will need a lot of work

It shouldn’t be too much effort, making the stencil itself is just a matter of printing one out using a suitable font and cutting out the numbers with a sharp knife.

the end result could actually look better than decals. Being black on red should spray nicely.

The spraying bit is the thing I’m not too keen on, really I certainly don’t feel like putting paint into an airbrush for just this, so if I do end up spraying the numbers, it’ll only be when I also have something else to spray. OTOH, my LVTP-5 still needs its suspension and underside painted green, so if I can find a good way to mask the rest of the model I’ll probably do that sometime soon and can tackle the Ferret right along with it.

A further setback on the markings front is that the dry transfer letters I thought I’d use for the registration number are just a bit too big for the space above the driver’s hatch. So now I’m thinking I may have to resort to hand-painting that number, or to stick on a completely spurious registration number from something like a Chieftain, Warrior, or CVR(T) that I do have decals for. I’d rather have one at least in the Ferret range, though, so hand-painting is likely my only choice.

 

[stillp]

If you can make a stencil, why don't you brush-paint the numbers through the stencil?
Pete

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko, this is a great build as soon as I saw it, I was transported back to the prarie on a couple of Med Mans

 

[Jakko]

If you can make a stencil, why don't you brush-paint the numbers through the stencil?

I haven’t tried that mainly because I have a feeling rather a lot of paint will end up underneath it, but I can always give it a try on some scrap material first …

 

[bilbo]

I haven’t tried that mainly because I have a feeling rather a lot of paint will end up underneath it, but I can always give it a try on some scrap material first …

Jakko - I think that if you used a piece of sponge dipped in paint and then stippled it on you would minimise the bleed under the tape, similar to using a sponge for doing weathering

 

[scottie3158]

I have not tried it myself but I think Richard has had some success with it and that is using tipex correction sheets then just right on the back so it transfers the white to the surface. So all you would have to do is paint a black rectangle for the number plate.

 

[Jakko]

I’ve already hand-painted the numbers and letters to a standard that’s not great but acceptable because it will largely be obscured by the commander’s hatch I had thought about using Tipp-Ex like you say, but decided against it because getting the characters to look neat will be about as difficult as when painting them.

The stencils I’m thinking about making will be for the numbers on the sides and rear, which are far bigger so should be easy enough to cut from plain paper for spraying.

 

[stillp]

Could you hold some Tippex sheet over a stencil then shade over it with a pencil?

Pete

 

[Jakko]

At that point I think it’d be simpler to just spray white paint through the stencil

 

[Jakko]

So I fired up Adobe Illustrator to make myself a stencil:



Large for the hull sides, smaller for the plate on the rear (the black square simply indicates the edges of the paper size I chose in the document). I did two of both numbers so that I had a spare printed out, should I make a mistake cutting one out.

This is very simple to do: take any graphics program, choose an appropriate font and type the number you need, then scale it so it’s the right size. In this case I used Helvetica, because looking at photos of the real thing it looked like something very close to that typeface was used there. However, as that was a stencil, it had little connecting bits that I needed to add. This is easy enough to do by just drawing some white rectangles over the numbers in the right places, as you can see in the following image:



After that, I just needed to print it out:



Once in my hobby room, I cut out the black bits from one of the large and one of the small stencils using a sharp hobby knife and a (somewhat) steady hand, then trimmed the paper down and tacked it to the model with masking tape:



I used the stencil that’s on the wheel for both sides, to save me some cutting, as I find it a bit of a chore (You may also notice a white part on the spare wheel mounting that wasn’t there in previous photos. This is because I dry-fitted the wheel, and the piece of tube I had glued to it broke off because of the thickness of the paint that’s now on it )

Anyway, after spraying black through it, here’s the result:




Oh, and here’s the hand-painted registration number too:



Not as neat as it would have been on the real thing, so I may try to touch it up a bit with some more white and/or black paint, but as I think I already said, it will be covered to some extent by the turret hatch, so it’s not a real worry.

All that remains now is to paint a few details and apply a good amount of weathering, followed by adding the wheels.

 

[scottie3158]

Jakko,
That looks pretty good the stencils have come out well

 

[Jakko]

Unlike the registration number, you mean?

 

[JR]

Jakko.
Very smart idea, and the resulting stencils are great .
No plate........, well better than I could attempt, with out getting white paint everywhere. anyway as you said after a little touch up and the hatch little will be seen.
John .

 

[Jakko]

The trick, I think, is to paint the letters and numbers as well as you can, then correct them with the background colour. Trying to get them right in one go is just about impossible, unless you practice a lot more than I care to (Better would be to simply get decals of some sort, but without those I had to do something. Though maybe I should look through my decals box again and see if I can’t find any suitable white letters and numbers.)

 

[JR]

Satisfying though if did work, I'd leave it unless your not happy and it's something that you would all ways be drawn to when you look at the model.
John.

 

[MikeC]

Jakko,
Good job and a change from the usual green/black recce Ferrets. Looking forward to the finished item.
Mike

 

[Jakko]

Thanks

I’ve been looking at photos of vehicles at BATUS for ideas on what kind of, and how much, weathering to apply, but I must say I’m somewhat disappointed in how clean the vehicles seem to have been there … so I suppose a light dusting is all this one is going to receive, rather than the heavy muddy look I kind of had in mind. Also, it’s hard to find pictures from the ’80s, but I suppose you can’t go wrong with only light weathering.

 

[Steve Jones]

Nice work on the stencilling Jakko. Never tried that before so may give it a go. Great stuff

 

[Jakko]

I’ve sprayed things though stencils before, but never at this size Up until now, all I’ve ever tried was full-size, for things like marking a toolbox and the wall where I buried a cat. This worked well too, though I would advise first trying it on something else than your model until you find the paint sprays well through the stencil and doesn’t creep under it. Oh, and to have enough paint in your airbrush … I had “wasted” enough on trials that when I got to the 27 on the side, it had run out So I mixed up some more and right away put the paint onto the model, only to see it was far too thin and ran under the stencil. Luckily a quick couple of wipes with a moist finger got all of it off for the second attempt when I had got the paint right once more

 

[Jakko]

See the Completed Armoured Vehicles subforum for the continuation of this.