The GAZ AA was built ...
More about GAZ AA truck on wikipedia
Short run kit made of light grey plastic. The parts in my box had a little flash and there were missing some of the details like gaps between wooden boards etc. The fit of the parts is good but not excelent and it takes some time to fiddle some of the parts to the correct place.
Small decal sheet contains the idetification numbers for two trucks. It is actually the only difference as the camouflage is typical russian dark green. The colouring of the interior is not marked and I used the GAZ MM of UM kit as reference.
The six A5 page instruction sheet is sometimes unclear in terms of placing the details. That is a bit annoying as most of the parts don't have any alocation pins.
I started with the frame and the cargo platform. Frame has quite a number of the small parts and it took some time to clean them and place them correctly. I left the painting till the frame was done. The engine cover with the front window was glued to the frame as well as the parts of the interior of the driver's cabin. Then I completed the details of the wheel axes up to the breaks (to leave only the wheels to be glued when painted).
The cargo platform, made of sides, rear, front and the floor, has nice locks but missing some separation of the wooden boards. I used the scalpel to correct that and partially cut of the locks to replace them with the wire.
When I tried the fit of the cabin and the platform with the undercarriage frame I've found that by guing the engine to the frame without cabin I'd created problem for myself with fit of those two assemblies especially when I wanted to leave at least one door opened.
As mentioned already, the camouflage of the military trucks is sort of dull - dark green all over the vehicle. I painted the sub-assemblies with Surfacer 1000 and then with Gunze Dark green H... I apllied some of the dirt on the places that would be difficult to reach after the kit is assembled completelly. To simulate it I used the water colours as they are easy to mix, use eventually wipe off the model surface. The wheels were painted with the same green then masked and painted the Gunze Tire black H... I repeated application of the dirt in the same way as I did on the frame.
June 2009