M15A12 Assemly Complete

I was bored an afternoon 5 or so days ago and I decided to pull out this kit and get started. This is Tamiya's M15A12 MUTT Jeep with TOW accessories.


I am used to working with Tamiya's older kits by now and this kit didn't give me too much trouble. There were a lot of holes that I did not use and many which were called out in the instructions which did not exist. No problem- I am pretty good at this point working with kit errors and fixing them to my satisfaction. Overall the build went smoothly- parts fit into place and fit together without any major gaps.


The hardest part of the kit? the TOW missile launcher handle bars, the headlights and the parts behind the front left headlight. All of which had to be re-attached around a dozen times, but finally they are in place. If they come off during the final cleaning then I will go back and secure them again.


I left the seat and the wheels seperate for a final sub-assembly. Because Tamiya put so much detail into the under carriage of the model, and the fact that the undercarriage fascinates me (heh) I want to show off that detail (heh). By doing so I have to make sure the wheels are completely painted 360 degrees. From there I will attach the wheels, the spare and the chair (I want to paint the rims of the chair a metal color to make it stand out).


I have been finding that I have been having less and less time to do models- so the smaller stuff is a plus- I spend a lot of time on each project and the instant gratification is there. The MUTT was a small project but an easy one to get me back into model building. It's not that big- maybe 2.5 inches by 1.25 inches. In my pictures I put next to it a bottle cap and a quarter for comparison.


All that is left to do is to get this puppy into paint. I want a camo job, and I have never played with camo before. I am going to paint in spots I want the camo, cover it with liquid mask and then pray when I spray the main color on top that when I remove the liquid mask the camo spots come out (near) perfectly. Can someone give me money for paint? =D.