Italeri 1/72 Autoblinda AB 41 By Bill Powers

Introduction

There aren’t many pieces for this kit, just one sprue. Don’t let that fool you into thinking you can slap it together, this is not a “shake the box and out falls a model”. Having said that, assembly of the multi part body was not as difficult as anticipated but it did take time.

Construction

Assemble the chassis as shown in step 1, but don’t glue it to the body, not yet!

You’ll discover later in the assembly process that more clearance is needed over the wheels. So I suggest in the second step?, glue the piece on which the chassis rests to the bottom of the locating bar not the top as shown on the plans (sorry I lost my plans so I can’t give the parts number). That will give a little more clearance.

This is the way I assembled the body: In Step 3, The round “spreaders” parts 49A were glued on only one side. I used Part 23A. Starting with part 14A, all pieces were glued only to one side, Part 23A, and each other, starting with part 14A which overlaps Part 23A. After this dried overnight, Part 21A and 19A were glued as per the instruction sheet. After they had dried overnight, the other side, Part 22A was attached gluing only the spreader” at the back leaving the one in the front “loose”. This was allowed to dry, preferably overnight.

Allowing time for the glue joints to dry and set up eliminates pulling those joints apart when adding more parts.

Use care to align the parts and minimize “seams”. Also don’t use too much glue to avoid glue smears, yuk!

So, after three days of little progress while pieces dried thoroughly, the pace quickened because the remaining parts could be glued to a “stiff” body. The remaining parts 15A, 18A, 10A, 17A and 33A were glued on, in that sequence. Parts 18A and 17A overlap the other parts and even with careful sanding, the fit left a slight gap at the side joint and top. To remove this will destroy those delicate rivet heads, so I filled the gap with Mr. Surfacer or “white glue” using a 10/0 brush until seam was a realistic gap. The real car was riveted together so I can imagine some “seams” on the real thing! The seam around the top, Part 15A, was filled and sanded flat on the top but the sides were not sanded.

Trial fitting the chassis and wheels (with tires) showed the tires touching one side of the wheel well opening, either front or back depending on where you moved the chassis! The chassis was glued to the body, after painting the insides white, see later. The square mounting pegs on the chassis (which fit into square holes in the wheel, of course, round peg in round hole etc) were cut/sanded to remove some material from the peg so the wheel could move forward or back, as needed. It worked! The tires were slipped onto the wheels and then the wheels were glued on one side at a time carefully checking for clearance, and then set aside to dry. After the glue had dried, the tires were removed and not permanently glued on until all painting was completed.

The wheels could be offset as though the car was turning, but that would require relocating the steering tie bar and this is to be an OOB model...next time! Also, a build article of the 1/35 version talked about the ‘tow in” of the wheels. The plans don’t show this, so I didn’t do it, but that would not be difficult given the wheel/tire attachment points. If you do use “toe in” make sure to note that on any judging sheet...because judges may misinterpret accurate toe in as misalignment!

Also, the Sahariana wheels will not fit...they are larger and fill up the wheel wells!

If you plan to open all those hatches, paint the interior white before gluing the chassis. On careful examination, there is some tread on the tires, both bottom and sides, very faint, which will probably be lost sanding away the molding seam! It was!

The rest is easy and quick, lots of little pieces to glue on. All the tools are separate...hoorah! The fork/rest for the antennae kept breaking off. It wasn’t reattached until the antenna was attached. Then the little rest was glued where it broke and also to the antennae. It hasn’t broken since!

I painted the model with Tamiya Desert Yellow with some White or Buff added. An oil wash was used to bring out the wonderful detail.

Future was applied where there would be decaling. The decals went on without problem except...they really stick where placed, so use a wetting solution or lots of water so they float to the proper location. The colors of the Italian flag decals are very bright, so some Dullcoat, with a few drops of Model Master Sand and thinned heavily, were sprayed on the red and green to “fade” those colors.

The “feeler/fender locators” on the front fenders were the last item to be glued...after all painting was done. They were thinned by scraping with a #11 and painted before gluing. All dire predictions of breaking turned out to be false...they survived transporting to Virginia Beach, judging and the return trip!

Conclusion

The end result is a really beautiful model of what is a pretty ugly armored car! One day I’ll try the more complex paint scheme!

Thank you Italeri for a really wonderful kit, in my favorite scale, and at a reasonable price! I WILL BUY another one!