Work Log

Initial dry fitting of the wheel base 

Initial dry fitting of the seats, the pedals, gear lever, and handbrake. 

some weathering tests on the seats, first time doing weathering on leather. 

this kit is not a made up of a single body part but severals, which probably will make it a bit more interesting overall. 

some weathering on the exhaust pipe and filter. 

exhaust pipe fitted in 

the result of some of the masking done. While the instructions suggested to have the loading bay as semi-gloss black, a lot of pictures I've seen show a coloured base on the back, which I preferred. 

lovely wheels 

a top down view of the unassembled kit (most of it), the chosen paint is matt, will be gloss coated later on. 

Some initial work for weathering the loading bay 

an initial try at weathering of the loading bay, this will be later scraped in favour of a simplified, and more effective one. 

top down view of the weathering effort on the wheelbase 

metal weathering on the wheelbase 

at the same time I've started doing some chipping on the benches that are in the back of the van 

an initial dry fitting test. 

Thanks to "the Decal Lady", I had these custom decals print for me made of two layers, to enhance the look and depth of them. 

 

The new weathering done on the back floor of the van. 

while I was clearing some sprues, I accidentally threw away the sun visor. The one you see here is the one I had to scratch build. 

dry fitting one of the benches to see how it looks 

some small details on the front seats with the dry-fitted dashboard in place 

more dry fitting to see everything works as expected 

back view 

part-front view 

time to glue the top parts together 

The front part came without the two base hinges that would allow me to glue it to the floor of the cabin 

as you can see I have a wide gap between the cabin and the bottom part, I've decided not to glue the whole top body to the bottom if I ever have to go back to this model. Once closed I noticed the gap is not particularly noticeable. 

as a memory, all the acrylics I've used so far in this project. 

more masking on the windows. the masking has to be done both inside and outside, there is no explicit explanation in the manual so it was just a guess based on the shots found online of the real vehicle. I also realised that I missed to do the internal trimming on the front windshield. Not a major issue since it's not that visible. 

the backlights had to be painted over, and the holes for the lower red lights (which I assume are position) were too small and had to drill with a 1mm drill. 

it's interesting to note that the front emblem is not historically accurate, apparently the early models had the split front window, while later (I think around the early 50s) they introduced the new front Citröen logo and the single front window. While this van has been in production for more than 40 years, it's hard to find some consistent historical data. 

While the manual suggest to paint the whole back of the light cover with yellow, I find this not correct: I used to paint exclusively the "bulb" (or what is meant to be) which gives a very light tinge of yellow when seen under the right light and inclination. 

some details of the weathering done on the under body 

some details of the weathering done on the seats  

calling this done! Time to check the galleries for the final model in this project!