Trumpeter 1/3 XM177E1

[Elm City Hobbies]

Well....lost my modeling mojo a while back....hard to get it back....look at what is left on my Dana and think....nah.....hate to start a new model with so many here unfinished, but wanted something that would go together quick and easy, so pulled one of my 1/3 weapons out of the stash.

This is the Trumpeter kit, XM177E1....basically a CAR15 or similar to it at least. Very simple build, in fact I had most of the sub assemblies together in about 2hrs. Seems it too longer to putty the seams, wait to dry and then sand them down then it did to build it. Kit is missing the dust cover over the ejector port...will paint that separately and add at the end.

Now on to try and make the paint as realistic as possible. Finding good color reference photos of something like this can be hard to come by. Have a couple to use, but they all seem to be different. I think at least for the black plastic parts (stock, forestock and pistol grip) it will be just flat black, but then play around with some different varnishes. Hardest part is going to be trying to match up a realistic gunmetal color for the receiver and barrel.

Anyway...on to the pictures.





The Magazine even comes out.

 

[spud]

oh thats cool, its defenitly differnt, looking forward to see how you master the real gunmetal.

 

[Quaralane]

Looks good, for sure

 

[Chris S]

Yeah ..Thats cool 8) you could try some of AK's Steel pigments on it ,its brilliant for metal effects ,similar to graphite ..but better

Chris.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

I have some of the Mig Gunmetal pigment, which is essentially the same thing. Thing is....looking at pictures of one of these real ones, there wasn't much steel or gunmetal showing on it, unless it was really worn out.

Black plastic is just that...black plastic. Going to paint it....well black.....but used some different combinations of Satin, Matt and maybe Gloss varnish to try and vary it a bit. The plastic bits are easy, just the metal bits which were usually parkerized to almost a dark grey fine metallic finish (no...not really gun metal...at least not shiny like gun metal).

 

[ScaleModelMadman]

Scott, try the AK stuff when you can, it's nothing like the MIG glitter pigment at all.

 

[fumblethumbs]

OK, found your gun build Scott :-[ ;D

Better not carry that around....Might get into trouble. Looking forward to seeing how you finish it!

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

HAHA, considering it is only about 9.5" long....don't think anyone will mistake it for the real thing.

 

[fumblethumbs]

That's right, you're in NB aren't you? I love the Maritimes...so sensible, so laid back. We would like to move out there after retirement! Here in the TO area they'll lock you up for carrying a green banana! Common sense completely absent. But, I digress....

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Yes....like the Atlantic Lotto ad says.....

The Maritimes....where a Million Dollars goes as far as it should.

Not that I would know mind you! LOL

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

OK, calling this one finished as well and going to the CAMS show this weekend.

Rifle itself, painted Vallejo Black Primer. It looked so good for the plastic parts, I just left it, no need to do anything else. Receiver and front of barrel is the same black primer, but with the Mig Gunmetal Metallic Pigment rubbed on it (my hands are still shiny!).

The bolt and magazine started out with Vallejo Air Aluminum over black primer, but ended up being too bright, so I washed it down with a couple of coats of Vallejo Black glaze, which made the bolt look too dark (and really too dirty, I am sure someone would have to do a few pushups if their rifle looked that dirty), and the mag looked too streaky, so I then did a heavy dry brush on each with Vallejo Air Gunmetal, and it seemed to do the trick.

The stand was primed Vallejo Black Primer, color coat is Vallejo Air Pale Green (needed something that would contrast well with the rifle) and then a quick wash with some Vallejo Black wash just to break up the green.

Enjoy the photos.

 

[spud]

thats fantastic Scott and the Green isnt really outa place, Does teh Rack come with teh gun

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Yeah, all the Trumpeter kits come with the rack, you can extend and shorten it depending on the model of M4/M16 you have as some are longer than others. Even this kit really as it has the collapse-able stock, so when you build the rifle, you can choose collapsed or extended.

And something I just noticed is that the stand has a tab on one side, while the other side has a slot....meant so if you build more than one of the rifles, you can clip the racks together to make it look like a gun rack! LOL

And, just so happens I have a couple of more of these in the stash so will make for an interesting display with multiple rifles. Do wish they would do different rifles though, as all of them are based off of the M4/M16.

 

[spud]

lol that is Cool, would be kinda funny if the cops were in your house for some reason or another and they saw the rack of M4's ;D

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

You would need very tiny fingers to fire it. The whole thing is only about 9" long

 

[spud]

ah lol the pictures make it look much bigger ;D

 

[schweinhund227]

Nice one Scott M. I like it a lot ! I wish they had way more... so we could build miniature Armouries...

Will keep an eye open for one.... The project sounded interesting enough !!!


Take care !


Norm.

 

[Elm City Hobbies]

Trumpeter has 6 or so variants of the M16/M4 out now...with apparently more on the way.

Dragon made a couple in 1/3 as well, but I think they are OOP now.

And Verlinden has their series of 1/4 scale ones as well.

So no problem starting your own scale armory!