15mm QRF CMP 15cwt Trucks

 These QRF CMP 15cwt trucks were purchased as part of 'stage one', but I put them together later, as it wasn't obvious how to assemble them.

Assembled and painted, they don't look too bad, although tbh they are fairly awful models and I may have been better off shelling out for 3D prints or the PSC ones.

The main issue is that they don't actually fit together properly. There are two stowage boxes cast one the underside of the cab which stops it lining up properly with the front axle as they foul on the fuel tanks cast on the chassis. They proved very hard to get off without damaging the mudguards, but I did manage to saw them off and file them down eventually., 

Having done that, when assembled with the spare wheel behind the cab, the rear section (a single piece of resin) then doesn't line up properly with the rear wheels. The rear section is also missing a cutaway for the wheels and instead has a rather dubious cover moulded over the gap.

It isn't terrible I suppose, and good enough for gaming, but it is hard to imagine these issues didn't come up when it was first cast?

For some odd reason it is also missing a tilt over the cab, which was a very common feature, so the windscreen frame is rather precariously attached (two of them fell off when I was painting them).

Perhaps the most annoying thing is the CMP wheels have very distinctive axle hubs, as seen on the nicely moulded spare wheel, yet the truck wheels are supplied with huge holes in the middle. I ended up making axle hubs from sprue, which was a fiddly and tedious task, but looked OK once I was done.

When finally assembled and painted they look OK though. 

I did the later black/sand desert scheme on these as it looks quite smart. The Middle East regs changed quite a bit and one directive was to just paint the tarps with disruptive paint, so I did one like that. However, if black disruptive on the bonnets was good enough for John Sanders, it was good enough for me and I did the other two with some black on the bodywork too.

Once they were dusted up a bit, and despite the slightly frustrating assembly process, I'm pleased with how they finally turned out. I very much like the snub noses of the CMP vehicles, designed that way to save shipping space, but it gives them  a very punchy look.