“Dick in East” ... Modelcollect 1/72 German Railway Schwere Platformwagen Type SSYS w/ Trumpeter Dicker Max (by Baran Çakmak)

Hi dear modellers.

This is my new vignette work

Everything is started with a buy 1/72 scale Modelcollect German Railway Schwerer Plattformwagen Type SSYS 1+1 and the idea developed one after another.

Firstly  I don’t like the plastic floor of the wagon so replace the wagon floor with the real wood; one mm thick and two mm wide balsa stripes that left over from glider production many years before in my junkyard. After aplying finished I sanded the floor gently and painted the every balsa stripe one by one with different shades of aqrylic valejo paints. Then vagon is painted with german grey on upper side and different shades of rust at the bottom side, washed and whethered with pigments.

The wagon model comes with the rail road but the details are very sparse so I need to improve it. First I filled the dents on the railroad planks and sanded, then give them wood texture and cracks with a sharp hobby blade. There is also no rail road nails that attach the iron railroad and the planks, so I scratchbuilt them and added. After all, railroad’s wooden planks are also painted in different shades of wood with acrylics. Steel roads are always rusty but the upper parts are always shinny because of friction so painted like that.

The Modelcollect SSYS wagon  has two axle on every boogy so this means that I need a vehicle less than 50 tons of weight  as a model, so I choose Trumpeter 1/72 scale Dicker Max model as logically (at first I thought to use a kingtiger but then I realized that will be wrong for realism for that platform)

Trumpeter’s Dicker Max was moulded good and very enjoyable to built. But painting options are very limited because Dicker Max produced by the number of just two (an one was burned by itself on a fire while firing accident) so the color was german gray. First I applied shades by pre-shading and then painted)

The iron bridge on the vignette is scratch built. I first downloaded some drawings and pictures from internet and built one from scratch by leftover evergreen plates and profiles. The rivets on the bridge are a little bit time consuming but I have to add it. They are made from sprue, their heads are shaped like mushroom by a lighter. I will talk about it later. İron bridge is painted first in rust colors, and later two coats of different colors to achive contrast. The old paint effect made by the help of heavy chipping fluid, then washed and wheathering applied.

Figures are from Aliexpress, painted in SPG crew clothing colors. Their quality is not too good but ok, can save the day.

The sides of the river on the vignette made by the foam coated with modelling paste, after all is shaped and dried, natural soil from my garden sprinkelled to the ground and fixed by diluted white glue. I also added some rocks to the view those are made from rough parts of cat litter. After all, whole ground covered with filler coat, then all black. Then painted in earth colors.

The leftover T34/76 turret is (I think) UM or Italeri model (I got it from junkyard of Erhan Atalay, thanks for the help) cut in the bottom of turret to get proper fit to the ground of the river, the turret also painted in rust shades and chipped.

The water on the river is made by two component acrylic clear resin colored by a few drop of green color. I firstly made a mold/barrier around  the vignette by acetate sheet. To avoid the leak of resin I sealed the gap between ground and the asetate sheet, I used liquid masking fluid as a seal, then pour the resin and left all for whole night to cure. One day later I tear off the asetate sheet. While curing time the resin shrinks so the sides of poured resin curls upwards like a wave so I trim it with a sharp hobby knife to optain a flat surface. After that I applied Vallejo Extra Heavy gel all of to the surface  by the help of a paintbrush creating some waves and waited to dry. After gel dried it become clear. Then I drybrushed the surface with vallejo snow effect to create white foams of waves.

It was a pleasure for me to create that vignette so I hope you like it…

Baran Çakmak..