Part 3: The Exterior and Done

Bottom Line Up Front The Bronco Humber continues to assemble well. I added the fenders and such with almost no need of filing or filling. The kit is complete and well-engineered -- except for the instructions. Bronco provides photo-etch for straps and such but never notes you should remove the plastic equivalent first. The Eduard photoetch is much better anyway -- not just in detail but I have found the tiny Bronco PE breaks at fold lines. The Eduard Exterior set is a bit of a mixed bag, also due to instructions. There are extras and options that simply aren't well explained and there are necessary parts (or instructions) not included. Other than that, the brass is still of very high quality and with a couple exceptions not difficult to work with. I am still having fun, and as you'll see, the AMS monster won a few of our tussles. A summary and final recommendation is at the end. A Quick Backtrack. When doing final assembly, I realized the magazine rack (I25) mounted on the left-side hatch (B43) stuck out so far as to block entry/exit. I pried it off, folded the supports behind the rack and re-glued it, then attempted to clean up the evidence. I should have thought of all this when I built the part originally. Moving On A reminder on notation. Parts identified A#, B#, C#, F#, or P# are kit parts. Parts identified I# or E# are from the respective Eduard Interior and Exterior sets. From part 2, I put on the front hood (covering the nifty Thompson, sob!), the fenders, and most remaining big kit pieces. I also put the engine into the compartment. As noted above, the fenders, etc, went on smoothly. Unlike the Interior Set where I built most everything then added them in, the Exterior set, with a couple exceptions (hood, water cans), is built right onto the vehicle. I worked back and forth in the Bronco and Eduard instructions, side to side, back to front, etc, putting on pieces. I finally reached the point that my instructions were becoming illegible, so I got all the sprue and frets out and made a list of every unused part. Then I went back to the instructions, back and forth, until I found each and every one -- I annotated my list with what the part was then either X-d it out as not needed (replaced by PE, etc) or circled it as a part I needed to deal with. Then I went down that list continuing to add parts until the list got really small.

Things I found, in no particular order The driver's head protection (I57/58) sits too far down. After I got it in, I squished it a bit to make it look a little more correct. Also add a bead of CA along the flat part of I58 to make it look like a pad. Test-fitting the compartment roof to the body, I found I had gotten the air-cleaner assembly (C26/27,I45/54) a bit too high and had to relocate it. And the roof to body fit is tight. There are several angle iron brackets in the wheel wells. The Eduard instructions are correct -- front brackets (E78/79) face up and the rear ones (E84/85) face down. I thought I had made a major error, or Eduard had, until I looked at enough photos to confirm the arrangement. Bronco provides mud flaps (P35) but I've seen little evidence in photos. Eduard provides two different storage racks/cages for the right side and gives you the option of one or another, forgetting the third/fourth/fifth options of tire/none/something else. Check your reference pictures to see which, if any, you want to use. For no really good reason, I chose the two water can racks (E41). Eduard provides new sliding hatches for the compartment roof -- I'm unsure why because the kit seems to be fine. I went ahead and built them, but I skipped scrapping off the deflectors on the roof and used what came with the kit instead of E2,11 (this proved a good decision later when I was clamping the roof down onto the body). Be sure you test fit the gutters (E3,10) on the hatches to be sure they clear the deflectors if you are going to have closed hatches. I think the folding instructions for E75, a hasp, are backwards. There are two external fire extinguishers for which Eduard provides more detailed holders. All sources seem to agree that one goes on the front of the left rear fender. It's a toss-up on the right side as to whether it goes on the front of the rear fender or the rear of the front fender. I picked front of right rear fender so I could fit the two water can racks also. Check your references. Eduard provides straps (E70) to hold the First Aid kit (C36). I haven't seen pictures of full wrap-around straps like them and chose to make four little clips instead. Check your references. Eduard provides two storage boxes (E21,35,64) to mount atop the rear fenders and 2 grab handles (E23) atop the roof. Again, check your references -- I can see them on the Bovington Humber but not on many others. The instructions don't mention these are an option. Also note there are myriad other possibilities for external storage and add-on handles. Eduard provides mounts (E22) for the back of the engine compartment (radiator outlet) to pile gear on, but again -- check your refs as many variations exist and these could get in the way of unit markings. I left them off for that reason, plus I'm going to have the hood up. I did test fit them and couldn't seem to get them level. Water Cans Here we have a problem. The kit provides 2 sets of water cans on the back of the rear fenders. Not all Humbers had them, check your references. Eduard has you scrape the plastic detail off, split the cans, add handles, and make new racks. They then show the racks lying sideways, with the top facing out -- so far I have only seen that configuration on a picture of the Humber in a Belgian museum -- in the kit, and most every photo I have seen, those cans face upwards. Anyway, check your references. The other problem is the racks are longer/taller than the "standard" upright racks by about 1/16" -- thus the kit water cans are lost inside them. I decided to use the kit parts and photoetch instead, tidying up some of the detail using Eduard parts. In my opinion, Eduard should have provided both style racks or at least noted the ones they provided were different than the kit and why. Engine Compartment Hood The hood assembly is the only photo-etch assembly that takes some skill and even it goes well. If you think the little tabs on E20 are just to hide the seam, check the real photos. I applied an unofficial MWO and put a couple small pieces of .010 Evergreen on the inside seam as reinforcement. I'm not a gentle person. Eduard provides hinges for the hood, what appear to be release buttons, and the pivots and clamps to hold the support struts on the inside of the hood. They do not provide any indication of how to make those struts, etc -- without a supplemental reference you would be lost. I winged it. Machine Gun I've already whined about Eduard not providing detail for the Bren and mount -- here's another whine just in case you missed it, although their omission pales compared to Bronco's instructions. On the other hand, if Eduard had provided details, I might not have had to deal with the Bronco instructions. Here we go again, another unlabeled part -- looks like some kind of semi-circular hollow counter weight ??? I searched back and forth through the parts and instructions and finally came up with P6 that, after further study, looked as if it would form up properly. Bronco provides no instructions on how to do this. That's OK, most of the mount assembly is a mystery because the perspective of the drawings hides the relevant detail. If I did not have other refs, I probably would not have come close. I believe the gunner's control (C8) inside the compartment is supposed to be perpendicular to the gun; plan ahead. Also if you want the gun tilted up or down, you'll have to do that when you assemble C58 to C11/C32. Enjoy. AMS and me Yeah, I succumbed a bit. I added a map case and a couple black boxes inside the compartment, much as I see in the SIB. I also added headsets/mics for the radio, a folded up map in an empty rack, and a few clusters of wire in strategic places. You can't see much when closed up but at least something is represented and some of the white space covered over.

In the engine compartment, I went a bit more nuts -- all based on the SIB, although it's more representational than exacting detail. I added fuel lines, air cleaner hose, radiator/condenser lines, oil filter lines, a couple clusters of wire on the firewall, and of course the hood support struts. That plus a few bags, boxes, and sacks finish it off. I resisted the urge to pile lots of gear inside and out -- for one reason, I'm not very good at doing it realistically.

I used the following (other) after-market items: Hussar #35059, Wheels, Non-directional tyre. Very nice and a preferred option (to me) to the styrene hubs and rubber tires of the kit -- although they are nicely done also. Blast Models #35123K, Humber Stowage. This has 5 or so bags and boxes. I got this specifically for the camo-net shaped to go on the back of the left front fender. Bronco provides nothing in that area, Eduard provides the 3 sets of straps (E36/60) to hold on a net (or bag). The Blast net took a little putty to tweak the shape of the top and after looking at it, I decided to skip the Eduard straps -- the Blast part has straps and any effort to sculpt in the Eduard ones would have been futile. Archer Transfers #35267, 27th Armored Bde Markings. I picked these because we already did a review on them and because I have Tasca's Firefly in the stash -- one of its' markings options is 27th Bde so they'll display nicely together. Painting and Final Assembly I used White Ensign Models ARB19 Olive Drab SCC15 enamel for the exterior and Tamiya XF-2 Flat White acryl on the interior; the rest of the colors are the usual bench stock of various colors and media. I don't weather much, but I did a little highlighting with paints, washing with oils, and dusting with pastels and Tamiya weathering powders before hosing it down with Dullcote. I have basically converted to White Ensign enamels for the major colors -- they airbrush great at 50/50 and brush wonderfully right out of the tinlet; you can touch up a spray job and not even see the difference. As noted above, the decals are Archer dry transfers and that went just fine. The only problem is that the vehicle is so small and there are so many pieces on the outside, there is no place to put fingers to hold the model and the transfers while rubbing. Final assembly took longer than I wanted. With exterior coat on and some detailing, I still had many small parts to put on. I was still trying to preserve the open interior for the final few shots. That finally left me with the roof, complete with hatches and parts, which had to be glued on and touched up. That was a hairy operation with lots of breakable things in the vicinity of not-so-gentle fingers. Nonetheless, we both survived. Summary The Bronco kit, by itself, is highly detailed and well-engineered - the parts fit. There are many very small delicate parts. The detail provided in the kit and the detail on the parts is simply excellent. Their photo-etch isn't that great but it's useable. But in the end, the instructions are the major downfall and make this kit for experienced modelers only.

The Eduard photo-etch sets are invaluable enhancements to the kit. The interior set goes along nicely with, I think, only one error. The exterior set suffers by not delineating options and by a rather rote application of parts that may not be appropriate. Not including the external Bren/mount is a shortfall. Most of the photo-etch bends easily and obviously, with only a few tricky assemblies. Unlike many photo-etch sets, these cost less than the kit itself -- in terms of cost and quality they provide great value to the model and the modeler. In the good ol' days the included Eduard instructions used to be multi-page, color diagrams -- no more, and I find the new smaller fainter grayscale ones hard to use. Fortunately, Eduard has full size, color PDF files of their instructions on their website. I look there before I buy and download them before I even receive the detail set so I can start whacking away at the kit. A great service to the modeler!

I had a lot of fun with this whole project -- everything went well, a tribute to both Eduard and Bronco. If you want a great looking Humber, this kit and the Eduard photo-etch are the way to go -- but make sure you get some other references. In retrospect, I wish I had built an "exploded" view model with the roof on stilts above the body so all the interior detail was visible. A highly recommended combination, for experienced modelers. I would like to thank Eduard for graciously supplying both detail sets and IPMS/USA for allowing me to review them.

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