Today in our construction review Andy King puts together the new 35th scale Model W.O.T. 6, WWII British Truck from ICM. A simple but helpful build guide of a truck with many possibilities for further painting and weathering, this guide shows you a lot about putting it together before paint hits plastic...
Construction Review: Model W.O.T. 6, WWII British Truck
From ICM Models
Kit No 35507
Model W.O.T. 6, WWII British Truck in real life:
The WOT 6 The abbreviation WOT stands for War Office Truck was a WOT 8 with a longer wheelbase and a double payload of 3 tons. He was also to improve an additional reduction gearbox to the ride quality.
The WOT 6 was used closer to the front and many of the vehicles had therefore in the cabin an opening on the roof for the operation of machine guns. Between 1942 and 1945 nearly 30,000 copies with various special versions in addition to the standard truck were built.
The WOT6 4x4 were used in North Africa, Italy and NW Europe between 1942 and 1945, remaining in service until 1962 so also used in Hong Kong, Malaya and Korea. The Danish Army also used the WOT 6 after the war. The last Danish WOT 6 was retired in 1974.
It was produced to the same broad specification as the Austin K5, the Bedford QL and the Karrier K6, fulfilling the same roles. Nearly 30.000 were produced, most of them being the GS version. Other types included breakdown gantry, machinery, compressor and house type vans.
Vehicle specifications:
Length: 6.10 m
Height: 3.20 m
Width: 2.30 m
Empty weight: 5400 kg
Tank capacity: 160 litres
Range: 450 km
The new kit from ICM:
This new kit is in 1/35th scale, the truck is the Fordson type (but not with the name we suppose because of licencing issues). The kit is a completely new mould and this basic truck can be built upon with so many others in this series. The W.O.T. 6 was used for different versions along with the standard version as depicted in this kit.
So taking a look at what is in the box and you get five sprues moulded in grey polystyrene, a single clear sprue, a small sheet of etch metal, four vinyl tyres and a decal sheet.
All parts are well moulded although there is some flash here and there plus some heavy seam lines on the chassis parts, fortunately, pin marks are confined to hard-to-see areas such as the cab interior, under the rear body and inside faces of the chassis. Unfortunately, some parts are distorted due to the moulding process such as the jerry can rack, also with the plastic being fairly soft, it is very easy to damage parts when cutting them off the sprue particularly the front of the cab.
The front fenders that the cab sits upon
Detailing is good, particularly the rear body although there is no wood texture to it which may or may not be to your taste. Personally, I'm glad ICM left it as some manufacturers over-do the texture.
As is usually the case with ICM the engine is pretty well detailed and just needs the addition of wiring and fuel lines should you wish, although unless you are displaying the cab completely open you won't see it as will become apparent later on during the build. The vinyl tyres are OK and feature a decent tread pattern however the side walls are devoid of any detail plus there is a line of flash around the circumference of every tyre which being vinyl is tricky to remove.
Personally, I was never a fan of vinyl stuff in kits and would much prefer manufacturers to mould tyres in polystyrene, failing that I would look to the aftermarket for resin replacements.
The Build:
Moving on to actually glueing bits together and we start with the chassis which is a multi-part assembly and care is needed here as it is very easy to break the front chassis members (C19 & C24) as they are quite delicate. The trick to building a multi-part chassis is to get it all together then leave it to set on something flat with a little bit of weight on it to ensure it is flat otherwise an uneven chassis will lead to fit problems later on.
Next in the sequence is the engine and unless you are going to show it off by having the cab tipped forward then you can skip most of this section apart from the underside as you cannot see it due to the enclosed cab, shame really as the engine is pretty well detailed.
The exhausts were added next and these have been wrongly numbered in the instructions (you'll find them on sprue B, not C). The ends of the exhausts had the holes opened up using a fine drill.
Next, the axles were fitted and here I wanted to turn the front wheels so some surgery was required to achieve this. First, the axle was cut about 10mm from the end;
Next, the steering rack (C13) and connector (C7) were cut as these needed to be altered to suit the turned wheels;
With the prep work done the front axle was fixed into place, the wheel hubs were glued to the ends and turned before they set. The steering rack ends were glued into place on the hubs and when set the rack itself was glued into position.
The steering connecting rod was then glued to the side of the chassis and axle and there you have it. Quite easy really and turning the wheels gives a model a bit of character too.
The rear axle was glued along with the prop shafts and here ICM missed the part number of the front one (it's D32 in case you missed it).
Be careful removing parts C91 and C92 as these are VERY easy to break. ICM supply an engine crank handle which is a bit odd as I cannot imagine any truck having these fitted all the time, anyway it is too short so this was lengthened using polystyrene rod and glued into place.
The wheel hubs were glued into place along with the fuel tanks and with that, the chassis was done. Very likely there were fuel lines coming from the fuel tanks but I could not find any reference for these so I left them.
Up next is the cab and this is pretty straightforward with a very good fit of parts. I found that you could build the cab separately which is good as it means you can paint it before fixing into place on the chassis. The cab doors can be positioned open but I glued mine shut, the glazing for the cab fits perfectly and can also be left off until the painting is finished.
As mentioned earlier the cab completely encloses the engine so it is pretty pointless adding any extra detail as you won't see it. Measuring 15mm from the top, the mesh panels at the front were bent to shape using a 'Hold n Fold' photo etch bending tool.
The end result - ready to meet chassis with cab...
The rear cargo bed is the last subassembly to do and again the fit of parts is good, the only downside was the deformed jerry can racks and although I managed to glue them together they don't look that good and really need replacing with etched items.
The jerry cans themselves definitely need replacing as they feature 'steps' where it looks like there has been mould slippage and removing these steps also removes a lot of plastic,
The frames for the canvas tilt are very delicate and I found the best way to clean them up was to just leave them on the sprue and cutting them off after.
All the parts for the tilt were cleaned up and glued to the cargo bed and left to set. The horizontal bars would be better replaced with polystyrene rod however for review purposes I used the kit items (parts D5).
The vinyl tyres were cleaned up using wet and dry paper as it is the only way of removing the line of flash around the circumference. Again I would much prefer model companies to just mould these in polystyrene rather than vinyl.
Final details such as the headlights, wiper blades, mirrors were glued into place and that is pretty much it. Regarding the headlights, you have a choice of shrouded or none shrouded ones so it's a fairly safe bet that shrouded type would apply to WWII vehicles.
Conclusion
This is quite a nice kit with a very good fit of parts and it's good to see British trucks finally appearing in injection moulded form rather than expensive resin.
Like all kits it will benefit from some etch, mainly to replace the jerry can holders as mentioned earlier, aftermarket jerry cans and some resin wheels wouldn't go amiss either but as you can see from the pictures even built straight out of the box it builds up into a nice model.
There is some confusion with part numbers in the instructions and some areas are not that clear as to where you stick parts so it's worth spending time going through them in case I missed anything.
Definitely worth getting if you like trucks.
Andy King
Thanks to the people at ICM for sending us this kit to build up for you. More info on this kit on the ICM Website
