Build a Canadian WW II truck
My name is Ryan Gingras, I am a regular force member of the Royal Canadian Regiment where I am a LAV III driver at 1 RCR in the Canadian Forces. I have been building models for years now, and like most Canadian model builders I know how hard it can be to find a Canadian kit. The best way to own a model of a Canadian subject is to convert a kit or scratch build.
I have just finished a model of a RCASC (Royal Canadian Army Service Corps) 60 CWT truck, which was driven in WW II and many years after the war. I was inspired to build this truck for my Grandfather MWO. W.J. Blades, CD (RET’D), a veteran of UNEF 1 and UNEF 2, who was a 60 CWT truck driver in 56 TPT Coy a part of the 25th Infantry brigade replacement group for Korea in 1952. My grandfather wrote a book about his life in the Army, in which he served for 32 years of Regular force service and in the book he wrote about an exercise called “EX BUFFALO 3” which was held in Wainwright Alberta in 1952 to train the 25th Infantry brigade replacement group for Korea. He was then a young Private at the age of 17, he was a driver of the 60 CWT truck. I wanted to build this truck for him, and after hours of looking up old photos of the truck and getting alot of help from JP Morgan (thank you sir!) and alot of information from a website called CMP, "Canadian Military Pattern Vehicles, where Mr. Philip Waterman was also very helpful to me in getting all of the information I would need to build a RCASC 60 CWT.
My hope is to have it all laid out for the next guy in my postion who wants to build this model truck for his grandfather, or maybe you were a driver of a 60 CWT in the RCASC and want to build a model of the truck. But even if you have no connection to this truck its a great model to build and an excellent addition to any Canadian military collection.
To start my project I had to first buy a model kit of a Chevrolet truck, the 60 CWT’s were made by both Ford and Chevy in WW II, however the truck my grandfather drove was a Chevrolet model. To get the front of the truck, or “cab” I bought an Italeri kit, No.240 “Chevrolet Gun Tractor”, this kit is perfect because its a model of a Canadian WW II Gun tractor. Italeri made the conversion easy, the frame of the truck which is much smaller is molded to the front of the truck for the Gun Tractor version, however the kit has a seperate mold of all the parts you will need to build the front of the truck in it, the 60 CWT was a right hand drive vehicle, and the Italeri kit is already set up for right hand drive, once again this kit is the best choice for starting the project.
Conversion sets: With the help of JP Morgan, who runs a great website called “Maple Leaf models”, I was able to buy most of the parts needed to convert the Italeri gun tractor kit into a RCASC 60 CWT. The Italeri kit has a roof hatch on the left hand side of the truck already in the kit, however, you will need to buy the proper “Round hatch” as the Italeri kits hatch is square with a cover. The 60 CWT used by the RCASC in 1952 and before that date had a round open hatch with no cover. The round hatch can be bought from Maple leaf models, and the part number is MLM3006.
The most important conversion set you will buy to turn the Italeri gun tractor kit into a 60 CWT is the Frame Extension kit, which is again made by Maple Leaf Models, there cast resin parts fit onto the frame of the Italeri kit like a glove and I had no problems at all getting them to bond together. The conversion set from Maple leaf models even comes with a colour picture step by step guide for you to follow and shows you the proper spots to cut the Italeri molded frame in half to add in your frame extension. The conversion set from Maple Leaf Models also comes with the right length tailpipe that you will need and drive shaft. In total the Frame extentsion conversion set from Maple Leaf Models comes with 6 parts , Frame Extensions, drive shaft extensions rear and front, frame crossbrace, exhaust extension and exhaust hanger. The frame extenstion set number is MLM3005.
Spare tire placement on the 60 CWT is very important, as it is betweent the front of the truck and the bin where the tarp is in the rear. When it comes to the spair tire, the 60 CWT only had one, and the Italeri gun tractor kit does come with one spare tire and if your looking to save a little money there is nothing wrong with the tire, however, I wanted a nice clean tire with no visable split crack in the middle running up the tire as the Italeri kits tires come in two parts. So again, with JP Morgan’s help I was able to order part MLM3002 “CMP Spare Tire”, which is a cast resin tire, you get two tires in this conversion set. The tires are well molded and were great to add for “attention to detail” as we say in the Infantry trade. I feel that Maple Leaf Models conversion sets are great, and that you get an excellent product at a good price.
Lets talk about the rear of the truck, okay, this is where you’re skills are tested, you can do this the hard way, or the Ryan Gingras way, either way you’re going to get a 60 CWT. Some may wish to scratch build at this point. I did a little of that and alot of …cough…making American things look kinda like Canadian things, okay so what do I mean by that. My rear bin to my truck comes from an old Tamiya kit no.35218 U.S. 6x6 Cargo truck. I had the bin rear kicking around, so with the help of diograms from the website CMP (Canadian Military Pattern Vehicles) I was able to scartch build onto the rear bin of the American truck to make it into a Canadian 60 CWT. The most important parts are the tool box storages on both sides of the truck right in front of the read wheels. Some of the 60 CWTs used by the RCASC had jerry cans to the right of the tool storage boxes, I didn’t add them into my truck as I was working from a photo in my Grandfather’s book which had the truck he drove in 1952 and his did not have the jerry cans.
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Lets talk tarps, my tarp is simple to make, and I find that it looks much more realistic, what the heck is it? well its not plastic, this is my scratch building idea, the bows which are the “wooden” poles that hold of the tarp which you can see clear in this picture above show the frame of the bows well. My bows were made from tin foil cake pans!, I cut around the edges and molded them by hand to look like the bows, then I super glued the cake pan home made bows onto my rear bin. I let them dry for the night, and the next day I made my tarp, my tarp is simple and cheap to make and looks real, I used paper towl, I cut the paper towl down to size and then sprayed it with a mixture of white school glue and water, 60 percent water 40 percent white school glue (make sure you shake it up good) when the paper towl is wet with the glue water it looks really bad, now is the time to mold it and fit it to your cake pan frame, it takes about an hour plus, for the glue to dry but before you know it you have a realistic tarp…just hope the kids don’t spill anything for awhile…
Markings and painting: painting the 60 CWT is simple, most WW II service trucks were painted flat olive green. My grandfathers 60 CWT in 1952 was Khaki, I chose to make mine Khaki as I was building the truck my grandfather drove, at first I wasn’t happy with it as I would have liked to have used green instead, but you can have alot more fun with bringing out the details with your wash, and weathering. The tarp was either olive green or khaki, I chose olive green since my truck was khaki I wanted it to stand out from the truck, the paper towl tarp holds up great while you spray over it with your airbrush so don’t worry.
The markings were one of the hardest parts to find out , as you can see in the above picture, though not clear, it gives you a good idea of what the markings look like and there placement. I couldn’t find any RCASC markings for my truck, so I painted them on, the RCASC colours are RCASC yellow and blue, and are painted as such in a square yellow on top and blue on the bottom, in the middle in white is the unit number, for me it was “56” for 56 TPT COY RCASC. That goes on the left of the truck, on the right hand side, is a simple black squre in the middle in white is a number, I put a “4” on mine, for “no. 4 platoon” the number stands for the platoon. In white on both doors are numbers, 42-301 the 42 stands for the year the truck was made and the 301 stands for the number of trucks made at that point, so it was the 301st truck in 1942. .
Please email me if you have any questions at gingras@sympatico.ca in regards to the 60 CWT, or if you would like to see pictures of the finished model. Thanks for taking interest in reading this long forum, cheers
Ryan Gingras