1:35 Celty - Wehrmacht

A sheet over a load

A rolled shelter half tied to a fender, thrown over the crates on a truck bed or stretched above the cab of a motorcycle is the detail that makes a vehicle a vehicle in service. Models of trucks always look empty out of the box and nothing puts that right faster than a piece of sheeting under which a load can be hidden. For that use this sheet is more pliable than any cast part.

Properties of the material

The manufacturer states the contents as color printing on fine paper with sides of nineteen and eleven centimeters. Paper of a low weight can be rolled into a thin roll, tied with a fiber and fixed with glue without growing thick. A casting of the same shape always comes out heavier than the scale allows and cannot be reshaped afterwards. A paper shelter half, by contrast, takes even repeated folding and crumpling up to the last moment before it dries.

• a roll tied with thread holds its shape and needs no further stiffening
• the white edge after cutting is covered with a thin line of dark paint
• a sheet stretched over a truck bed needs a simple frame of wire or profile
• once shaped it takes a glaze, pigment and a final matte varnish

Good service can be had from the sheet outside vehicles too. A covered pile of crates in a rear depot, an improvised roof over a field post or a sheet thrown over a captured gun are scenes that take a few minutes of work and add a layer to a scene that cannot be bought in finished parts.