1:35 Window/Wheels/Lights Paint Masks for Trumpeter Voroshilovets

The tractor that could haul even the heaviest gun

The Voroshilovets was the peak of Soviet prewar design in tracked tractors. It was built from 1939 at the Kharkov plant and was powered by a twelve-cylinder diesel related to the engine the medium tanks later received. It towed the heaviest pieces of artillery, including 200 mm howitzers, pulled out bogged vehicles and carried damaged equipment off the battlefield. The cab for the crew was enclosed and the bed behind it carried both ammunition and the gun crew. Not many were ever built, and those that fell into enemy hands served on under foreign markings.

Three different areas, three different preparations

The set deals with three places at once and each of them wants something different before the mask goes on. The cab windows take the least: do not touch them with bare fingers until the moment of masking. The headlights have a small diameter and the casting on them often carries a remnant of the gate right on the rim of the lens, so it has to be leveled and polished carefully, otherwise the mask will not seat all the way round.

The rubber tire band of the wheel takes the most work. The mold parting line runs along it and it has to be sanded smooth before the first coat of paint goes onto the wheel. A mask laid over a ridge that has not been removed creates a channel around the circumference through which paint creeps onto the band, and the mark is then visible all the way round.

The order is therefore fixed: first sand and polish, then apply the undercoat, let it dry through properly and only glue the masks onto a cured base. On fresh paint the mask grips so hard that it tears a piece of the surface away when it is removed.