Gorby's Biddy Little Stalwart – Finally, something I can describe as an ACE build.
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1/72 ACE FV-623 Stalwart Mk.2 Limber
Not a lot of people know this…..I was born and still live in Coventry. Gasp!
Stalwart was built by Alvis in Coventry, at the time I was kid. I'd often see them driving down the roads or parked with Scorpion tanks outside the factory (which is now a retail park). Even though they were a common sight for most of my childhood, I always stopped and gawped in wonder. It was a thing of fascination to me, and still is. It also reminds me of a time in the distant past when Coventry used to be packed with factories which actually made things. Sometimes even things the rest of the world wanted to buy.
It was an 'interesting' build. The kit has many fiddly little parts, although surely, most rational people would assume that a small vehicle in a small scale will have small parts and in this case, every part needs to be cleaned up. Not so much the flash, more the very prominent mould seam line. There are some parts with a lot of flash to the point you don't know where the flash ends and the kit part begins. Maybe Ace should consider changing their name to 'Adequate'. The kit is quite detailed, only to be let down by the poor moulding and damaged decals. I replaced the steps on the side of the cab as those in the kit are very chunky; improved the headlights and searchlight and I added four airlines to the limber. Admittedly I made a few mistakes which I'm not going to tell you about because then you'll think I'm a mere mortal. 😉
The transparencies aren't very good and with skill and determination, I managed to make them significantly worse. I've kept weathering to a minimum partly because I suspect the British army wouldn't allow them to get too dirty, but mainly because I'm not very good at it.
Having said that I'm glad I built it as it's one of my favourite vehicles. I'd even consider building one in a larger scale if there was a kit which is affordable. Maybe I could mess the windows up on a bigger scale in the future. If the childhood version of myself would have been told that one day….one day I'll be able to actually build the Alvis Stalwart in 1/72 he would have said “Yeh whatever”.
