Jakko’s 1:35 Dragon Sd.Kfz. 251

[Guest]

Fraught with problems. Dragon have not done a good job with those tracks. The Trumpeter tracks on mine are much better thought out.

The problem, really, is the size. On the Sd.Kfz. 7 I built earlier this year, the tracks are constructed in the same way, but because the links are a good deal larger, they’re far from as fiddly to hold and there’s more tolerance in the whole thing, so they went together much better.

I made some of this type up a few years ago for a 250. Hated them….far too fragile.

Those are slightly smaller, IIRC, but yeah … I can’t say I’m liking these.

Question Jakko….do you really need them to articulate? If you do, then carry on :thumb2:

I would like them to articulate to make installing and painting them easier, but I don’t absolutely need them to. It’s not like this is a motorised model

If not, then glue them together into link and length units and add the blocks afterwards…..it’s quite easy to make them removable when assembled.

I had been thinking about that too, but I would ideally want to keep the whole wheels and tracks off the model until after painting. I’m not sure I’ll be able to assemble the tracks fixed together in the right shape with the wheels still loose on the model, though. Perhaps some Blu-tack might come in handy to ensure the wheels stay on the model, though. I think I’ll try that.

just glue them up in sections.

If I do go this route, I think I’d prefer them as one piece rather than sections to be added after painting. But it might just be that it literally falls apart and I will have sections

[JR]

Any thing as small as that causes nothing but stress, the mouldings are never deep or clean enough. I'd have gone for Fruils,. ok they are expensive but at the end of the day you want the model to be as good as possible.

[Guest]

I’m getting these into shape, don’t worry After the glue had dried on the ones on which I had glued the blocks, I could clip them together with some care and/or force, and only a small number of pins actually breaking. This leaves a track that hopefully bends enough to put it onto the model when it’s done, so I’ve by now glued a block to each of the links and need to wait for the glue to dry again before I can proceed. A dull job, but once you’ve found a method that works for you, it’s not that bad. Largely because you can clearly see the end after a while

[Jim R]

Glad you've found an approach that works.

[Guest]

It works well enough that I finished one track today:

[ATTACH]465657[/ATTACH]

The rest of the model is also finished, thanks to the people over at Missing-Lynx, where I asked because I couldn’t work out what the support-like thing on the rear side of the bonnet is. From that question, it appears these are actually hatches for additional cooling as well. Since it’s not realistic to position it open, given there’s no interior to the engine bay and in any case, I had long glued the hull halves together, I just scribed the hatch outlines:

[ATTACH]465658[/ATTACH]

And with that, this model is almost ready for painting — just as soon as I build that other track, which is not easy on the thumbs

[Guest]

Ready for spraying now:

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[Panzerwrecker]

Looking good Jakko. What period scheme are you Painting it?

[Guest]

There is really only one choice, AFAIK:



Olive drab all over, with French military registration plate (probably one I can find in the spare decal box, intended for an entirely different type of vehicle).

[Guest]

I should really try and get this finished before the group build ends, don’t I?

[ATTACH]467726[/ATTACH]

My aim was to spray this at the same time as the JPK 120, but that’s not going to happen if I want it done this month, so this afternoon, I gave it a coat of a mixture of Tamiya XF-58 olive green and XF-55 deck tan (more of the former than the latter). It’s greener than I was aiming for, but it needs more painting so that will probably work itself out. I hope

[Allen Dewire]

That looks really good Jakko. Tamiya always sprays nice and smooth. Are you working from a color photo for the shade of green you needed? Or just the normal French green that they use?
I too, need to get going and finish my build, but don't think it will be in time...

Prost
Allen

[JR]

I shall be watching with interest on how those tracks are going to bend around the sprockets, though I'm sure you will either have or find a way Jakko .:anguished:

[Guest]

That looks really good Jakko. Tamiya always sprays nice and smooth.

Thanks, and it’s much matter than I had expected it to be.

Are you working from a color photo for the shade of green you needed? Or just the normal French green that they use?

I asked on Missing-Lynx which colour French vehicles in Indochina would have been at the time, and the answer was, paraphrased, “Could be anything as long as it’s olive drab/green.” They might have been American olive drab, but also French post-war OD (which was a bit greener and lighter), and it was also suggested the vehicles might even have been (re)painted in leftover Japanese paints. So I’m aiming for a believable colour as it might have appeared after fading under the tropical sun. And that fading isn’t as clear-cut as you might think, because, for example, American aircraft OD in the Pacific faded to paler versions, while Dutch KNIL aircraft OD faded to be greener than it was originally.

Which is all a roundabout way of saying I’m making up the colour as I go along, as long as it’s believable

I shall be watching with interest on how those tracks are going to bend around the sprockets

I’m not overly worried about that, if I’m honest. The tracks articulate well enough, and if they do break, I’ll just glue the links to the sprockets

[Guest]

Onwards and more or less upwards:

[ATTACH]467794[/ATTACH]

This is an overspray of Mig IDF green in most of the panels etc. to break the monotone colour and make the model look more interesting. Also, the tracks were sprayed with Vallejo German red-brown, which I had intended to do yesterday but only remembered when I was cleaning out my airbrush Spraying them today didn’t go without a hitch, the short form of which is that somehow, a part inside the airbrush got dislodged when I pulled out the needle to try and solve a problem with it getting a little clogged, and that resulted in me having to eventually clean out all the paint and strip and clean half the airbrush a couple of times before it suddenly worked properly again. No idea what was actually the case or how I solved it, but it seems to work again. However, I ended up brush-painting the last 5 cm or so of one side of one of the tracks, because by that time the airbrush didn’t want to at all anymore.

After the paint had dried, I added an overall wash of Mr. Aqueous Hobby olive drab (1) thinned with water, over the whole vehicle (and running gear, not pictured):

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The reason for this is mainly because I felt it was still too green and wanted a more olive drab colour. The wash achieved that, and also pulled the lighter blotches and the background more together, as well as making the paint look more weathered. Now it needs shading and highlighting

[Guest]

After the wash was dry, I added another, now for shading:

[ATTACH]467814[/ATTACH]

This is actually two different ones, which is hopefully visible here:

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The underside got a wash of Army Painter Strong Tone, thinned roughly 1:1 with water because I think straight from the bottle it’s too strong for use on vehicles. This went onto the lower hull and below all overhanging parts, including the outward slope of the rear plate and all the wheels except the outsides of the front wheels and the outer row of roadwheels. Everything else then got a similar wash, but from Army Painter Soft Tone, which is lighter and browner than Strong Tone.

When that had dried, I drybrushed the whole model with Italeri Verde Mimetico 2 to both highlight and bring back a bit of a green tone:

[ATTACH]467816[/ATTACH]

And then some more, lighter drybrushing with Revell Light Olive for more obvious highlights:

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[scottie3158]

Jakko, Really looking the part now.