AFV Club Sd.Kfz251/20 'UHU' (Owl) 1/35

[Guest]

Looking very nice Grahem,it looks like well detailed kit,I noticed in the resin generator kit the parts for the night fighting equipment and it reminded me of an item that was for sale on e-bay a few years back ? Look familear.

[Guest]

This is looking good so far Graham, tell you what though if you can get a set of metal tracks for them, as with Tamiya AFV club seem to make the tracks a little too narrow.


scott

[Guest]

I am liking this very much indeed ( it looks a very interesting kit and if I may say so ............. I am liking your approach thread in conversing through the build stages.
Great progress by the way ( and if I remember rightly there is no round water tank in the front ( looks like a German gas mask tin ) I think you mentioned that didn't you on some other build, it was only used in ambulance versions? I may be wrong


Kind regards


Robert

Cheers Robert, you are correct about the water tank thing. Only a few kits include it, the old Tamiya Hanomag being one.

[Guest]

Looking very nice Grahem,it looks like well detailed kit,I noticed in the resin generator kit the parts for the night fighting equipment and it reminded me of an item that was for sale on e-bay a few years back ? Look familear.[ATTACH]151061[/ATTACH]

Is that the drivers night vision unit? It says 'protect against the sun'. Whatever, that is a great item for the colour match

[Guest]

This is looking good so far Graham, tell you what though if you can get a set of metal tracks for them, as with Tamiya AFV club seem to make the tracks a little too narrow.
scott

I don't think I will be getting metal tracks Scott, never have used them. AFV Club do a set of indi link which I may go for if there are issues but most of the reviews I have read do not have issues with the tracks and, although you cannot see it in the general pics above, they are very nicely moulded for any track never mind rubber band.


We will see later in the build, if there are issues then I will rethink it. Thanks for the heads up though.


Edit: just looked at the review/comparison for 251 tracks the only accurate ones in the four tested for size were Modelkasten which are accurate all round. The 1/35 scale width is 8mm, the AFV Club indi links are 7.9mm and I have just measured the rubber bands which are also 7.9mm. The metal ones are oversize slightly and, to be honest look a bit rough. Plus I wouldn't fancy drilling those pin holes in such small links. So, £26 for a set of Modelkasten from Japan? Nooooo, I would rather reduce the width of the three inner/outer wheels by .1mm if it is a problem.


Edit 2: Just out of interest, I have just measured the tracks on the Tamiya 'Hanomag' and the later kit that I have and they come in at 8.6mm which is about what the Friul tracks measure. As the scale size is 8mm to the real thing, this suggests that the Tamiya tracks are not narrow but that the wheels are too wide!

[Guest]

You're doing a good job on bringing this together Graham.

[Guest]

You're doing a good job on bringing this together Graham.

Cheers Ralph

[Guest]

OK, onwards and a little bit upwards


Started on the suspension then the drivers position and ended so far today on getting the first resin in. Must admit, this is the bit I had been eager to reach just to confirm, or not, whether it had been worth getting. Remember, I had been humming and ahhhing over this kit for years.....


Anyway, first up the pile of bits that need to go on to be able to attach the wheels.






this is where they go






And, this is what they look like in position






The parts to make up the two front seats






And not glued in but showing how they and the front panel look (minus the steering wheel)






Now onto the, for me, exciting part. This is the rear with the floor added and, apart from the lamp sticking up at the back, this is pretty much how AFV Club would have you leave it.






What is needed is a big lump of 8KW Diesel generator and a raised rear floor section. The resin rear floor is very thin, slightly warped and difficult to fit in by just gluing the edges to the side walls. So I decided to stick some plastic 'I' beam pieces in to give the floor rigidity and to help attach it at the right height. Looks a tad messy but it will not be seen once the bodywork is fastened up.






And here we have the generator all detailed up but not glued in. Also the additional stowage boxes that, again, are missing from the kit and a rolled up tarpaulin used to cover the lamp in inclement weather . There are some stowage boxes provided but not the correct sort and positioned in the wrong place.






As you can see in the mock-up below, the rear of this is going to be vastly different than AFV Club would leave you with. So, huge sigh of relief, the resin set WAS worth it.


The loose bit of resin you can see to the left is actually a radio unit that hangs down from the drivers roof between the driver and the radio operator. This thing was a superb exercise of shoehorning equipment into and existing vehicle.






Next up will be the lamp, a kit in itself, and then it will nearly be time to slap some primer on, in the inside at least.

[Guest]

Lot's of great work going into this Graham.

[Guest]

Interesting info graham will need to reduce the wheels on the next one, bit late for what iam working on oh well we live and learn. Very nice work that interior is coming along nicely.


Scott

[Guest]

On with the lamp..... oh, the lamp......


I said at the beginning that this was not an over engineered kit. Well, it isn't apart from the bl$%dy lamp. What were they thinking? There is a box, about the size of three match heads and it has to have two separate part nuts glued onto it!!! Come on, surely they could have been moulded on.


Anyway. So little done in reality but just over three hours to do it o_O but here we go....


The clear part sticking up inside the lamp body is the bulb/arc thingy, doesn't matter as it will not be seen but it is relevant as you will see later. Oh, and those nuts..... The clear part in the foreground is a parabolic mirror that has to be painted silver. It will never be seen again but I did as I was told, and yes, it also is important for later......






I fitted the bulb and painted the mirror and then attached the mirror, as per instruction order, to the part you see to the side of it in the above picture. You are then told to attach the pair of them to the rear of the lamp. Except the mirror will not go through. So, I had to detach the mirror, remove the bulb hangy down thing from inside, put the mirror in from the front and then attach the rear plate to the lamp body and the back of the mirror. After which, the bulb thingy could be replaced using long tweezers which, in my clumsy hands, scratched the mirror...... doesn't matter as it will not be seen.






I know I wasn't going to fit all the lamp insides but I just had this perverse desire to do so even though it was all going to be closed up in the end. You first glue in a clear lens into the inner front lamp cover. Then you attach the photo etch louvers. Naively, I used the tiniest drop of superglue to do this just on the very tips of the blades. All went well then I made a cup of tea and watched the superglue fumes fog the lens. Doesn't matter, it will not be seen.... But I did enjoy fitting the first four of many wing nuts to the inner front cover.....






A few more parts on the outside while the lens continued to fog. It is now starting to take shape.














This is partly why none of all that internal work will be seen. The outer lens is the big expensive infrared filter, the Wratten number 87 filter to all you photographers of a certain age. Now this filter is red but it is virtually opaque (to visible light but lets through infrared waves) and in real life looks a really odd black, not tyre black as per the instructions. So I painted it a really odd black and stuck it into its holder which was then stuck over, and hides, the fogged louver lens, hangy down bulb thing and the scratched mirror. Who said modelling wasn't fun? The domed disc in front of the lamp will soon be glued on to cover the odd looking black lens so, all in all, that is three hours of my life I will never get back. But it does look the part I hope you agree.














The above lamp, if you love statistics, contains around 75 parts.


Next up will be the stand to... err, stand it on.

[Guest]

Yes it does look good.


Sounds like you had a touch of AMS putting the lenses in

[Guest]

Yes it does look good.
Sounds like you had a touch of AMS putting the lenses in

I think that could be said for the whole of this lamp build Quite proud of myself though as I remember a time not so long ago when this would have gone in the bin lol

[Guest]

That's looking the business Graham.


Scott

[Guest]

I think that could be said for the whole of this lamp build Quite proud of myself though as I remember a time not so long ago when this would have gone in the bin lol

You should be proud especially as you said not so long ago it would be binned.


Now you're getting used to small stuff,have a go at a 1/700 ship with detail set