My Panzerhaubitze 2000

[Guest]

practise,practise,practise lol

[spanner570]

Well done Mike, it seems my little 'Lecture' worked then! lol

Ron

[Guest]

Sorry to hear about the painting mishap! Sounds like you've got it under control though. Bit of a strange one, enamel reacting with a Klear coat... what did you thin it with?

Stuart

[Guest]

here is some pictures of a build I started in November last year, and recently decided to finish. The build is half scratch build half kit bash, as part of it is a 1/72nd scale M-60 tank.

Cheers,

Chris.

[Guest]

That is some cool stuff ,nice bash!

[tr1ckey66]

An excellent model - fabulous scratch build skills

Top man!

Paul

[Guest]

Great bit of scratchbuilding to make a pretty normal tank into something very special. Scratchbuilding really does get the imagination going and the creative juices.

[Guest]

great first build, nice to see the grease affect too,

[Gern]

Mornin' all.

Some of you will remember that Ron and Ian 'persuaded' me to buy the Hobby Boss 1/16 Tiger 1 at Cosford. Once I'd succumbed to their gentle persuasion, Ron went on to say he wouldn't mind seeing how it looked when built. I couldn't resist his big, soulful eyes and mournful expression so I've made a start.

The overall detail is very basic as this is a cheap static version of an earlier R/C kit. I'm quite happy with that so this will mostly be an oob build although I might replace the plastic cables with something better.

Most parts have some flash but there's been no problems cleaning them up so far. There are LOADS of ejector pin marks but fortunately a lot don't have to be filled as they're not visible. Unfortunately though, eight of the wheels have eight marks each and all of the track links have four marks each. The wheels were easy but the track links are taking forever. Each hole has to be filled and sanded and then some flash has to be removed from each link. They only take two or three minutes each - but there's 192 of the little b*****s so that's a couple of days work! The pictures show I've done enough links for one of the tracks so I'm half way through.

I have hit one major snag though and could do with some help. If you look at the pictures of the turret, you can see that there are HUGE gaps behind the front gun shield which allow you to see inside the turret when the gun is raised or lowered. I haven't been able to find any pictures of what should be behind the shield. Can anyone provide pictures or suggest the best way to fill these gaps please?

Gern

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[tr1ckey66]

Hi Dave

About the turret gap. It looks as though you're missing the turret frontal armour completely. Are you sure there are no more parts? If not simple plastic card should fill that just fine. The site I directed you to has a break down of how the frontal armour is fitted on the real vehicle (essentially just 2 bars of armour fitted top and bottom of the front of the turret).

You're right about the origin of the kit - it's definitely not the Tamiya moulds. Looks crisp though, even if the ejection pin marks are a pain.

Looks like a mid Tiger 1 version judging by the wheels and cupola. Have you decided on a scheme? There are a few mid machines in 101st Sch Abt in Normandy - 3rd company I think. Anyway, there's plenty of time to think about that whilst you're fixing the wheels and tracks!

I've the Tamiya RC Panther in the stash which is seriously calling out to me. Going to develop that into an early G machine, again from Normandy. I've procured all the bits I need just need the time now!

Anyhoo, best of luck with the build, I will be following this and if you need any help with research give me a shout I've got stacks of info.

Cheers

P

[Gern]

Hi folks. Bit more progress with this.

I finally got all the track links filled, sanded and primed. I started painting today using Vallejo Model Air 072 Gungrey. This is a metallic finish which may turn out to be too light - I may have to use a darker grey.

However, when spraying I noticed a problem. I gave the paint a really, really good shake as I know this is needed for metallics. I mixed it with Vallejo thinner at about 60 : 40 Paint : Thinner and added just a couple of drops of Liquitex retarder. When everything was gently stirred in the cup of my A/B I blocked the nozzle with some tissue and sprayed gently back into the cup to help mix the paint even more. Everything went well for about 5 minutes and I got an excellent finish with complete coverage in one coat. Then my A/B stopped spraying. I noticed that the paint had thickened quite considerably - it was so thick that it would not pour out of the cup. Obviously no use continuing so I gave the brush a really good clean and started again.

Thinking that maybe the Liquitex had somehow reacted with the Vallejo products, I only used the Vallejo paint and thinner in about the same ratio as before and started spraying again. No good. After 5 minutes or so the paint had thickened again to the point where the A/B would not spray. Any ideas what's going wrong?

In the meantime, I've started measuring the gap in the turret front ready to cut some plasticard to fill the gap. I've got a strip of paper which looks about right for the top, just need to check the fit before cutting and gluing the card. If that works, I'll repeat for the bottom.

I've also got to work out how to hold the gun barrel in the centre of the tube that comes out from the turret. The barrel is designed to slide in from the front and be held in a hole in the plate at the back of the 'breech' with a steel pin inserted to stop it sliding out again. The hole at the back and the steel pin fit so loosely that the gun barrel can be moved up and down without moving the mantle. I think I'm going to have to add some putty inside the 'breech' to hold it in place.

Gern

PS Notice my hi-tech holder for the parts I'm spraying. A little fiddling about with the number of links to get a firm fit on the cardboard tube enabled me to paint both the inside and outside of the track links.

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[Guest]

Dave this thing is going to be a Monster! The tracks are looking great,keep it comin'!

[mossiepilot]

Coming along nicely Dave.

Looking forward to seeing more.

Tony.

[Guest]

this is looking good so far Dave.

Scott

[spanner570]

Hi Dave, nice to see my 'suggested purchase' taking shape.....It seems to be giving you a run for your money mind!

I'm sure you will nail it mate, just take you time and keep smiling.......

Ron