Sd.Kfz. 7 half-track, post-war

[Guest]

[ATTACH]443523[/ATTACH]

Nope, that is not a picture from before the previous two Additional information that turned up with thanks to help over on Missing-lynx, proved pretty much all my assumptions about the seating area to have been wrong, so I took it all off and am going to start again almost from scratch.

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Three steps forward and two back :smiling:The cab looked good even if it was wrong.
Jim

[Guest]

Yeah, and this after making the dashboard based on photos, only to then discover I put holes in the wrong places so I can start again with that too … very productive day for modelling

[adt70hk]

Great work Jakko.....outstanding attention to detail as always.

[Graeme C.]

Great work indeed Jakko, shame you are having to re-do some of it, but you will sort it.

[Guest]

Thanks, and yes, it will get sorted — all I really need to do is make a new back panel, cut a bit from the front part (the very shallow T-shaped panel) and add some stuff between them. Oh, and add various details, of course, but I had to do that anyway

[Tim Marlow]

Bit of a grind that, but never mind Jakko. If you’d left it alone you would never be satisfied. This way you’ll know it’s correct, even if most of us would never know better

[Guest]

That’s the whole thing about this modelling lark, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter if anyone else spots it, what matters is that you’re happy with it. And I wasn’t with these parts because Dragon has made a mess of it by taking shortcuts they need not have done.

The Trumpeter kit appears to be much better, but makes a different mistake in the seats: it has a cut-off right front corner that (as far as I can tell) is only correct for the Sd.Kfz. 7/1 and -/2 that carried anti-aircraft guns. But correcting that is far less of a job than correcting Dragon’s parts.

Which requires this kind of work:

[ATTACH]443545[/ATTACH]

The sides are my previous effort which I could salvage, the rear plate is entirely new and the front one has had a gap cut into it, because the driver’s seat cushion was far thicker than the one for the passengers.

The edging around the side and rear panels appears to have been square cross-section tube, rather than strip as I has assumed, so I replicated it with three lengths of 0.25 by 0.75 mm strip. Partly, because I didn’t have 0.75 mm square rod, but more importantly because three strips are far easier to bend into a curve than a single, square one is. For the side panels, I first glued one strip along the edge, carefully but securely, and once it had dried, glued two more along the inside.

[Guest]

And here is the cab assembled from those pieces plus a few more:

[ATTACH]443548[/ATTACH][ATTACH]443549[/ATTACH]

In place on the chassis:

[ATTACH]443550[/ATTACH]

Earlier this afternoon, I realised that the passengers’ seat must have been removable: the fuel filler cap is underneath it. I think I’ll drill that out, because I doubt there would have been much petrol remaining in the tank

[Jim R]

Hi Jakko
Sorted! :thumb2:

[Tim Marlow]

Wot Jim said :thumb2:

[Guest]

This bit is sorted, sure Now the dashboard, other interior detailling, the engine, the load bed supports, the spare wheel carrier, the radiator and probably a few other bits still to detail. I was looking at my stash yesterday night to see what kits I have that I can just build that don’t need any real extra work, don’t have tons of photoetched bits, aren’t earmarked for major conversions, and similar … and found none Well, other than stuff like 1:76 scale Matchbox tanks.

[Graeme C.]

Coming together nicely, the details that are normally hidden really add to this build.

[Guest]

There are some more details to come that are normally hidden, but which you probably won’t expect me to have to build at all

[Guest]

Here’s parts for the load bed:

[ATTACH]443592[/ATTACH]

It needed new supports on the underside, which I made, based on the drawings in the Nuts & Bolts book and the instructions for the Trumpeter kit. I made them from some plastic strip cut on my chopper tool, which is ideal for this kind of work, as you can cut various bits all to the exact same length quickly and easily. Then I just had to assemble them into channel sections with a bit sticking out the side. They’re not well-detailed, but because they’ll be mostly out of sight, that doesn’t matter.

On the side panels, Dragon has missed nearly all of the details on the inside, so I added that myself from two sizes of plastic strip plus punched bolt heads.