"A Pint's A Pound"--Finished Kettenkrad with Pupchen

Looks excellent. Nice rust and camo. How were the links? They have come up from time to time as being difficult.

Cute little build Bill. Good job on the camo and the base. Did the figure come with the kit? You made this build look easy, thanks for the step by step. My one nitpick is that the seat looks too new. Other than that, great little Ketten.

Phroosh,

The first track was a beast, took over 2.5 hours for me to do it, but I learned a much faster way in the end and the second track took only 45 minutes. I went out and bought a magnifier specifically for use on this kit and it made a huge difference. Each track is made up of 43 links and 43 "feet" blocks, the links are about 2mm wide and the blocks are about 1 mm wide to give you a feel for the size.

Eric,

Thanks for pointing that out on the seat, it needs to look "sat on" to go with the rest of the wear and tear. The figure came from another Dragon kit out of my spares box but not too sure which one...an AT Gun crew I think for a Hummel.

Nice. Very nice little cutie! Great job, Bill.

Eric,

Btw, I didn't take the seat as a nitpick, Heinrich needs to leave his "mark" after all...so voila! Insta worn seat and thanks for the feedback.

Actually nitpick was the wrong word. More like observance. Now move that puppy to the shelf you lucky dog. What's next?

I like observance too...it was a nice catch and, fortunately, easily correctable!

For my next project I will be doing the 10.5 cm StuH 42 for the GB. I am sorely tempted to start on the T34/76 or the Leopold but I will remain disciplined and keep them within eyesight as motivation to complete the GB.

haha, that seat was the best!

Looks very nice Bill. Can't even imagine putting those indy links together? I've got my SWS halftrack treads I'm working on right now and they are kicking my butt. I promised myself I wouldn't give in though. I'd love to add one of those kettenkrads to my german collection but I don't think it would survive me assembling it. Thanks for sharing the pics, great build. semper fi, mike

QUOTE: Originally posted by tigerman Actually nitpick was the wrong word. More like observance. Now move that puppy to the shelf you lucky dog. What's next?

Careful, I will call the pun police if you keep that up!

I got the shivers when you told me size of those tracks Bill! I think I better try a few more of the larger indys first, I am still learning.

I love it! The overhead pic with the new seat really shows the weather and detail. Excellent. The base is real nice too.

Okay. here's the $64 question that no one seems to answer. I have the other Dragon kit and am moving on to it next (I started it but was missing a sprue which I now have), can you assemble the tracks on the bench, then paint and mount? Are they flexible when assembled, or do I have to paint them on the sprue (gasp!) and assemble in place.
I have a DML Borgward on the way that must be the same size and boasts indy tracks that are functional. I assume they are similar to this. I'm a little less afraid of indies after MTD but the two-piece per length still looks formidable.

to be honest i never would have caught the seat. you have done justice to this one. nicely done.

joe

wbill76, Great work.... I like the diorama. See now you can't tell that that wheel is off the ground! Keep up the work!

Very impressive-looking!
I also have a Kettenkraftrad in my collection but it is built from the Tamiya kit,
- how does this compare to the Dragon one?

Drawde, Mike (Renarts) built that way back and added some nice scrathbuilt pieces. You may have to ask him. If I'm correct the running gear and tracks are all one piece and the kit is a bit dated. Dragon's offers new molding and indy tracks.

Ausf,

I tried two methods for the track assembly, which I now call the "long" version and the "short" version because of the vastly different amounts of time it took to do them.

I always paint the track links on the sprues and to answer your first question, the tracks could be theoretically made workable but the parts are so tiny and the glue tolerances so tight, this is virtually impossible to achieve. I tried the long version in an attempt to make them workable and it didn't pay off.

Here are the two methods:

Long version: Assembled two links together with cap blocks with glue applied only to the cap block to allow the pins to hinge and remain workable. Did this for 43 links and 43 blocks. Assembled the sections of two links together to form one long track: Time: 2.5 hours. Result: Track was extremely stiff and difficult to manage placing on the running gear. Had to redo several links around the idler to get a good fit and virtually no workability. I removed the sprocket wheel completely and had to apply some considerable force to get the track to conform before placing wheel and track back on the vehicle. After about 3-4 hours, the tracks were completely stiff and set in place.

Short version: Adopted a three stage assembly process for this method. 1st step, assembled the links in groups of 3 by glueing them directly to each other in the pin holes. No cap blocks were applied. Did this for 42 links and kept 1 link back as the connector for the ends. 2nd step, combined two sections of 3 links into one section of 6 and applied the cap blocks. The assembled links kept a good bit of their flexibility as the process went much faster vs. the Long Method. 3rd step: Assembled 5 of the 6-link sections together and ran them around the sprocket and idler and upper road wheels for fit. Assembled the remaining 2 sections of 6-link for the bottom and connected with the single link and cap block to finish off the track.
Time: 45 minutes. Result: Track still very flexible and easily fitted around the running gear. No need to remove links or fight with flexibility around the idler or sprocket. After 3-4 hours, same result on workability as the long method.

As a further note, I removed all the pieces from the sprues and cleaned them up prior to starting either method, so the time involved was strictly for the assembly and fitting. The links were very clean using sprue cutters and I didn't have any problems with them fitting together. They are molded extremely well with the only drawback being they have 3 attachment points to the sprue for the links. The connection point is extremely thin though, so very easy to remove them as a nice tradeoff.

Phroosh,

When I first saw the size of the links, I knew this could be difficult if I wasn't careful. The kit comes with 92 links but only 86 are required and I, thankfully, didn't lose a single one to the carpet monster and still have all my spares!. After removing them from the sprues, I kept the links in one small glass bowl and the cap blocks in another small glass bowl and made sure the door was closed and the cats "contained" so as to minimize potential for disaster. I also carefully cut the sprues first to release the tension as they are fairly tight on their small frame.

Drawde,

I haven't built the Tamiya, so can't offer you a comparison. The Dragon was very nice in terms of detail, 317 pieces and indy links, with only one minor problem regarding the front wheel spokes being too short and necessitating a base, and as Kenneth points out, it can be hidden very easily! The finished Ketten is less than 4" in length, so some of the pieces are extremely small, but then the same would also be true of the Tamiya I would think.