OFFICAL NO AFTERMARKET Group Build

Randy i think it was something in the armor forum...

Supressionfire I have to agree I like your idea of opening up the tank and allowing the detail inside to be seen, cant wait to see what you do with it next.

Hurt feelings ? Ruffled feathers ??? Wow I must have missed something worth missing geeze.

oddmanrush

Suppression I'm glad you chose to open her up! It'll be nice to how you progress, especially since this thread has seemed to slow down a lot.

Indeed.

Something on the forums about added drama & hurt feelings had a few feathers out of place. All good as the boys need a few days (or the weekend) off. When all else fails push away from the computer and hit the hobby bench!

All ready for the tropical story, so there will be progress.   Rain + wind = hobby time!!!

Suppression I'm glad you chose to open her up! I've always found models that I can peer into a little more interesting. That said, I think you can still pull off a fine vignette even with the visible interior, almost like a museum piece or something! Also, I think most people understand a vignette to include figures. In some cases, I don't think its necessary. Here it would be your Hetzer that is the main element in the display, and opening it up adds more character, in my opinion. It'll be nice to how you progress, especially since this thread has seemed to slow down a lot.

right due to not being able to find the decals i need in 1/72 scale im gonna have to do it in 1/48. i need to buy another kit 1st lol

Julez72, oddmanrush.

Well it has been done, the cut-out is there in the shape of a cartoon 'think cloud' After pondering the cut-out I decided to enlarge it upwards as most viewers will be looking from above.

I was also thinking about a figure to be inside, it will add realism and highlight the small interior. The vignette I had in mind will be of 'Chwat' (nickname gave to this Hetzer by the resistance fighters who captured it) in the road block set up on Napoleon St. A giant spool of wire was on each side, I will just include the barricade items on the left side & leave the driver's side open to view.

If you search 'Warsaw Uprising' online there is a excellent site dedicated to the battle. Lucky for me there are 6 excellent reference photographs of 'Chwat'

Most of the resistance fighters wore German gear with their symbol painted in white on the front of helmets and / or a red & white arm band. They manufactured their own machine gun that looks like a Sten gun with the ammunition clip pointing down, without electricity! Interestingly enough the Germans suffered higher causality rates than the battle of France or Poland.

I really have taken a keen interest in remembering their bravery facing off against the oppressors full armaments with only small arms.

Jason, yeah what to do, add a cutout or a vignette....I saw a panther once in a pic a warprize on display to the public with a wrought iron fence around it... You could add a cutout and put it in a similar vignette maybe with a couple of civilian figures....just a thought

SuppressionFire, great looking progress. Your Hetzer's interior is certainly something to show off. I saw your other thread where you posed the question about cutting away a portion so you can see inside. If you're proud of your work, which you have every reason to be, I'd say open her up! If you place the Hetzer in a vignette, it'd be cool if you could get a figure inside the tank as well. I think that would be a cool way to show some perspective. No matter what you choose to do, you're doing it quite well! Can't wait to see it done.

Julez72,

Thanks for keeping me focused on the light at the end of the tunnel. 'Finished' sometimes is a place my models take to long to reach.

I am still rolling the idea of a 'cut out' side to view the interior better, maybe a flip of a coin will speed up the decision.

Pictures I found online show this Hetzer as part of a street barricade, Napoleon st. Warsaw. Beside it are two giant spools of wire and several items that look like big dust bins. Yes I plan on placing the Hetzer in a Vignette, research showed the tank was not lost due to combat but a indirect casualty when the post office on the street corner toppled over, most likely from bombing or siege shelling. 

*Note to self* Take more WIP pictures as my painting process is light speed compared to the building process.

Richard, man thats a fine peice of work on a classic kit, Very well done So whats next??

Jason, looking forward to seeing this one finished Are you adding this to a vignette like you did with the Sherman???

 Thank you all for your kind words It was great fun to do a spit in this scale.

Yes, the canopy was a bit of a let down when i took off the masking... Some paint residue (or sanding dust) accumulated on spots where i simply could not reach anymore. Tried to clean it as well as i could and was forced to leave it like that.... Reminds me of the hasegawa P51 i did for ast years NMF GB...

The red patches are decals. The decalsheets provide two sets; with and without black holes. I opted for " with" as if the plane just landed after a fight ...

And the kit in question is an old late 60's mold reissued by Revell (of germany) as a "classic" kit. Basically they fired up the old mold without any adapting, adding new decals with an option to build two different crates. Also in the kit are parts belonging to a seafire so anyone interested in a $30-ish big kit like this has quite a few options. Built two of their reissued Hurricanes in 1:32 too and had a blast every time. Not quite up to par with the more modern stuff but still building up quite nicely indeed

Richard

Kermit,

Great job on the Spitfire! I like the engine detail, which kit is it? (being lazy here, thought I would ask vrs flipping through 20 pages)

Ok, a lot shown in this picture. The road wheels are barren on the inside, the white row of circles will be cut out & centers punched out so there is a separation to paint between the rim and tire. 

The 75mm ammunition has a coat of Brass enamel with flat black tinted with silver on the tops. A coat of acrylic flat black wash will follow with the tips highlighted with graphite (pencil lead)

The upper hull has its base coat of enamel flat white, a light wash of ??? will follow, being careful to not darken to much. On the rear deck are the plates to be above the tracks. To be installed after the ammunition is loaded in the magazine.

The lower hull has painted components sitting in it. The seats are made with a punch set, the cushions show how close the sizes are on the Micro-Mark punch set. The transmission & drive line was sprayed with automotive dark gray primer, then a mist coat of auto light gray. Finally a acrylic flat black wash followed with a med. gray LIGHT dry brush. 

The lower hull needs a strip of styrene to hide the gap in the sides above the tracks, this will be done before paint as the upper needs to be complete to dry fit to get this accurate.

All this shown in 1 picture!

Decided to stick with the open hatches, thus the interior detail is finished accept the 75mm gun interior components and a few minor details like a fire extinguisher & maybe a head phone set or two...

Nice looking Spitfire Kermit! Great engine detail, great painting and fine weathering! The machine guns, did you mask and paint the red doping or are they decals? Very nice work either way.

Kermit yes indeed another fine build Richard I really the subtle  weathering you do on your builds, just the right amount. And the slight chipping on the spinner really stands out to my eye. I think your camo pattern came out perfectly as well. Really cant complain about anything other than the cockpit, cant really see it from the pictures, but I know what you did with it. Hope my old 1/32 P-51 comes out half as well. Thanks for joining us and I hope to see another build of yours here my friend.

Yes Julez (sorry bout the boo boo there), i just finished her and i am pretty pleased with how everything turned out myself considering the fact that it had lots of flash and some fit problems. I used my trusty tamyia weathering set to dirty up the wheels and add some exhaust trailing. Also drybrushed the exhaust with rust and also some white on the rivets.

Here is my first model with added pit detail. Not much of it shows but i know it's there

Took me longer than expected due to the wellknown builders block at times but now that she is finished i will give it a prominent place on the shelf

Thank you all for the pleasant conversation during my build and who knows i might scratch some more for the group....

Richard

Richard, sorry to dissapoint buddy but i've changed from the 109 to the Ar-196 floatplane...I have to do a freehand paintjob on the Arado Ar-234 nightfighter in the Early Jets GB...

BTW nice work on the Spit, camo looks sharp and accurate and the decals look snug...Are you gonna dirty her up???

Julez,

Goodie goodie... a 109. Really love the agressive lines and camo's on the schnitzels but those blotchy complicated camo's still scare me to death LOL. I envy you for your fearlessness sir.

Ok,....

Promised you guys some WIP pics....:

Must say that the decals were numerous and great in reacting to set and sol. The clear text only decals though really tend to silver. Tried my best to get rid of it and hope to get the last silvering out with the final dull coat i intend to put on when all is finished.

The aircraft depicted is Sqn. leader A. "Sandy" Johnston's mount from no.602 (city of Glasgow) Sqn., Westhampnett June 1940.

Cheers,

Richard

Randy, thanks for that buddy I've already made a modest start.....

Amazing work going on here guys, really very impressive to see the styrene gods showing how it's done

Just letting you know i'm still alive. Only have to decal the starboard side and that part will be done...been going slow. Probably will be able to get a WIP pic update in tonight or tomorrow...

Richard

Supressionfire the magazine looks good to my eye I think the extra effort will be well worth it in the end result.

Julez72 hey no problem changing your build. I will make the change for you post haste.

oddmanrush,

SuppressionFire, man your Hetzer is looking sweet. Love the ammo rounds and I love the ammo holders. Tell me, how did you punch the circular holes out of the styrene? I will need to invest in that tool some time!

Yes the holes were 'punched' out instead of drilling. The set is from Micro-Mark, good value for the $ and I will order more bench goodies from them. The styrene is very thin and I really do not think drilling would have worked unless extremely cautious. Next session I will take some pictures of the tool with its capabilities.

*Not affiliated with Micro-Mark, just a satisfied customer*

The plan now is to shorten the ammunition and possibly a side cut-out or window to view the interior?

Vette, sorry dude but i've changed my mind about my build, in an effort to save some $$$ i've decided that i'll build a stash model instead of buying another 109....So can you please change my entry to the Italeri 1/48 Arado AR 196 floatplane...I know I know I'm a PITA....Cheers..

Thanks for all the kind words fellows!

Nomad68, great work on the Calipso. Those mice were just testing your skills, you repaired that quite well. It's very cool to see a ship in this build, I normally don't venture into the ship forums so this'll be refreshing and enlightening!

SuppressionFire, man your Hetzer is looking sweet. Love the ammo rounds and I love the ammo holders. Tell me, how did you punch the circular holes out of the styrene? I will need to invest in that tool some time!

nomad68,

The Calypso was the exploration ship of the famous Jacques Cousteau? I always enjoyed his documentaries and in a way he was ahead of his time regarding ocean conservation & protection.

Had to show the loader's magazine of ammunition. The upper bracket is exactly 2mm longer than the lower! Oh well the 75mm ammunition towards the front of the Hetzer will not be seen from the open hatches. The roof was thinned to accommodate the ammunition. Probably a bit out of scale yet I remain happy with the results.

Because the upper & lower hull will be painted separately it was decided to model the interlocking armor on the front plate so no seam work will need to be done after it is together. Shown in brown plastic, torch cut mark detail was added as well.

Thanks everyone else with your encouraging comments, its good to know the effort is appreciated!

vetteman42

Wouldn't ya know it, found them in the last place I looked.

Happens all the time man ...

Nomad, thanks!

Supression; great work on the Hetzer! Tanks with no paint sounds just right to me. Somewhere I've heard that their (Soviet tanks of the time) lifespan was about a few weeks or maybe less.

German locomotives of the era was only primed and put to use.

Cem.

Suppression, I just never get tired of looking at your work, i wish i had your patience

Nomad, Well thats another first for me, never seen a mouse chewed model being built before

Plasticaddict I finally found the paints I need, and they are ordered from Squadron. Turns out I have been looking at out dated color charts it seems. This morning I spent 2 hours searching through the Testors paints at Squadron. Wouldn't ya know it, found them in the last place I looked. Here are the color names and Squadron stock numbers. I wish they could make their search engine work easier.

Underside Blue ( Russian ) # TS2123

Interior Blue ( Russian ) # TS2135

Supressionfirethose shells are looking great ! The ideas you guys come up with are amazing.

Nomad68 yup I would say you pulled the fix off brilliantly. I am really looking forward to the progress on your build.

oddmanrush nice job on the A4 love the paint work you do

plasticaddict Very nice detail on the mig

SuppressionFire I am learning lots from your work

I got some work done on Calypso this last weekend. This kit was given to me and in my friends garage the mice like to build and carve plastic also.

Easy fix here just filled with putty.

Little devils chewed up the aft deck pretty good

Also chewed off all the railings on starboard.

I cut out the bad areas tried to match the board pattern on deck.

marked sheet

Cut out and glued in with CA

There you have it looks better hope that was not too boring.

Damon

plasticaddict:

During my research for the MiG3 I've learned that the Russian have used almost any paint they have available especially for the interiors.

The same can be said for tank exteriors as well. During the siege of Stalingrad T-34 tanks rolled out of the factory firing into the front lines... with no paint!

Later on in this build my Russian heritage will show this theory in practice. Picked up a can of Krylon Panzer Dunkelgelb '43 (Buttercream) After weathering & sealer coat of flat clear it will look the part, hue is close, the tone is a bit light

Anyhow onto the Hetzer. A jig was made for the ammunition holders. Shown is the jig with 8 rounds spaced the same as the floor one. 2mm c-c. The strap is lead foil (wine bottle stock)

Next is it installed on the floor & side wall. (6 according to the Doog's thread) I like to paint different colors separately, the 75mm rounds are removable. The upper hull has the camouflage tie downs CA glued through the hull (I hate fragile details) Next picture is them cleaned up from the interior (some of which will be visible) The posts are to drop in the seats after paint.

The 8 round clip is for the upper wall on the gun side for the loader, the Doog's thread shows them on a angle, will file out extra clearance and install the rounds from below before the plates above the tracks are added. (Lucked out as this is the only to do so unless the clip is painted & installed later)

vetteman42

May I ask what paint you and color you are using for the russian blue ? I cant find anything even close to it.

Randy hi,

Thanks for your compliments!

The paint I've used for the pit is not exactly Russian blue. The brand is Molak and it is supposed to be Luftwaffe blue; but after I've used it on another plane I've noticed that it was way too green and way too dark to be RLM blue.

During my research for the MiG3 I've learned that the Russian have used almost any paint they have available especially for the interiors. And after I've seen the colour on a rebuilt MiG3 I said "That's the colour". I'm not sure if there's a number/code for the paint; I'll check and let you know asap.

Cem.