Shell...;

Thanks for posting that museum pic!  I was just about to pop in and say something sassy like "whoa, there, Pards!" in the discussion of those tracks. I think it a cool topic and evidently somewhat warm for some !

The museum pic does indeed show tracks mounted "backward" - and some probably want to jump up and say something like "well, those clowns don't know anything".  Actually, the panzer IA and B and derivatives have been frequently "captured" wearing their shoes "backwards", and also just like the first (box) pic in this discussion - one running each way. Many of these are field pics from Poland and France...

What's really, really cool is that there is at least one pic around of one of those very early "ohne aufbau" training vehicles where crew trainees are apparently servicing or inspecting the brakes - and the tracks are mis-matched.  There is even one showing crew assembling tracks onto a vehicle - backwards!  There is at least one pic out of a "kleiner" similarly dressed... so one could suppose "Herr Oberst" either didn't know or didn't care...  I think it pretty delish indeed, given as many appear to think that A) tracks "need" to face the "right" way to actually function, B) that there were strict regulations to this effect, and C) that those oh-so-orderly Germans actually followed all of these regs and orders... What better place to fall off than in a training school!  

PS: On some German WWII vehicles, the direction of track MAY be more critical, as the links were dry-pinned and the pin was kept in place by a pin-knocker plate that would tap loose pins back in place as the track passed. So the PIN needed to be inserted from the correct side - but this may not actually be a link issue. This may have been adaptively addressed, as in the case of a StuG III G which had "winterketten" mounted with all links actually being "right-side" (so the lefthand track was mounted backwards so that the link duckbill extensions could stick out...), by mounting the pins in from the "correct side for the knocker" even when the links were reversed.  It is apparently true that very few III/IV or Panther (which had definite handed links) show up with wrong-way tracks.

See the Concord pubs series on (WWII German) Armor in Action - I found over 15 pics scattered among a few volumes showing odd or a-typical track arrangements on PZ 1. The Stug mentioned above is I believe that beast pulled very intact out of some marsh in Russia several years back - many pics of this vehicle have been around many threads and sites.

Just to "try" our larger "community" response in the show contest world, I am currently building a Kleiner" with counter-mounted tracks. I'm middlin' sure that there will be those who will shout "wrong!" and probably I'll take a in some shows! I'll be sure and provide a pic for those who are less sure of things and might want to actually know!

Cheers!

Bob

Tread, looking might fine there with the added details. Up to your usual standard of detailing!

Bob, one thing I've learned for sure is that when it comes to German armor in the field, it's virtually impossible to say "never" or "always" about much of anything. Definitely take the pic with you to back up what you're portraying at a show and you shouldn't have any problems. Some of the most enjoyable projects I've worked on have been recreating a specific vehicle from a photo...soldiers in the field are a resourceful bunch and can come up with quite a bit of "non-standard" variations if you go looking for them.

Progress to report, I've been working on the details for the interior. After careful thought and test fits, I've decided to display both turret side hatches open along with the commander's cupola hatches so that meant I needed to "fill" some of the blank spaces visible around the turret ring. I could have just blanked off the areas with sheet styrene but after digging around in the spares bin, I found some suitable parts that will fill in the space and give a semblance of the various bins/containers that were present in those areas even if not 100% accurate...they aren't highly visible once everything is in place but fill the bill nicely. In reality the sponsons and floor area were occupied by MG ammo and main gun ammo bins and other holders but given how little will actually be visible, I didn't go that far in the recreation.

The turret bottom itself also received some additional details...after looking at photos in Spielberger's Pz IV and Variants, I decided to re-work the commander's jump seat and opened up the molded-solid mount frames to look more accurate. I added a grab rail that runs vertically next to the commander's seat and up into the cupola using left-over PE parts from an old fret and some styrene rod. A small bracket was added to the bottom of the cupola to accept the top of the rail when it comes time to install it. Spares bin contributed a small box to serve as the flare pistol ammo holder and I added the missing headrest for the gunner courtesy of spare parts from the Wirbelwind kit I completed a little while back. Spare PE also provided a bracket for the commander's gas mask container, actual container to be added later after painting also from spares bin.

Then it was on to Steps 18 and 19 which deal with the turret top. The turret interior received some additional detail not present in the kit. I added a headrest pad for the commander from the spares bin along with a flare pistol and holster. The kit doesn't include the pistol port levers but that was corrected using parts E38 which I didn't use earlier on the hull crew hatches. Visible ejector parts were puttied and sanded down in preparation for painting. I also installed the turret side view ports with the clear parts...this is a little tricky as the ports themselves fit loose in their openings, so it made sense to secure them first and then add the interior details after.

The turret exterior details were added next. The turret side hatches include excellent molded pin detail but that makes the hinges too wide to fit into the actual hinges...so those had to be removed to get the hatches in place. I used poster blue-tack putty to mask the clear glass portion of the view ports and the hinges were glued in place in the open position. Kit-supplied pre-formed steel grab handles were installed with CA gel along with the PE rain gutter edges. The commander's bore-sight indicator was added as a single PE piece after removing the molded-on base even though the kit, bizarrely, calls for you to snip off the PE base and use only the PE needle along with the molded on mount.

Next up will be painting all the various turret/hull interior spaces before assembling the turret.

treadwell

 

 

 

 

Hey Treadplate you dont use decals ? You must have a steady hand to be able to hand paint the marking dude . Bring your model over tonight andi'll show you how to apply decals ..........................

 

Shell... I'll be right over.....toss me the keys to the '67..we'll make a beer run and pick up some micro set !

don't worry ..I've never been caught in a high speed chase....hope you got a set of 'Haulin' @ $ $' mud flaps

yer pal 

lead foot tread

[/quote]

Treadplate , no mud flaps on the El Camino man , it aint no pickup ! Never been caught ? You did that ona motor cycle as i recall ...................... Got plenty of beer already lead a$$ .

Treadplate , kinda funny when you think of a tank with "tamper proof " screw heads , How long would it take an enemy to remove those bolts and break into the inside of the tank ? Especially while the tank is rolling across a battle field ...........................

Beautiful detailing on your build Tread . Glad you caught that extra rivet on the front , i was about to point that one out ............................

Bob , i will admit i would have been one of those skeptics about the tracks being directional . This is why i came back to FSM , good bunch of guys with a lot of knowledge .

WBill , great work my friend .

Cool stuff Gents.

Hey tread... thanks for keeping a step ahead of me.  Now I can see what I still need to do

How did you do, or what did you use, for the casting numbers?  There are some PE that came in the set I have but no human could possibly work with anything that small.  I've tried and lost most of them.

Well i finally got time to get some replies posted, I  check in every day on my iPhone to see progress and its great.

Modeler 2 the little Renault R35 is beautiful looking at your kit beside the print you seem to have captured the look brilliantly.

Well done.

Carl I just can't say very much about your work with out repeating myself, excellent work on that old Pz. I between your save with the chassis and the paint work you have applied you truly are in my opinion one of the best at making the oldies into beauties.

Marc delighted to have you along and especially with a Char B............. I await your progress updates.

Castelnuovo the Protze looks cool. Can almost imagine it going over a ditch with the doorknocker in tow.

Rob the Somua, well its been a journey and well worth it, that scheme and all your extra work really make her stand out. Beautiful work.

WBill, Bill I hope you are enjoying your time here, not the usual pressures. I see your updates and think difficulf kit especially from the part count point of view but if it's anything like Cyber Hobbies Mk. IV ausf B then the overall quality should be excellent, I know you will apply your usual mastery to this one.

Terry

Wel lit's time for my own update now. While I have reference I must admit I got tired pretty quick and found cross referencing became laborious pretty quick as well. The kit is a beauty as Marc, Gamera and Bill Carls can testify.

i'm now at a comfortable stage where I am at last really enjoying this build as I keep in touch with Bill Carls on Facebook and I have to give him credit as I'm using Bill's excellent detailing work as reference for my own attempt.

I spent last sunday going through old sprues in the spares box looking for small numbers of all things to slice off and use as casting numbers..... the lesson for me is buy a set of Archer numbers.

I made my own casting effect from Humbrol filler 25% and Liquid ploy 75% stippled on.

Well on with my update.

Those pesky sprue numbers.

The screws are Rolex parts and still look too big, might need to source something else. A work colleague of mine sourced the screws for the T34 project some years ago, I can tell you that several thousand of these will not take up too much space and a sneeze could send them to oblivion.

I just textured the exhausts,

The build so far, those mudguards are not correct I will be using the smaller ones for mine.

Thanks for looking,

Terry.

Terry,

Nice progress on your Char! No worries about pressure on my end...I'm enjoying the build...my skills and approach are much different from what they were in 2006 when the E build took place. There isn't a wole lot different between the CH Ausf B and the DML Ausf C kits...most of the sprues are the same with just some very small differences since the same was true of the actual variants. I also have the D "super kit" in the stash that eventually will be made into a DAK vehicle at some point in the future...so this "reminder" of the intricacies of the Super Kit IVs hasn't put me off that idea either.  

Sweet Terry.

tread @ Marc      http://www.archertransfers.com/AR88027.html

 this is the link to the casting numbers I am using  ..it is for 1/16 Tiger II , but numbers is numbers and I happened to have one extra set  they are plenty small, but real nice 3D relief... hope they help!

tread

Thanks tread.  That pointed me to  AR88007 which is a nice sheet with tons of generic casting stuff.

Great Posts guys,,,,,,   awesome

Castel,,   the Krupp is sweet.   Like the figures along with the truck,,,,     nicely done!

Tread,,    your details are fanastic,,,,  super work.   And, thanks for the Acrher link too......

wBill,,    good gawd man,     you do fine-tune your posts,,,  your attention to the finer points is great.   A true guide to the build.     Always a great read and impressive work.

Terry,,   I think your cast numbers look brilliant,, along with the screws and exhaust texturing,,,  smashing

I've been having some fun with the pz I command interior (Verlinden set)...    the overall fit is not great, but not too bad.   I would rate it around a 5.5 out of 10.       Even with the flaws, I still am finding it fun.   I will try to get some pics up soon.

Back to WORK tomorrow,,,  hope you all had a nice weekend.

Bill

tread @ Bill

looking forward to your pics of your pz I !.... hope you had a nice weekend also, and nite nite... work for me too... 5:30 rolls around very early!

tread

I'm getting closer to finishing this one . Mounted the spare tracks , some tools on the fenders and more weathering .

Great work all around guys!

Man that looks great Carl. Never would know it's Italeri.

I agree Eric

Carl,,   you have taken that kit to a new level.......     great work!

Shellback

I'm getting closer to finishing this one . Mounted the spare tracks , some tools on the fenders and more weathering .

gol dern dag nabbit would you just do me a favor,through us all a bone and put the freekin turret on ?..... 

great work Shell ... for me personally, my favorite of everything I have seen you build...... no kiddin corndog....you da man... put the turret on !

Hey Eric , Bill and Tread thanks for the comments . i'm working on the two small headlights and the muffler now , when their done the Pz.1 will be finished . Hopefully the turret will be back soon .

Treadplate , the turret is in the machine shop getting the starboard barrel machined shorter ................might take a few more days of lathe work .......................

At last I can post an update.

First: very good works in the group and FAST, I´ll need to work a few more hours to catch on you.

I allways made german armour, but after seeing the chars I´ll  want to model some.

Not much to show, but here are my progress

I glued the hull, there is a nasty gap at the front, but is in the bottom, so I´ll glue a piece of sprue in the inside and fill the gap with epoxy putty.

Another gap is in the back...

Another poor fit was in the front of the hull, so I has cuted the piece in two for a better fit. (and do a lot of filing and sanding)

I´m working now in the wheels and the suspension, a lot of sanding too... and after the test fit of the upper hull, I has decided to make if from scratch.

That´s all for now (I'm working really slow, but I will finish it before december, there is a contest and want to bring it there)

Have fun!

Kveldulfr...nice start

Shell.... well let's keep it simple...WOW!.  Real nice.  Tough to make a single color look interesting but brother you nailed it.

A Bi bis question.... I am going to be doing one of the 3 color puzzle pattern schemes.  What is the base color? You know, for all the under fender like areas that don;t have camo applied.  The Tamiya website has you paint those areas green.  Is that correct?

Speaking of the puzzle camo...

The French were knid enough to have ahd very simple unit marking making it easy to depict vehicles that are not on the Tamiya sheet.  I will be doing one of the follow vehicles and it should be an easy task to mask that turret marking to AB.  Of course now that I have said that it will be way harder than it appears  I have a sheet of white dry transfer lettering from Archer for the name. 

This image is used for discussion purposes only.

Kveldulfr .... I'm surprised at the gap , i figured Italeri was the only kits with that type of flaw .

Wingnut .......thanks for your comment . Might get it done today , late .

hey Shell  :  )

this is from a long time ago  and I left out all the pics, but if you read it , you may get a laugh out of it.....it was while I was working on my T-34.... Machine shop work not so far fetched now !   LOL  ... hope your starboard gun come out the correct length!

hey you guys--" /> I have managed to finish the turret interior--I am getting close to being finished!-- the first few shots are the s-53 85mm gun-- the next shots are of the gunners 'jump seat' which I scratched from evergreen plastic,balsa wood, and pieces of leftover P.E. that I transmogrified-- lol-- the rest is pretty self explanitory,a few details added, the munitions racks (pain in my butt!!)ect-- then the turret interior from various angles--even one 'artsy one' with the drivers' seat area illuminated-- one area to note, I have used an aluminum barrel from Jadar models in Poland-- the barrel is real nice with rifleing etc, but the reality is, it is so big and heavy(compared to styrene) that when installed it actually tips the turret forward!--- my solution was to give it to my son-in-law,Bill, who works at Precision Aerospace in Seymour CT. the barrel was align bored on a lathe its' full length to lighten it up-- seems pretty good now!-- my next few steps will be to pick a political slogan for the turret sides,paint them on and finish up weathering the outside of the tank-- thanks always for looking, please, any comments welcome-- thanks guys--- tread

tread

Hi Kveldulfr : ) nice start  and welcome to the group build !

tread