Don, that is looking really smart.  I think the spare tracks are fine, and don't necessarily have to be the exact type associated with that vehicle.  It's possible the crew cobbled them together from a burned out derelict for the purpose of extra protection - or are they from a variant that never set foot on the desert sands?

Couple nice 8 rad builds going on.  Dan, key eye on those weld seams, I've never noticed them in period photos.  Makes sense though as there is no sign of bolt or rivet construction - so now you've got me looking out for this on any future armour builds - thx!

regards,

Jack

That looks fantastic! I think I have this one in my stash, too. M/TB379

Yeah, very nice work with the PE there Don, and I love the sand bags.

Jester:  The sand bag armor is a resin kit from a company called Panzer Art, based in Poland. Check Ebay if you are interested.  Nicely detailed set and not all that expensive.  Shipping is a bit much, but if you combine with other products, it becomes reasonable.

Jack:  Aach!!,  too late; I already cut them off.  I think that I can easily replace them with the kits indy tracks and a couple of tow hooks from my spare parts box.  Stay tuned...

MT379:  the kit goes together very well.  But there are errors in the instructions that I have tried to note and that are mentioned in published build blogs.  Check these out before you start.

gamera:  thanks for your comments.  I also think that the sand armor adds a little something unique to the model. 

Don

Neat idea. Thanks. What gauge wire do you use for 1:35? The stretched sprue worked ok. It took a bit of time since I haven't done that in awhile and I forgot that there isn't much time between - oh, cool it stretches nice to melt down! The wire sounds like a much better idea.

Um, sorry to say I have no idea what gauge it is. I just grabbed it when I was cleaning up after the electrician. When I pulled the insulation off it looked to be about the right size just by eyeballing it.

Guess I'm a little bit of a pack rat, when I see something that might be useful for modeling, and better yet trash and therefore FREE I tend to grab it and toss it in my spare parts box.

i use some fine brass rod i picked up at LHS; about the same gauge i use for antenna. have a piece of evergreen strip styrene that is thick enough and the right width for making most handles.

Hey Bish and Don - I use Evergreen Plastic Styrene round rods, use knife to scrape it down half way then cut strips to fix. Use Liquid Tamiya glue to bond and softly plastic styrene then use knife to create weld seams.

Don - I used the kit's barrel, its one piece and seen fine. Reviewing b/w period photos (June - August 1942) crews were using sand bags and spare track for extra protection.

Armor86

Interesting technique, A86 -- why not just use half-round rod? I used flat strip in more or less the same technique for welds on a Tiger for Steel Cats '08.

Cheers, M/TB379

Don, you're just flying through that P III. Looks wonderful so far.

i had weld seams on an LCM but i thought they were mold lines until i sanded them off. i taped both sides to the width i wanted, puttied, washed down with acetone and lightly sanded when cured.

Hi everyone. I updated the front page with the badges and taxtp's autoblinda under the wall of fame for completed builds.

Really nice work there Wayne- love those weld seams.

Seconded, mate, those are brilliantly done welds! M/TB379

Those badges look great Eric!

Very nice badges!  You won't disqualify me now since my build precedes Monty's arrival ...   Granted the size of the badge would make be difficult to spell out Auchinleck...

And thanks to both Armor86 and Wayne for the weld line tips. 

Don

Jester75

Those badges look great Eric!

I can't take credit for them. Jack (jgeratic) was kind enough to provide them.

Yeah, those badges look great Jack!

Btw: Jack threw together a fantastic badge for my Japanese GB, just beautiful work.

And the Crusader is painted, hopefully photos soon - just before I hit her with some gloss and slap on the few decals.

Tiny bit of progress, just peripheral, I lined up the exhausts and mufflers of six projects and tackled them today, this involved roughing the surface with the liquid cement trick, then stippling sanding dust into the surface to roughen it further. Next will be a darkened red-brown base coat, and finish off with MiG pigments, and brush paint any bits not meant to be heat-denatured. The Tamiya Pz. IVD main and secondary mufflers are treated here, plus the muffler from the Italeri Jagdpanzer IV L/70 and four others.

Mike/TB379

Great work guys!

Eric, Those badges are cool looking.

If all goes right today I'm planning to get a base coat on my Bishop today. Just need to prep a few parts for painting.

David

I still haven't started. 

Great badges, I really like the Rommel and Monty one in particular.

Cheers

Tony

tigerman

I still haven't started. 

So, .....,  .... Start!!! 

I spent the day doing one of my favorite things...., grinding sprue stubs off of road wheels.  Even though it's PzIII, there are 44 wheels in all (including spares) and may have 4 attachments to sand...

To break the monotony, I glued on a few extra parts such as the sand bag armor...

I really like this resin kit, although it probably should be glued prior to adding the lights and klaxon.  I couldn't get a snug fit without potentially breaking off those parts, so I ended up cutting a few sand bags off, sanding the edges smooth, and fitting the parts to this build.  There is still room to add the accurate tracks between the front sand bags (to be added later).

Even so, there remained a gap between the sand armor and the placed armor plate which I filled with Aves expoxy putty. Hopefully, this will look like the sandbags themselves, but if not, maybe some sand spilling from the bags.  The bags on the turret fit fine.

I also added a jerry can rack to the rear from the Dragon PxIII ausfN kit.  In addition, the nicely coiled tow cables just looked too orgainized for an active war zone, so I left one cable coiled; the second will be added later in a position as if it was used and hastilly stored.

To be more realistic, I wanted the attached cable to sag in between its attachment points; this took a little CA glue and patience.  I like the outcome, don't know if it is really visible in this photo.

The antenna also had a molding error in my kit, so I scratch built a replacement with brass parts from my extra parts box and plastic rod.

I'm pretty much at the point to prime and start painting, if the weather will just warm a bit...

Don

tigerman

I still haven't started. 

You're not alone Eric-I did get started on another project today (end date is much sooner than this GB...) and was thankful that I was able to find most of my supplies after the move-I know that I brought everything....the only question is what box is it in?

Hope to start on the Sherman sometime in Feb-I have been watching and some great work being done here.

Yes, few excuses now other then total apathy. it's been a long year already. Maybe by next week I'll start up.

Question: What are your Tamiya paints of choice for an Afrika Korps vehicle?

I'll be most interested in the comments on this as I'll be doing Tamiya acrylics on this project (as on most). The shade will be the one the Bovington museum used on their display Pz. IV many years ago -- though whether it was accurate I'm not sure. It'll be mixed...

M/TB379

Don: Keeping looking better and better! Thanks for posting photos pre-primer so we can see all the PE and other extras you added.

Eric: Wouldn't sweat it, I'm a little embarrassed here that I never finished anything for my Japanese GB II I started a year ago...

There's a number of Tamiya mixes suggested by modellers, but I found these two interesting:

 RAL 8000

Muster 10: 4xXF4+2xXF52+1xXF60

or

Muster 21: 4xXF4+2xXF52+1xXF60+1xXF59+1xXF49

I haven't tried them myself  - any volunteers?  If they look close to the Model Master swatch (which is considered quite decent) then it should do, considering these vehicles were quite dusty.

regards,

Jack

Hey Eric wouldn't get to hard on yourself - it took me a year to finish the Tiger Tank last year in the Steel Cats GB and I've not started my entry yet, Pz IV 'Ausf D' - still working on the Armor Car GB - 232 RAD 8 . Don the Pz III looks great ... I also had a few issues with my sand bag placement and did a couple adjustments / modified to get them position.

As far as paints go - Tamiya colors - I've seen numerous color mixes with Tamiya paints like Jack call out above. I'm currently using Vallejo or AKI paints. AK Interactive last year introduced a few different paint sets matching different WW II periods - one I have been using is Afrika Korps Colors (AK 550) and it provides all the colors seen from DAK's beginning to the end. It includes Braun RAL 8020, Grau RAL 7027, Gelbbraun RAL 8000, Graugrun RAL 7008, Dunkelgrau RAL 7021, and a second Graugrun Opt 2 RAL 7008 (lighter tone of green).

I'm planning on finishing the 232 RAD 8 in an early DAK paint and will primer it in German Grey, then apply AKI mix before painting Braun (RAL 8020) and then rubber / wear off to show through the original grey.  Armor86

Anyway, this is what I've got so far. Kinda sloppy mix of colour modulation and pre-shading but I think she'll look better when weathered etc.

Used Tamiya Khaki for the dark, Yellow XF-60 for the mid-range, and Buff for the light shade on top. Not perfect but looks close enough for me.