E10 by Trumpeter

Andy,

I didn't get any of those fancy winterketten tracks with mine; should look awesome.

Look forward to the results.

Steve they didnt come with mine either, some text was missing from the post about the tracks. ive put it right now.  I was blown away with your build of this and wanted to copy it but thats not really on so i wanted to do something else with it that might be a little bit different than doing it straight out the box. Ive got a long way to go to get to your build standard but anywhere close to yours will do for me.

Bodge

 Ive got a long way to go to get to your build standard but anywhere close to yours will do for me.

Now that's ah 'elluva compliment from someone that won all those prestigious awards at NEWMOD  2010.

Your Humilty is legendary my friend....................

Thank You!

I'll certainly strive to uphold my quality; lord knows,

I surely can't promise QUANTITY.

Bodge those are one more sexy lookin tank and i'm sure all of us are very glad to see you back too.

Now lay it on us

Tony Lee

Oh boy, you got my eyes glued to this.  I haven't bought any of Trumpeter kits... so how do you like it compared to DML and Tamiya because it is only what I have?  Keep in mind I returned to my hobby not long time ago so I am catching up with you guys.

Cheers Tony and Steve.

Hi Andy, the Trumpeter kits are very good quality in my veiw, Details are usualy very good. Price is cheaper than Dragon and i think they are as good as newer Tamiya kits if not better. They usually have Photoetch included aswell . So i will give them the thumbs up. You just need to watch out for seam lines on a lot of the parts, i.e. tool handles and the like.

Moving on with this post, i have installed the engine grills and the PE grills. When fixed i ran a handle of a medium brush along the grills to dend them as if they have had a bit of abuse by things being put on them and foot traffic. I also cleaned up and fixed on the fire exstiguisher and the rest of the tools.

Next up i asembled the machine gun and the periscopes and fixed these on along with the towing eye,s on the front of the vehicle.

Nice to see you back at the bench Andy, of all the E-series the -10 is my favorite. Looking forward to seeing how this one turns out!

This should look great when you're finished bashing it up. You can also use a little creative license on the camo scheme too.

~Brother, can you spare a set of tacks ? Lots of choices--still not good enough

Very enthralling build Andy--love to see what you make of this--even if I thought no one was ever going to attempt to build this thing after Steve mastered it \

and hey...wait a minute... a step by step from you ----that's awsome .  

Bill, Tigerman and Indy, its allways a pleasure.

Well ive been a bit busy with this today.Right i will tell you my thoughts on what i have decided for this little beauty.I liked the originality of Steves version so i wanted to do something original too. I have decided to add the anti aircraft grill screens to the rear of the vehicle but i have portrayed them as being on hinges and they  can be doubled up as close combat shields for grenadiers when in the upright position.Along with these i have added some corner shields to the outside of the screen shields, this will give any grenadiers a marginal amount of protection from rear attacks on the vehicle.

I decided to remove the plastic MG shields and the plastic vision port shield and relplace them with brass ones from the kit.(i didnt notice them before)

Next up i put together the jack which is a tiny kit of its own and Trumpeter have added some nice details to this with the handle well reprecented along with the brackets to hold in place including wing nuts,Nice.Then i finnished the rear will the exhausts  and tools.I did glue the top to the rear pannel then had to cut it open again as it will be a lot easier to paint with the top off.

Now as i put wide tracks on this i needed to alter the position of the side skirts as the original place would have snagged the tracks. Trumpeter provide plastic and PE versions of side armour which was nice but i went for the PE type as they are a bit more refined and a fraction thinner. I had to bend just the end of each bracket and fix in a position half way down the original location to get the clearance i was after. It saved having to make longer brackets.

I opted for only adding three plates on the side instead of four as i just prefered the look. Its like the look of the side of the British chieften and centurion,looks good to see the rear of the tracks for some reason. As this is a paper panzer i thought i could make a few changes if i wanted too.I made the arial from thin brass and added the towing cable from picture wire.Trumpeter provide plastic cables but also include just the eyes for making your own,another nice touch. I made towing cable brackets out of some brass from the frett sheet  and thats about it .I havnt glued the rear cable to the eye as i need to remove the top for painting.

Well thats about it for construction and i dont know about you guys but i think it looks pretty neat.

Well yeah I guess you could say it looks pretty neat.  I would say it looks pretty killer but who am I to just say what leaps out of my mouth when my eyes bug out.

Tony Lee

Nice work Andy, especially with the PE....Great to see you back building....we missed you!!!

Rounds Complete!!

Wickedly cool Andy. I like that idea of the armor/screens on the deck.

 Have to agree, the added armor looks cool. This being a paper Panzer you can surly take some artistic license with it as long as it looks functional . And that definitely looks functional.

Innovation....

Ain't it great?

Cheers you guys, i dont know if im gonna paint it just yet? i might take it to our show soon as is.

As a paper panzer you have a lot of lattitude and the additional plates will definitely make it stand-out Andy. While some go crazy with the "what-ifs" at times, I think your additions are well within the realm of possibility for sure.

Cheers Bill, i think it is a credible possible aswell ,just using what they already had to a multy use . I must say this was very enjoyable to create. the only part that was tedious was preping the tracks.

Bodge

................the only part that was tedious was prepping the tracks.

Heh heh, you oughta try trickin' out that suspension.

Looking forward to seeing what camo scheme you go with on the little E.

The Jabo shields look cool, like the hinged idea.

Karl

Looking cool Andy.

Terry.

Ok, here's a big gap in my knowledge base!  I know almost nothing about the E series.  I read a short Wiki article, and it looks like these six (?) tank designs would have been a serious improvement and engineering simplification, but that's about it.

Were any actually produced?  Did they see combat?  Are there any surviving examples?

Thanks to anyone with more info, either books you can recommend, or links!

Chris

Steve why do you think i didnt do it , i thought about it but couldnt get my head round it. Credit to you mate.I would like to know how you achieved it though.. What do you think of my alternative. I even wanted to copy your arial but thought it wrong to copy.

Terry and Karl, thanks.

Kilroy have you tried lookin up on the net?

  I am sorry I totally missed this Mate.  Adam led me by the nose to your post tonight and I must say WOW!!!

Don't worry 'bout the head, just watch the fingers and the superglue.

 I love the tracks. If I'd had some of those (I have a set, NOW) I would have used them instead of what you see. By the way, I used some one-piece band tracks from another kit.

What you are workin' on here is  "innovative" and more importantly, original. The paint will tell the story.

Hey, you wanna do the aerial -  I got no problems with that; build it the way you want Andy.......... I would.

 You've heard this before, I'm sure:

"Imitation is the Sincerest form of flattery."

OKAY, it's just a walk in the park so don't panic.

1. I cut the preset height adjustment tabs off each of the suspension units.

2. Drilled out the attachment points of the suspension units so I could insert an aluminum rod (I don't remember the size)

3. Drilled out the hull for the rods to go through.

4. Installed the front axle and carefully superglued the front bogies to each side making sure they were indexed properly to each other. If you were careful they should be tight but still swivel.

5. On a plate of glass I adjusted the front bogies height to where I wanted it using some kind of support and added a couple drops of laquer thinner to where they came into contact with the hull.

Let it dry a few minutes.

6. Next, do the very same thing with the last rear bogie unit on each side.  Make sure to adjust them equally to the height you want.

7. After that has dried add the remaining bogies in the same manner allowing them to just touch the glass while drying. Make sure they are ALL touching the glass while drying ("glass" is flat).

8. Now you can glue on the wheels, making SURE to watch the all around alignment whilst they dry.

(VERY minor  adjustments for vertical suspension tweaking - if needed - can be made after attaching the wheels and rotating them slightly as needed while the glue dries)

If you haven't gotten too far you might still be able to do this.......at the least you'll have a better idea of how to go about it next time.

'Bout time to go to bed..............

Fine..!

I'll follow tiil the end....:)

Cheers Steve for an insight as to how you did yours, i wouldnt go there now on this one and i respect your build too much  than to copy it. Im a bit like that   dont like copying straight out but i might borrow ideas for a different project in the future. As for the arial , again i dont copy, . I dont think your build really needs the tracks i put on mine as yours looks killer without them which says it all for your build. Im not sucking up , just pointing out what is A REALLY NICE PIECE OF MODELLING.  Actually i was a bit dispondant on this at the beggining as i thought where do i go with it now. I didnt like some versions i saw built as the box art, they didnt look interesting enough. Maybe it was the paitwork? i dont know but when i saw your interpratation i thought wow. So when i was able to put some originality into mine aswell i was as they say over here  Well chuffed, (happy). I dont know which route im gonna take paint wise yet. I will have to give it some serious thought. I dont want to mess up at this stage. Cheers Steve and yes its about time you pumped something else out on here for us all to drawl over. 

Thanks Andy for the high praise.

Yeah, the suspension was what got me interested in this subject in the first place.

A lotta your work is jawdropping to me as well.

Bodge

Cheers Steve and yes its about time you pumped something else out on here for us all to drawl over. 

I've got something in the works now. It's just a matter of keeping interest. I'm a bit fizzzed out presently.