StuG III F/8 Kursk GB DONE 1/12/08

Its glued in. Im going to paint it in place very carefully

First, congrats on the new baby!

Second, that looks like a really beautiful interior! Geez, I'll be really interested to see how the painting goes; that looks like its gonna be a chore all sqeezed in there!

Having worked with some resin interiors, I would have recommended that you try to lay in the bottom-most pieces, and then glue in the other parts after painting. I hope you can adequately cover all the surface! Then again, if it's only gonna be possible to look down the hatch, it mat be OK. Just be sure that when ou airbrush the interior, make sure that you direct the spray from the direction of the primary perspective, ie, from the direction that you will be looking in--that way you can be sure hat the paint will have hit what you will be lookng at!

Can't wait to see it!  Might wanna adjust the yellow balance in your photos though?

Your off to a promising start Eric. I love StuG's.

Congrats on the baby and house.

My only input is to check the dry-fit of the front upper hull plate - with the maintenance hatches - to the lower hull. I ran into a bit of difficulty with my original positioning of the two brake housings against the sides of the interior...they were too high and interferred with gluing the upper hull. After repositioning them as low as possible AND significantly sanding/thinning the underside of the upper hull, everything fit fine.

Other than that advice, everything looks just as I remember it. Excellent work!

Mansteins revenge wrote:

...so far, so good...looks like some quality casting in that set...this should be a very cool build since a lot can be viewed thru the open hatches of the StuG...isn't this the kit w/ winter ostketten tracks???

This is always something that comes up from time to time and can cause some confusion...the "winterketten" tracks are the standard tracks with the duck-bill extensions added. The "ostketten" were widened tracks without special extensions specifically designed for service on the Eastern Front and are a different design alltogether. The purpose of both was to increase the surface area of the tracks and decrease the resulting ground pressure of the vehicles on soft/muddy/snowy ground. Winterketten came first, ostketten later. This particular kit has "winterketten" tracks.

wbill76 wrote:

Mansteins revenge wrote: ...so far, so good...looks like some quality casting in that set...this should be a very cool build since a lot can be viewed thru the open hatches of the StuG...isn't this the kit w/ winter ostketten tracks??? This is always something that comes up from time to time and can cause some confusion...the "winterketten" tracks are the standard tracks with the duck-bill extensions added. The "ostketten" were widened tracks without special extensions specifically designed for service on the Eastern Front and are a different design alltogether. The purpose of both was to increase the surface area of the tracks and decrease the resulting ground pressure of the vehicles on soft/muddy/snowy ground. Winterketten came first, ostketten later. This particular kit has "winterketten" tracks.

...you are 100% correct...I should have typed "winterketten"...in fact, I am not sure there are any true ostketten track sets around???  I think the winterketten tracks look cooler anyway...

MR,

I think Fruil may have a set of Ostketten, but not 100% sure on that. Don't think any kits come with them as standard offerings though.

Check it out, more progress pics from Jester less than a week apart!! Must be a record for me lately, lol. Anyways, got some primer on the interior and it went on pretty good. I am currently working on the gun breech which has went together fairly well! Here are some pics...

First ones a bit blurry..

Thanks for looking, all comments welcomed!

Looks busy!--what will the interior color ultimately be--white?

Most likely i will use a light grey, maybe a gull to represent the interior. Gonna do some test shots with it and if I dont like it Im gonna use some Tamiya buff lightened up alot!

Jester75 wrote:

Most likely i will use a light grey, maybe a gull to represent the interior. Gonna do some test shots with it and if I dont like it Im gonna use some Tamiya buff lightened up alot!

Sounds like a plan!

Got the interior sprayed down. Decided to go with an almond color, Im happy with how it turned out as an interior color. Got some preliminary scratches and chips done and hopefully tomorrow and I can get some washes and drybrushing done in there.

Chipping and stuff looks a bit sharp now, but I plan on toning it all down. Gonna have to shoot it all with some dull before its over and I think between it and the washes and whatnot it should turn out decent.

Thanks for looking....

Finally finished this thing. It is far from perfect and I have fought it tooth and nail alll the stinking way, lol!! Glad it is done and off the bench and now it is time for a fresh start!

And here are some pics of it with its other brothers, its All in the Family right?.....

I know how you feel, but looks like the end result here is really worth it! A real looker.

           Steve
 

Thanks Steve! I think it really fits into the collection nicely with 3 different schemes and all. I am thinking of doing a whitewashed one a bit later to go with the others, just not sure what version, maybe a late G with the square mantlet.

You're right...the collection pics are the best!

Looks to me like you've got a couple of different dunkelgelbs on the workbench...is that the MM on the F8, and Tamiya on the pig-nosed fella? Amazing how much of a difference there is in those 2.

So, who's next? You've still got several variants missing from the lineup!

Dupes- actually the pig nosed fellow is painted in Afrika Mustard from a rattlecan. The F/8 is however in MM Acrylic Dunkelgelb

Ron, Bill, doog, thanks alot and thanks for looking!! I plan on having some additions to the family later this year!