"The Hunters GB" (2/1/08 to 6/1/08)

PANZERJEAGER wrote:

Zim complete, now onto the tools and joining the hull. PANZERJEAGER

Wow, its looking really good PJ!!  I'm not usually a fan of PE zim, but it looks excellent so far!  Any problems attaching the PE zim panels?

Thanks bufflehead,

I started using P.E. Zimm. about a year ago on a Jadgtiger.  I had all kinds of problems with it "poping" at first.  

Now I wash the plastic rough it up with scotchbright and re-wash, then I use 15 minute epoxy to glue it down.

So far, (knock on wood) no more problems...

Try it!, you might like it.

PANZERJEAGER 

bufflehead wrote:

Looking good dupes!!  I've got this one in the stash, but it will be some time before I can get to it.  I'm curious...will it have a monotone or camo paint scheme?

Heh...hate to tell you Buffle, but you should probably just leave it in your stash. It's by far the weakest Italeri kit I've ever done...real soft on detail, bad engineering with respect to the contact points of the sprues, fit is...uhhh..."iffy". I have the Zvezda version of this same TD in my stash, I probably should have stuck with that one and continued the theme!

I'll be doing the monotone desert scheme, have a couple of chipping techniques I wanted to test on this guy.

Wait until you see a pic of this next to the ISU-152 - hard to believe they were manufactured for the same purpose! 

dupes wrote:

you should probably just leave it in your stash. It's by far the weakest Italeri kit I've ever done...real soft on detail, bad engineering with respect to the contact points of the sprues, fit is...uhhh..."iffy".

I have a Tamiya Semovente. Is that any better? 

Wow, this is the "better" available kit? Huh. I mean, it isn't horrible, but it's not exactly top shelf either. Need to seal up the decals, then it's time to weather this little b*****d.

My attempt at figures (bad Italeri figures, I might add) has not gone swimmingly (can you say bad department store mannequins?). This may result in a CLOSED hull rather than throwing those big hatches open. Heh.

I can't wait to see that bugger weathered dupes. Sounds like it's been a bit of a pain, which I'm sorry to hear. I think you've nailed it though!

Dale 

tigerman wrote:

One bonus for the Tamiya kit is a top-mounted MG. Does the Italeri kit come with one?

Check out the sprue shots in this review:

http://www.ipmsusa2.org/Reviews/Archive/Kits/Armor/Italeri_35_Semovente_M40/.htm

 it would appear so. Don't be tempted to 'borrow' a Bren gun or a MG34 if it doesn't. Remember that at 7.7mm, Italian ammo is just slightly too large to fit these guns.

Cheers,

Chris.

Tigerman

One of my mates has convinced me to do 1:72 WW2 gaming using the Flames of War rules. As such I am building a series of 1:72 Armourfast and Italeri wargaming Russian armour models (quick assembly type).

I would like to know if it is ok to add a Armourfast SU-85M as a concurrent build along with my Dragon SU-100? I may even throw an Italeri ISU-122 into the mix as well.

These kits are basic and a little chunky but look the ticket once painted and on the wargaming table. 

Cheers

Mike 

madmike wrote:

Tigerman One of my mates has convinced me to do 1:72 WW2 gaming using the Flames of War rules. As such I am building a series of 1:72 Armourfast and Italeri wargaming Russian armour models (quick assembly type). I would like to know if it is ok to add a Armourfast SU-85M as a concurrent build along with my Dragon SU-100? I may even throw an Italeri ISU-122 into the mix as well. These kits are basic and a little chunky but look the ticket once painted and on the wargaming table.  Cheers Mike

Sure, I'd like to see it. 

tigerman wrote:

One bonus for the Tamiya kit is a top-mounted MG. Does the Italeri kit come with one?

Oh yeah, it's got one. Decided to throw the mount on, but leave it bare. Detail (as usual) is a bit soft on the gun. Although, if I end up nixing the c**p figs, I may throw it on to spruce up the top of the hull a bit. 

Some excellent work here from everyone. I'm especially inspired by the Semovente. Just the sort of uphill struggle I enjoy. I'm sure there's one in my LHS...

For most of the last week, I've been waiting for first white glue, and then Mattcote, to dry and cure on the Nashorn. Today, however, I've at last been able to apply some touch-up coats of paint, and do some minor detail work. All that remains is some light weathering, which I hope to do tomorrow and Monday, and then she'll be finished.

Here are a couple of piccies of the completed fighting compartment:

and here's some of the touch-up work on the outside of the front of the fighting comparment:

I'm hoping that the final weathering will remedy any remaining problems here.

I'd been wanting to add a tow cable, and thought I had suitable wire cables in the spares box, but they all turned out to be too stiff. Therefore, I chucked six lengths of 5 amp fuse wire in a pin vice, and twisted them, using the vice as a sort of miniature rope walk. I then added towing eyes from a Tamiya Pz. IV on-vehicle equipemnt set to each end, painted it up, and this was the result:

Final piccies to come.

Cheers,

Chris.

Extratech do an MG 42 in 1:72 for the Revell/Matchbox StuG IV. It's a 3-part PE sandwich. Fiddly, but quite nice.

chris hall wrote:

http://www.ipmsusa2.org/Reviews/Archive/Kits/Armor/Italeri_35_Semovente_M40/.htm  it would appear so. Don't be tempted to 'borrow' a Bren gun or a MG34 if it doesn't. Remember that at 7.7mm, Italian ammo is just slightly too large to fit these guns.

Chris,

Bren = 0.303" = 7.696mm

MG34 = 7.92mm

I also get confused over which rounds are rim-fired vs centrefired, and rimmed vs rimless ammo, i.e. I know the differences but I don't know which armies used which. If only it was as easy as mortars, where, apparently, they're all 81mm except for Russian 82mm.

A search of Squadron revealed a number of 1:35 machine guns, including a 0.50" cal set from a company called SOL from Korea. SOL! what were they thinking?

No Itie ones, though, and no Brens or Vickers.

On offer were 0.30", 0.50", MG42, Japanese and Russian (dubious how much of it though, as part of a Verlinden KV-1 update set)

Brews wrote:

Chris, Bren = 0.303" = 7.696mm MG34 = 7.92mm

Yes, Bruce, so while British and Yank 0.303 ammo will fit in Italian 7.7mm MGs, unless you want excessive barrel wear and considerably increased risk of jamming, Italian 7.7mm ammo won't fit in British or Yank MGs.

BTW, I always thought that German MGs and rifles were 7.62mm - never assume - check!

Cheers,

Chris.

There's a couple of Bren guns in the Tamiya 'British Infantry on Patrol' set, as well as the Airfix Multipose 8th Army and British Infantry sets (albeit 1/32), for starters. And there are more injection moulded MG34s and MG42s in both Tamiya and Dragon figure sets than you can wave a krill at. Resicast do a set of two 1/35 Vickers guns:

 http://www.sbmodels.net/Resicast.html

Italian MGs might be more of a problem though, but these guys:

http://www.rjproducts.com/Catalogs/Historica_Production/Historica_Production.html

do a resin 1/35 Breda Model 38 - check out item HP2014. They also do a number of other sets of Italian small arms.

Academy, of course, do a very nice US Machine Gun set:

http://www.cybermodeler.com/hobby/details/aca/detail_aca_50cal.shtml

with both .30 and .50 cals, and all the (WW2-style) ammo boxes and accessories you could possibly want. Check out the .50 cal here:

In 1/72, look in Italeri and Revell Germany figure sets. There are some very well-moulded weapons there. Here's an Bren gun from the Revell Germany 1/72 8th Army figure set:

Cheers,

Chris.

 Got a few hour's of free time today and I was able to get the gun and sheild pretty much completed.I added a few little detail's here and there.I've been toying with the idea of of having the gun in full recoil with a spent shell case coming out of the breech.If I do decide to do it I'll have to mess with the suspesion so it look's like it's rocking back.Still wondering how I'll do the muzzel blast.Anybody got any idea's.

    The gun sheild brace's looked to thick so I thinned them down by carfully shaving them with an x-acto.Here's a before and after shot.

    All put together.There are a few pin mark's in the gun shield that need to be filled but other than that it's pretty clean.

   I detailed the gun site a little by adding the rubber eye cup using a piece of paper that I coated with super glue and after it hardend shaped it using an x-acto and a round jewler's file.In the last pic you see the mp 40 mount with snap clip's added,there's only four but I think I must have made at least a half dozen more that ended up on the floor.

    Hopefully I'll be doing the paint by friday.

madmike wrote:

Tigerman One of my mates has convinced me to do 1:72 WW2 gaming using the Flames of War rules. As such I am building a series of 1:72 Armourfast and Italeri wargaming Russian armour models (quick assembly type). I would like to know if it is ok to add a Armourfast SU-85M as a concurrent build along with my Dragon SU-100? I may even throw an Italeri ISU-122 into the mix as well. These kits are basic and a little chunky but look the ticket once painted and on the wargaming table.  Cheers Mike

Hi Bruce, 

nice work so far! How about opening one of the gas mask canisters up, and putting a bottle of schnapps in it? Not all that uncommon, apparently.

As to the muzzle blast, the conventional approach is to use cotton wool tweaked out to make it look thinner and lighter, and then sprayed with thinned acrylics to give the blast effect. Some people put LEDs in the muzzle to reproduce the flash of the charge going off. You'd probably want to support the cotton wool to stop it drooping. Florist's wire is good for this, being both thin and strong.

Cheers,

Chris.

chris hall wrote:

Some excellent work here from everyone. I'm especially inspired by the Semovente. Just the sort of uphill struggle I enjoy.

Is that an admission that you liked the Severn Class Lifeboat after all? What about the 1:72 Concord? Are you a fan of Roden kits? Maquette?

dostacos wrote:

madmike wrote: Tigerman One of my mates has convinced me to do 1:72 WW2 gaming using the Flames of War rules. As such I am building a series of 1:72 Armourfast and Italeri wargaming Russian armour models (quick assembly type). I would like to know if it is ok to add a Armourfast SU-85M as a concurrent build along with my Dragon SU-100? I may even throw an Italeri ISU-122 into the mix as well. These kits are basic and a little chunky but look the ticket once painted and on the wargaming table.  Cheers Mike  oh PLEASE take a shot of them on a gaming table

I will

Got a lot done on my 1:72 Dragon Su-100, finished building and primed the Armourfast Su-85,  built two Armourfast T-34/85's and primed an old Hasegawa 1:72 MiG-17PF.

The Armourcast kits take little time to build.

Cheers

Mike