Mobelwagen Flak 43 3.7cm Complete 09-01-08

Luftwoller wrote:

Anealing, your Lycraliness, softens the metal. Enabling it to become more maleable. (Bend more easily without snapping after 2 or 3 bends back and forth). As for the armor world. A good example would be say the front fender of a tank. Aneal the thing then you can model damage a lot more finely and lovelier. ...Guy

brass tends to work harden very badly. When it does this it will crack or just split in tight corners with a minimum radius. Annealing brass has been a standard issue with target shooters for years, but their needs are somewhat different than ours are. A dead soft piece of brass is of no use in a rifle, bit it's the opposite harm to us. 350 to 400 degrees seems to be the ideal temp for annealing brass, and then let it "air cool." Where as in a rifle round you'd cool the brass in ice water. Temp sticks are cheap, and can be had in several different temperature levels. If the brass gets too warm it will cause it tobe usless

gary

Dupes,

As the others have pointed out, the purpose of annealing is to make it easier to bend/shape/curve brass or metal parts. It takes the "springiness" out of them and, with brass in particular, can turn it as soft as butter. You don't want to anneal every piece as many need the rigidity or stiffness quality retained to produce a sharp bend or to support weight for example. It's perfectly suited for taking a flat piece and producing a curved shape such as a muffler guard, mudflaps/fenders, or cylinder/tube shape as often called for in many sets.

When I anneal I don't get too fancy...I just have a pair of locking tweezers to hold the part and then use the gas burner on the kitchen stove to heat it until it glows red (only takes a few seconds if that), then allow it to air cool and finally bend it to shape. The air cooling literally only takes the amount of time for me to walk from the kitchen back to the workbench.

wbill76 wrote:

Specter wrote: Did you have to do anything special to get the gun to fit in the hull or did everything just go together? The gun looks great by the way. Specter, The design of the base by LR is an exact copy of the Tamiya parts so no modification was required for it to fit. The only thing that is different is the diamater of the post, it's smaller on the LR part, so it doesn't fit into the polycap tightly and has a bit of wiggle room. That means it will have to be glued into a fixed position once it's painted instead of being able to rotate. Otherwise it was a smooth drop-fit. I actually thought I might have to do more work with it originally but the LR design is so close to the Tamiya parts, I believe they must have used the same plans/molds and just upgraded some of the details to achieve a better standard.

That's good that there wasn't any major work needed. Looking forwad to seeing it all done

Bish wrote:

wbill76 I am thinking of getting the LR gun for my Modelwagen. I also have an Eduard PE set for it, but its the older one that doesn't have a gun shield. As i don't fancy forking out for another Eduard set, do you think the LR shield could be altered in any way to fit.

The LR shields can be used with the Mobelwagen but it will take some delicate/advanced PE work to make it happen since all the hinge points are designed to be workable using 0.3mm lengths of brass and two-part hinges, so be prepared for that. It's possible to assemble it without soldering to get the main shield together as there are bracing parts that can help with that but it will be delicate in the end. Due to the way the hinges are designed, you can assemble it in the fully open/locked position that would be suitable for the Mobelwagen mount/  

wbill76 wrote:

Bish wrote: wbill76 I am thinking of getting the LR gun for my Modelwagen. I also have an Eduard PE set for it, but its the older one that doesn't have a gun shield. As i don't fancy forking out for another Eduard set, do you think the LR shield could be altered in any way to fit. The LR shields can be used with the Mobelwagen but it will take some delicate/advanced PE work to make it happen since all the hinge points are designed to be workable using 0.3mm lengths of brass and two-part hinges, so be prepared for that. It's possible to assemble it without soldering to get the main shield together as there are bracing parts that can help with that but it will be delicate in the end. Due to the way the hinges are designed, you can assemble it in the fully open/locked position that would be suitable for the Mobelwagen mount/

I would suggest getting the Griffon Models workable hinge and grab bar jig set since it contains 2 jigs with all the hole set for 0.2 through 0.8 mm wires for making pretty good workable hinges and the realistic grab bars can be made any length you want as well.

This weekend's update is small, relatively speaking, due to the fact that it coincided with my 12th wedding anniversary and, while my wife is very understanding and supportive of the hobby, that only goes so far!

Due to poor weather yesterday I wasn't able to get any painting done until today. While I did get a head-start on the track assembly yesterday, the progress there isn't sufficient enough yet to justify any photos, so this update will be light on pics as well. All paints referenced on Testor's Model Master Enamels.

The day's efforts meant spending a lot of time with the airbrush out in the garage and the first step was to lay down a primer coat of Italian Dark Brown. This helps insure all the bare plastic areas are covered and provides a solid foundation for the base coat. Once that was on and dried, I applied the base coat using a personalized mix of 80/20 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray. This is applied in multiple very thin passes, slowly building it up over the Dark Brown so as to avoid a single heavy wet coat.

Once that was on and dried, I started in with the camo pattern. I used Khaki for the olivegrun stripes first to set the framework of the pattern then applied the red-brown alternating stripes using a 50/50 mix of Leather/Military Brown. I then went back over the pattern using the previous 80/20 dunkelgelb mix to correct over-spray and fine tune the pattern. The final step was to hold the airbrush about 1-2 feet away from the model and then spray a very light overall mist coat of the same dunkelgelb mix to tie everything in together. The gun is still not attached to the vehicle base to allow for the later detailing to be accomplished.

At the same time as all that was going on, I also airbrushed the road wheels. All of the wheels were mounted on wooden toothpicks using small blobs of blue-tack poster putty to keep them in place. The rubber rim portions were sprayed with Flat Black and then a circle template, with the correct diameter holes masked off, used to spray the dunkelgelb hubs.

During the week I'll likely keep plugging away at the tracks and, once they're done, install the road wheels and go from there.

 Hello wbill76,

 The camo looks awesome. Thanks for sharing your "Secret Ingredients" for the paint mixes. I've gotta find one of those circle templates. It sure looks like it would make painting the roadwheels a lot easier. Top notch work with the paint! Thank your better half for being so understanding! Wishing you and yours the best, Happy Anniversary!

 Best Regards,

Fantastic paint job Bill. You mentioned in an earlier post, Youd paint it at the weekend if the weather was good!!! Arnt you from Texas? And isnt the weather always good there

...Guy

P.s Happy Anniversary

Mansteins revenge wrote:

Wow, Bill---that camo pattern is the bee's knees...you pulled it off nicely...this was the most commonly seen camo pattern seen on these "vans" according to my refs---that and just plain dark yellow...that AM barrel really sets the gun off IMO...what unit markings?

Thanks MR,  you're right about the patterns. It seems that they either were kept in plain dunkelgelb or given the "camo net" style pattern by the crews. There are many photos of surrendered Mobelwagens at war's end that show them still in the plain DG scheme but I thought variety was better in this case. As far as unit markings, all the Tamiya kit supplied were two crosses for the superstructure sides. This seems to have been a common practice too since the Mobelwagen's were crewed by Luftwaffe troops and attached to the various units they served with.

Mobious wrote:

The camo looks awesome. Thanks for sharing your "Secret Ingredients" for the paint mixes. I've gotta find one of those circle templates. It sure looks like it would make painting the roadwheels a lot easier. Top notch work with the paint! Thank your better half for being so understanding! Wishing you and yours the best, Happy Anniversary!

Appreciate the comments and my pleasure on sharing the paint mixes, it's something that I've started using more frequently due to the effects that weathering can have in terms of altering colors. Mixing up my own shades provides a lot more control over the end result even if it does require a bit more effort. I can wholeheartedly recommend the circle template approach, especially for a vehicle like this one where there were 36 wheel halves to paint! Thanks as well for the congrats on the anniversary!

Luftwoller wrote:

Fantastic paint job Bill. You mentioned in an earlier post, Youd paint it at the weekend if the weather was good!!! Arnt you from Texas? And isnt the weather always good there ...Guy P.s Happy Anniversary

Guy, there's a saying in Texas that "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute!". I live in El Paso which is way out on the western edge (literally!) and is a desert climate so most of the time the weather can be relied upon to cooperate. From late July through to September though is our so-called "monsoon" season where we get the majority of our annual rainfall. Saturday was one of those days and we had heavy thunderstorms and even some localized flooding to contend with. Sunday on the other hand was a very nice day...see back to my first sentence!

Agentg,

Thanks for the comments as well! My brother is an ironworker/welder in Vegas, so definitely know what you're talking about in regards to the weather there.

Sweet paint job! it's a realy cool patern. That weel masker thing where did you get it?

stick man wrote:

Sweet paint job! it's a realy cool patern. That weel masker thing where did you get it?

It's a drafting template that I bought online from a general supply store, don't have the link right off hand but can add it later this evening when I'm home. It was around $10 with shipping IIRC.

Mansteins revenge wrote:

From what I've read, these 37mm babies were pretty effective in knocking down low-flying a/c---more effective than the 20mm, which was an exdcellent gun in its own right...more American aces were downed by German flak than by other German pilots!!!...

It was a very effective AA gun to be sure...Allied & Axis #20 shows a "zwilling" mount that had two of them paired together for maximum firepower. IIRC the 3.7cm Flak was able to reach out to altitudes of 10,000 ft with lethal results.  

Thanks Panther!

Bish,

I have an extra LR barrel on hand and no kit with which to pair it up due to the fact that I'd purchased mine separately before the LR Flak kit was released. Drop me a PM with your shipping details and it's all yours!

Mikeym_us wrote:

Bill where are you going to get the ammo for the Flak43? From the looks of the LR kit it appears the ammo wasn't included.

Mikey, you're right, the LR kit only includes spent brass rounds for the basket. Fortunately the Tamiya kit includes 3 magazine clips which will serve nicely in that department (even though the instructions have incorrect painting colors).

wbill76 wrote:

Bish, I have an extra LR barrel on hand and no kit with which to pair it up due to the fact that I'd purchased mine separately before the LR Flak kit was released. Drop me a PM with your shipping details and it's all yours!

Well, what can i say, thanks very mutch for the offer. But when i said gun i meant the full flak kit that you got. I do have an Ostwind kit but i already have an Aber barrel for that. But thanks again, thats very genorous offer.

Thanks WN!

Bish,

No problem at all, I'll hang onto it in the spares box for possible future use.

Shoot Bill, if that barrel is really taking up too much space I'm sure I could find a good use for it...

Wouldn't want you to run out of room in your spares box.

Paint looks great, Bill! I can't wait to see you rust it, chip it, Oil Dot it, filter, wash and uber-weather it now....

Another one of my favorite kits--coming along very nicely!

Mikeym_us wrote:

Bill where are you going to get the ammo for the Flak43? From the looks of the LR kit it appears the ammo wasn't included.

Bill,

I just saw a 37mm ammo trailer for sale on Ebay awhile ago. It'd look right with that kit.

gary