PlasticPanzers.com Forum

So, as I said in the group build thread, I picked up this kit from ebay. It arrived today and I dug right in, so, here we go:

The box:



Box contents:



Sprues:











What I have accomplished so far:





It is going fine so far, but, man 'o man there are a lot of ejector pin marks. They are pretty much on every part. The worst issue is with the link and length track, two marks per link that need to be filled. I took the easy way and filled them with CA mixed with talcum powder. I need to go back and clean up what I filled but that will be for tomorrow.

Matt

Hi Matt,

Good start. I am hearing you on those ejector pin marks, my 25 pdr is the same

Funny thing is, 30 years ago or so, i don't remember seeing the pin marks. In fact i don't even remember seeing any mold limes to clean up.....

Great start on another old Tamiya kit - I'm seeing a pattern here...

In fact i don't even remember seeing any mold limes to clean up.....

I still didn't see those in ~2005 then I had an accident, almost died and was reborn as a "Reborn Rivet Counter" .

Will you be building the field marshal as well?


Best regards

Raoul G. kunz

Justin Wooding wrote:Hi Matt,

Good start. I am hearing you on those ejector pin marks, my 25 pdr is the same :roll

Me to but several of mine were shallow so I went the easy route and scarped away the plastic around them with a scalpel and sanded it all flush.

Have fun putting those tracks together. I never could get mine together right. I had a descent size gap between a couple of them.

Shawn

Raoul Kunz wrote: Will you be building the field marshal as well?

Raoul, I might well add him to the build. Overall, the Rommel figure is pretty nice with good detail. The rest of the figures... well, you know how if you don't have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all?

. . .



Matt

As with all the other Tamiya kits around here, that does look fairly good for its age!

Fun fact: Dragon's 250/3 was my first ever 1/35 kit. It was not a happy experience

Philipp

Philipp Gross wrote:As with all the other Tamiya kits around here, that does look fairly good for its age!

Philipp

My thoughts - Looking Good Mr P

Rob

Thanks gentlemen.

Some more progress has been made on this build. The main components of the interior are done. They build up as separate modules which then fit together in the hull. Here they are:

Engine:



Drivers compartment:



Radio area:



The sharp eyed among you, that is to say, everyone , will no doubt notice in the above the small additions I made to the radio. I thought about not adding any wiring/headphones and came to the conclusion I just couldn't do it, it would look too bare without. I did limit my materials though: the headphones are made from stretched sprue and copper sheet with lead wire for the cabling and a piece of styrene for the throat microphone.

The whole section looks a little messy right now. That is mainly due to a pretty bad seam line between the front and back halves of the radio pieces. The parts have the frame that holds the radio molded in which means the aforementioned seam is difficult to access because it is partially recessed. I filled it with CA and talc and scrapped it back with a blade once it was hardened. I will see how it looks under a coat of primer before I decide if more clean up is needed.

Finally, here are all the subsections together in the lower hull:



I am hoping to leave the subsections apart for painting as I suspect that will make things much easier.

Matt

Love that radio compartment Matt!

I think we can let you off on the scratchbuilding seeing as you used generic materials readily available in the day

Thanks Woody, I was a little worried I might get branded with a scarlet AM or something.

Matt