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Panzer IV D

stages 13 to 20

These stages deal mainly with the construction of the turret, exhaust assembly, and tracks. To begin with the cupola has to be assembled. This is a work of art. The vision ports are all supplied in clear plastic, and fit in a ring around the hatch itself. Then they can be displayed open or closed, and of course the hatch itself has full interior detail. I built the main inner ring with the clear blocks in place, and then before fitting the rest together I used a toothpick and some masking fluid to mask off both the inner and outer surfaces of the blocks. After painting later, the masking fluid would be easy to remove with another toothpick even through the smallest opening.

The stowage bin on the rear of the turret is detailed even on the underside of the lid, which opens up some nice possibilities, even though I had planned to have mine closed. The hasps on the lid were another story though……. This is not the first time I have tried to make these according to Dragon’s instructions. Take my advice…..don’t. The styrene padlocks are great! Use a 0.2 mm drill for the keyhole in them and they can’t be beat for appearance. There was no way however, that I could get the hasps to look right, or the padlock bar itself. In the end I again turned to the Eduard set, and the hasps in this are incredible. They look perfect! For the padlock bar itself I used a short length of fine copper wire. Stage 14 begins the construction of the turret basket. I was worried about this, since after construction it has to ‘lock’ into the guide, cemented earlier to the hull floor. However, if you follow the instructions carefully, everything just falls into place perfectly. Since the turret basket has to be fitted to the turret itself it seemed appropriate to paint it before attaching it. I gave it a basecoat of dark grey, before applying a light coat of a custom acrylic mix to represent red oxide. I then stippled it with masking fluid using a torn piece of scotchbrite, and also covered the entire floor with masking fluid, before spraying with white.

The construction of the main gun proceeded as per the instructions. Dragon offer a very difficult choice here, since they supply an aluminium barrel and a styrene one, unfortunately the metal one does not have rifling whilst the plastic one does. I elected to use the metal one anyway. The inside of the turret and the main gun breech assembly both received the same treatment with a dark grey basecoat, followed by a coat of white. I didn’t bother with weathering the inside of the turret since not much of it would be visible once the model was complete.

It should also be noted here that part J38 in step 19 ahould actually read J28. The chains on the smoke candle rack were again replaced with real chain, and the brackets holding the exhaust to the rear plate were replaced with new foil ones. Although there is a former included in the kit for achieving the correct sag of the track, I elected not to use this, instead I built the two required track lengths, brushed liquid poly cement into the join between links, and before they had completely set I applied them to the wheels. The tracks are right and left-handed, but you would need a magnifying lens to tell the difference between the two of them.