Nice building projects guys!

Here is my progress for now



The frontplate is scratchbuild, the hooks are ready, the rear hull plate is updated,
stowageboxes are finished and the extra armorplates on the turret are placed.

Now i am going to paint the frontplate, hull sides and the turret sides
to make a ''rolled steel'' texture for creating more depth.

Regards,

Remco

Well done Remco!

I really like this scratch job

Hey guys,

The plastic parts are for 93% ready. Now getting ready to make the PE parts.
I don't like to soldering very much

Regards,

Remco

(Hi Mauro and thanks )

Man everything is kicking off now, I hate being away from the workbench lol. Oi, have a lot to catch up on.....

I agree Jeremy !!
I will pull my T-34 from Dragon out of the cardboard stockpile and start to work on it... but I need to push some Campaigns too... 'SoftSkin' & 'Korea'
I really need to shrink my stash, I got no more space for boxes or finished kits..damn.
Most of them are at my old house but since I'll be renting the flat next month I'll end up selling some stash .. it could be worse I guess.

Anyway Jeremy I saw on the news some huge fires in Texas , is everything ok near you ?

Hi Guys
Low and behold when I went to start my kit there was a newspaper from September 5, so i snapped a quick shot

and No I am not a Yankee fan, but this what my kit was looking like tonight when I wrapped up

John: So far we've managed to be lucky, but fires started springing up a few miles from us today and we're not sure what's going to happen. So far it's just been burning through undeveloped woodlands because the trees are so dry that they are basically firewood. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it will stay contained in the undeveloped areas. I'll let you guys know if things take a turn for the worse.

In the meantime I hope to see some more of your work in the campaigns soon

I hope it turns out ok Jeremy !
During summer we also have fires popping everywhere..
Hurricanes, floods,fires ... damn.
Can't we just have some quiet months away from problems, weather, crunch credit crisis, euro vs dollar wars and just take some workbench time to build our models...

I hope to finish some Campaigns for the next months to come , it's only way to shrink my stash and keep building on a regular timetable otherwise I'll end up with another Faun Transporter that's waiting for years...

Let us know how things turn out Jeremy !
Take care

Hey Jeremy,

Be careful there. I just see the news here about some fires in texas and hope you're oke buddy.

The only thing i come up, is to keep your house wet with the gardenhose and dig a fireditch arround your house. But yo already knew that i think...

I know guys, its ...

@ Jeremy - hope everything's OK at your end!
@ Remco - nice work (as always)

My intention was to do this build on a budget... it's quickly spiralling out of control - d'you think the Fed might lend me one of their printing presses?
I'm basically going to have to rebuild the rear plate - 20(!) ejection pin marks

I'll replace all of the bolts - not looking forward to it at all: the plastic is rock-hard and my power-drill is too fast, even on the slowest setting, so I'll have to drill the holes by hand
Added some rivet detail to the drive-wheel housings, tow-hook backing plates and mudguards:

I had made an approximation of the part that wasn't formed properly - only to find that I'd copied the wrong side

DIERK, I guess that's why some people say bad things about Italeri kits
Here is my progress on my KV-2, build is 95% complete minus the tracks

I have been told by the knowledgeable members on this site not to go with the gray as this artist impression appears

but to use 4-bo-green so here is what my KV is looking like

hopefully i get more done tomorrow

@ Sal- Hey Sal! i see you find your way to the campaign . Good base! looks promessing!
@ Dierk- Hey buddy I see you having some (real italeri ) problems. I am not going to argue how bad these oldies are . What a friend of mine does, is he makes a copple of ronds with his punch and die set (if you have this set) and glues the rounds in the ejector pins and then sand them smooth.
Seeing the quantity of pins only on the rear plate, i suggest you buy the dragon kit. (not everybody has a ''dragon buget'' i know)

Hmm, i see that i have to rebuld my boxes on the sides of my tank. The system to atatch the boxes was different to what i had in mind...

Regards,

Remco

@ Sal - I like your plan for the KV! Are you going to drape a flag over the top of the turret (to prevent friendly fire from the air)?
This Italeri kit is a bit of a schizo - some of the detailing is surprisingly well done and other bits are really horrible. I'm wondering if the hardness of the plastic might have something to do with the kit having been in storage for over 30 years?

@ Remco - my budget stretches neither to a punch and die set nor to the Dragon kit I've filled the ejector depressions on the back-plate with CA and as some of the bolt-detail is missing I've decided to replace the existing bolts as well - the difference between the moulded-on bolts and the replacement ones would be horribly obvious.

The cannon and MG barrels arrived yesterday - the cannon needed slight modification to fit into the mantlet. Red oxide primer arrived as I'm writing this.
Once the bolts arrive I can get on with re-working the back-plate - can't glue the hull together until that work is done. I've finished the commander's cupola from TAHK - I'm very happy with it, much better than the kit part and a lot less fiddly than the Aber PE replacements.

Picture of the dry fit. Main barrel is just held in place with a bit of Blu Tack, hence it's a bit droopy.

On a different note - I've subscribed to this threat but am not receiving any email notifications

Sal, Remco, Dierk .... Great start from all of you... WOW! your making some great progress already excellent stuff!
I have started the Panther but .... boy oh boy! the Dragon instructions are hard going (my 1sr Dragon build) I'm trying to build an early version and there's no real indication on some of the either or parts!!!! plus some of the diagrams aren't very clear.
Don't get me wrong it's a great kit but can someone needs to give Dragon the telephone number for the guy who draws up the Tamiya instructions! = please

@ Duncan - so far I've only built the one Dragon kit, but found the same - the instructions were more of a rough guideline - the number of mistakes was almost equal to the parts-count.
Are they asking you to drill the holes for the tools? If so, don't bother, just hold the hull up to a light and mark where the tools are supposed to go and snip off the locating pins from the tools (I found this out the hard way and ended up with huge holes that had to be filled )
Good luck, sounds like you need it!

After a bit more I've decided against fitting most of the tools. The most I've seen on pictures of captured PzKpfw IIIs & IVs were jack, cleaning rods and track adjustment tool - and often not even those. So it'll just be brackets and straps where the rest would've been.

cheers,
Dierk

I post up in the AFV forum asking for help and got this fantastic reply from Mike Roof, I'm doing the Panther Campaign next year and I may put this on that thread as it's very helpful!

Thanks for the tip about the tools, will keep another weathered eye out fotr that one too.... I reckon your right to leave off a lot of the tools as they would be fair game for any passing troops regardless of who they where!

@- Duncan- No problem buddy!! I have a lot of experience on dragon kits. They are unclear (if you not used to them) and offer a wide veraiaty of options (sometimes up to three different types of build ). We will guide you throu this. I got a nice panther book (the quest for combat surpremacy, the german panther tank ) for historical correctness

With helpfull regards,

Remco

Hey Dierk



No, not at all, unless sprues have been exposed to weather...(and of course I don't think so ) The only reason is that Styrene used to have a worse quality many years ago...

However you've been doing a great work indeed with that kit which is JUST 35 years old

I'm following your job and Remco's one

Hope to see soon them finished

Cheers and congrats

Hi everyone! Is there any extension?

If you look at the campaign page or the schedule thread, you will see that this campaign does not end until May 31,2012. Plenty of time before we need to talk about extensions.

@ Mauro - thanks for the info...and thanks for the compliment, but it's early days and there is still plenty of scope for the F*&% Up fairy to visit and my builds usually involve a few visits by that fairy - she's visited once already I'm slightly trepidacious replacing the idler-wheel mounting with the Aber PE bits - but the plastic really is

@ Burak - ? end of May 2012 too soon for you? Or am I misunderstanding your meaning?

Dierk

Ignorance was bliss My walk-around pictures of what were supposedly F2s didn't show the gunner's vision port at the front of the turret - I was about to consign the part to the spares-box when something made me go on a renewed search for information and I came across this: PzKpfw IV F2
Unfortunately, it didn't just show that the port was indeed present but also all the bolts, rivets, screws and welds that are missing from the kit
I had hoped to post a picture of the finished turret today - that's now not going to happen...23 screws, over 10 rivets and numerous welds are required first

A quick look revealed several blueprints for Panthers, KV-2s and T-34s as well - hope your discoveries aren't as shocking as mine: http://www.smcars.net/forums/tanks/
Ho Hum,
Dierk

Hi guys, I have been making some steady progress on my KV-2. The build is complete tracks were a little tricky but I think I have finally come up with the right mix to make then appear rusty

some drybrush acrylic weathering and marking added

The flag was made from a printed picture on regular printer paper with some water and white glue to soften it up a bit

Just need to add a dusty wash, and a dull coat. I may also add a figure standing on the side posing with his prized war trophy

Hey guys!

@ Dierk- Nice link Dierk! Another one for the favorites list! You should have the extreme difficulty prize for making this kit worthy to enter 2011 . Has Italery contact you for sending the kit to the italery museum?
All kidding aside, Dierk you don't have to worry about the accuracy of the F-2. A lot of F-1 panzers were upgraded to F-2's. And some F-2's were upgraded to ausf. G.

@ Sal- Wow! i see the first prize for speed here! I hope you make the German markings a bit faded...

I have almost Finished the turret and will post some photo's Monday or Tuesday. There was some rebuild here but we made it quite nice

Regards,

Remco

@ Sal - definitely going for a record there!

@ Remco - I consider this practice, to develop my skills to a high enough level to tackle a couple of doozies in my stash I'm aware that there is no such thing as a definitive F2, but having found a blueprint I thought I might as well base my model on that rather than some museum exhibit of dubious pedigree
Well, here's where I'm at now:

Screws didn't quite go to plan (but then, my builds rarely do )

I think I'll slap some primer on the turret tomorrow and see what the cruel light of day reveals.
BTW - Italeri museum wasn't interested - they didn't like the kit's short-comings pointed out
I think I deserve a
Dierk
PS: just noticed the sag on the left grab-handle - fixed now