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Recycling Your Old Kits

I decided to finish this Stug now or never. I cut off the fenders and built new ones from plastic sheet, trying to represent the way the real fenders were fixed on these machines. As the plastic surface is smooth, but the fenders had a patterned surface I had to look for something to represent it. The ABER parts for that purpose were a bit too short ( because they are intended for an accurate tank ) and I did not want to sacrifice them. I looked around my tools and discovered a cheap holder for blades. The ring which is in place to fix the blade had a perfect waffle pattern. I took alu-foil which I collected from soft cheese packages and pressed this ring gently on it and received a nice patterned surface. I cut the foil into the desired shape and superglued it on the fenders. Voila!! Lotta money saved..

I then added the concrete using a clay from Schildkröt. It is a thick paste which hardens in the air and to my surprise did not shrink. I could form the surface with a wet finger to make it look more realistic.

I used Tamiya putty for the Zimmerit and the tool I already used for the fenders to reproduce the waffle-pattern.

I then started scratch building the gunners hatches, the MG mount and shield, the gun travel lock and all the other small parts. I used clamps from Royal Model and a fire extinguisher holder from Elefant.

I then tried to add the gun. I took the Saukopfblende from the Stug IV and the gun from an old Italeri Pak 40. As the upper structure of the Stug III is about 3 mm too high and the Saukopfblende is not that accurate as well I came into some troubles. I finally ended up raising the square part of the mantled to make it look somehow right.