I completely agree Bill, I just need to get in some practice with soldering first...

#1: Get those fish some water!!

#2: Looks greats, keep the updates coming!

James, the fish are food for the turtle.

One of the tasks still needing to be dealt with before the schurzen could be mounted was filling the gaping holes on the turret where the styrene tabs are supposed to mount to. Initially I had thought to use the stubs on the styrene pieces as filler but these don't fill the gaps either, so I decided to just use Squadron White putty to fill the holes and then sand it down.



I played around with the schurzen quite a bit trying to decide the best way to mount them when I discovered that my earlier approach of securing the hatch access doors to the curved plate was a mistake and that they should really be attached to the front plates instead. They were removed and the curved plates mounted separately to the rear turret hull. There's a bit of spring in the assembly, so I had to use finger pressure and CA gel to get them to sit properly and stay in place, but nothing major.



The hatch access plates and the front plates were then installed and connected up to the curved plates on both sides. It's worth noting here that the PE mounts are slightly longer than the styrene parts but this is a good thing as it provides a little bit more surface area with which to glue them down to the turret. I can't say which, if either, is an accurate representation, but they are different.



I test fitted the turret to the rail car to make sure that the schurzen had the right clearance all around and everything was in good shape. The turret can rotate freely without any problems.



All that's left is to construct the rail bed and then start in on the painting and finishing process.

Something to bear in mind for anyone else planning on building this kit, not every turret had the skirts on it, so you could save yourselves a bit of work by only filling the mounting points. Wether the lack of skirts was due to damage or they were just removed in field I dont have an answer.

Mark,

Very true, unfortunately I couldn't choose that route without short-changing the build review (but I was tempted!). The amount of work/time required for the schurzen is substantial, I spent a full day just soldering and assembling them (5-6 hours of work) and another evening attaching them. They are much better than the styrene offering though, no doubt about it.

LOL!
Well its good to know that the work your putting in is being appreciated by everyone, plus quality does usually come at a cost, be it time or expense....
Having looked again at the plastic versions I believe that they are not much better the the 70's Tamiya Panzer IV H ones, if they are any better at all.

Those PE schurtsen really pays of, looks very mean and sleek.

Besides it hides the misporpotioned turret so ....

Good luck with the paint job!

Mark,

Couldn't agree more, I'm glad that Trumpeter included the PE option for the schurzen, also wouldn't surprise me if the AM groups produce an alternative...I can just see Aber producing a set that allows the side hatch access panels to be workable!

Jan,

Thanks for the comments. I do agree that the schurzen help address the turret issue. The turret still builds up fine with the height discrepancy, so it's an accuracy issue only from what I can tell. The PE are designed to fit with this discrepancy in place, so if another turret were used, not sure if the kit-supplied PE schurzen would still work or not without some adjustment.

I agree Bill, some of the AM companies are bound to do something for it, that said the prospect of working hinges on those hatches fills me with dread!

More effort put in today toward constructing the rail bed and display base. The instructions for this are on a separate sheet and the first thing that is necessary is to select one of the Section A and perform some surgery. Thankfully, this is made easier by the fact that Trumpeter molded the section with the surgery lines clearly defined, so it was just a matter of using sprue cutters to remove the required extra and then trim it down with a #11 knife.



The sections of the rail bed clip together but the fit is not equal from one part to the next in some cases. You also have to be very careful in how you link the Section C up with the end cap Section A to avoid a too-large gap in the middle for the rail ties, so be sure to test the arrangement first before gluing. There was a lot of flash on some of my sections in the rail tie cut-outs that needed to be trimmed down and I had to carefully inspect all the edges to make sure I got it all as some of it wasn't very obvious at first glance. Once all of the sections were clipped together and glued down, I went back over the join seams and used a combination of putty and sanding to smooth them out. This took quite a bit of patience and work, using the old "finger test" to see if I'd really gotten smooth or not and relying on sense of touch to gage if more sanding was necessary. The areas of the road bed itself where the sections joined didn't always match up in terms of how the gravel was molded, so some were trimmed down and/or flooded with liquid cement to help even them out. The fully assembled base measures 20" in length, plenty of room and more to mount the car to it.



Next up were the rails, these come in a long and short section for each side and all of the sections had mold lines on the top and bottom that needed to be dealt with. The bottom ones in particular were more pronounced and it's critical that these be smooth to allow for fit into the rail ties. The rail ties have three "claw" type holders that the rails slide through and if the seam isn't removed, one side sits higher than the other resulting in the rails not being level and/or causing strain on one side of the "claws" when inserting them. All of the rail sections have one side where there are multiple ejector marks present, some raised and others deep, that I still need to deal with before they can be painted and installed. While the marks can be positioned on the inner rail surface, the length of the rails insures that they will still be visible front and rear, so they can't be just left as is.



More progress to come with tomorrow's efforts.

Work on the rail bed continued with more attention given to the rails themselves. As pointed out previously, there are many ejector marks to deal with and I opted to fill them with putty and used a needle file to sand them smooth. Most of the marks were quite deep with only a few raised, so it was slow going to get them all taken care of. Another dilemma will also have to be dealt with and that is that the ends on both the long and short rails have open holes in order to connect them up with other sets. Since I'm not doing that, these will have to be filled and sanded on the exposed ends so they don't look funny. The kit does supply enough connector plates to tie these in to another set, so that's a plus for those looking to use this in connection with other railway elements.



Coming back to the bed itself, I decided to use some putty and rough up a bit the join seams to make them look more consistent with the rest of the surfaces. I spread some putty with a toothpick, not taking too much care with it since I wanted to be rough and came back after it had hardened and removed the unwanted excess. The instructions at this point direct for the ties to be installed into the bed and the shorter section requires two ties to be removed. Be careful that you remove them from the right end as the long and short sections have male/female connector pins that won't match if you trim the wrong ones.





Next up, I sprayed a pre-shade/finish coat of Flat Black via the airbrush to the entire bed. Since the base proper is smooth, I decided Flat Black would be ideal for it and will gloss coat it later on for its finish. I used about 3/4 of a normal Model Master size bottle due to all the surface area on the ballast.



The frame of the base was then masked off with masking tape and the ballast sprayed with several mist coats of Flat Earth. The edges were touched up as needed by hand with a detail brush.



I applied a base coat of Italian Dark Brown to the rail ties. The great thing IMHO about the Trumpeter design is that the rail ties are completely separate from the base, allowing them to be painted and detailed before installation. The underside of the base has a series of clips that secure the tie runs in place as a snap fit, making it possible to work on them separately. Once the ties were painted, I detailed the rail clamps with non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal and then weathered the ties using soft black artist pastel applied with a brush and blended in.



I test fit one of the rails and some of the rocks may need to be trimmed down a bit to allow for a smooth fit, so didn't quite get the rails completely installed just yet.

Looking good Bill.
Good tip on the base painting, using a gloss coat over a matt colour for a shiny finish.

Cheers
Henk

Thanks Henk, let's see if it turns out the way I think it will!

Excellent work Bill,

You seem to have flown away with this one while ive been away.
Excellent job on the schurzen, can't say i'll be looking forward to building mine! i'll get the RSO out of the way first for sure!

The base is also looking good.

Good luck with the rest of it,

James

Thanks James, appreciate the comments.

Its turning out nicely - remember that dust from the tracks, brakes and other residue from the train - especially from passenger trains - would tend to mix the colors together and leave a darker area in the middel of the tracks.

I like your choise of color on the sleepers and ballast, just be carefull to get too much variation.

Cheers

Jan,

What you say makes sense about weathering the middle, particularly for coal-fired locomotives and such. I'm leaning towards using some soot-black pigment as a wash down the middle with it creeping out towards the sides some once the rails are in place. Still pondering the exact method though.

I still remember the trains in the so called "good old days" especially the toilets, when you opend the lids you had a direct view to the tracks - for the same reason it wasn´t allowed to use the toilets when the train was at the station ...

Nice build Bill. I would really be interested in seeing what is inside of one of these.

I'm not going to try and simulate that sort of weathering!

Carl,

By inside do you mean the car itself? Not much I imagine, just ammo storage and crew gear I'd guess. The turret was hand-cranked and not power traversed, so the interior is just what's there to support the turret, no more.

Continuing on from last week, I prepped the rails and determined which sides were going where and filled in the holes on the exposed ends of both the long and short rails with putty and sanded it down. Since the rails "butt" to each other and are clamped together with brace plates on either sides, it's necessary to thread the rails into position first and then join them together. The longer rails require a little more care to thread them into place and not stress the clamps in the process. Originally I thought I'd have to trim some of the rocks down but that ultimately didn't prove necessary. The clamps are specifically designed to fit on only one side due to the cut-outs being wide enough for either 1 rail spike or 2 depending on the outer or inner sides. Fortunately the Trumpeter design aids with this as one of the clamps has pins that go all the way through both rails and, just like the bolts on the real thing, serve as the contact point for the mating clamp on the other side. I used some liquid glue to secure these without any major issues, just a little pressure with some tweezers to get them to go together is all that's necessary.





The rails were then brush-painted with non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal.



The rail surfaces were dry-brushed with Steel to simulate metal-on-metal contact wear.



Then a wash of Rust was applied gently to all the rail surfaces and once dry, the rails were dry-brushed with Burnt Umber to complete their look.





Attention turned now back to the rail car and it's paint/finish. I started by applying a primer/pre-shade coat of Italian Dark Brown to both the car and turret.



Next came the base coat which was really two coats...the first pass being 90/10 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray and the follow-up 80/20 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray.



The camo pattern was next. I used the included color plate as a guide only and applied the pattern free-hand. The red-brown is a 50-50 mix of Leather/Military Brown and was laid down first. Then the olivegrun (70/30 Russian Armor Green/Panzerschwarzgrau) stripes were applied. I did some light touch-up of the over spray with the 80/20 Dunkel mix from the previous step and then, holding the AB at a distance of about 12 inches or so, sprayed a light misting coat of the same 80/20 Dunkel over the whole pattern to tie it all together. Since this is a rail-based vehicle, the weathering will tend to be darker than normal, so I wanted to have the "pre-fade" effect in place first before I got to that stage.



And just to see how it all looks together at this point...



Next up will be finishing the details on the car, the Future coats, the simple markings, and the weathering can begin.

The camo looks real good Bill, I'm interested how far you go with the weathering on this, the real things must have gotten very dirty very quickly...

I'm of two minds Mark...one is that they ARE rail-way equipment, so transit too/from and performing their desired role, they would be subject to all the soot, grime, etc. of that process. On the other hand, they weren't like normal rolling stock with service lives of years if not decades, so I'm thinking of a balanced approach...but will kind of play it along as I go to see where it ends up.