That raises an interesting point, I've always been of the impression that either color was possible depending. Is there a definitive source that says it should always be black that we can point to? Judging from black-and-white photos makes it difficult considering the fine shade difference, but if there's a production description or similar documentation to support it, that would be very interesting indeed.

I can't answer for Bruce Culver's source for his statement about red and brown leather, he doesn't give one and unfortunately for my argument's sake I don't remember the resource that convinced me that the colour was black and not brown so I will leave my submission there for now.

Fair enough James, for my next interior with leather seats I'll be sure to finish them in black just to keep things balanced.

On another side note, can you answer a couple of questions about the synthetic leather point? Do you know when (more or less) the synthetic leather would have come into use and what it was derived from? Would the synthetic have always been black?

I have to admit that from an aesthetic point of view both colors are appealing but the brown provides a better contrast, especially with the dunkelgelb. Kind of like the painting of jacks, some go for the bare metal look and others for hull color. I'm in the hull-color camp myself after looking at numerous photos and determining that's more accurate for my tastes.

Bill, when I did this kit I had to make a tool to put the tracks together. The tracks are workable if you are careful. My main problem was losing or breaking pieces. Cut only what you need from the sprew. The tool I made let the track link (F1)rest on a flat surface so the pad (F2) can be glued to (F1). I lost and broke enough I can't finish my track. If care is taken you won't lose or break any parts. After part F1 is off the sprew, trim with the open side straight down. Try and trim off excess sprew from F2 as you are removing from sprew.
The F2 parts are so small they are very hard to trim excess off of. I applied glue with a stretched sprew applicator. As you apply glue the sprew starts to melt with the glue. The extra melted plastic helped hold part F2 to F1. I only did about 10 links at a time.
Anyone with extra tracks for this beast let me know, I need a few extra.
Joe

Joe,

This time around, as a Premium kit, the tracks are provided as "Magic" tracks so they're already off the sprue, but I recall having similar problems as you mention with their removal when I did the 250/10 kit. You're right about them being workable with care, they are designed the same was as the 251 kit links where the block traps the pins of the two links as they connect. Definitely have to be careful with the glue to keep them workable.

Today was a great day for painting outside and I took full advantage of it. The interior was masked off with strips of masking tape to protect its details and a pre-shade/primer coat of Italian Dark Brown laid down as the first step.



This was followed by multiple thin passes of an 80/20 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray mix for the base coat.



Then the camo pattern was applied. I decided to go with something similar to the markings/pattern that's on the box art for the 3/Pz.Aufkl.Btl. 2.Pz.Div, France 1944 and laid down the red-brown pattern first (50-50 mix of Leather and Military Brown) and then the green (80-20 Russian Armor Green and Panzerschwarzgrau). I came back with the Dunkelgelb and cleaned up the over-spray and fine-tuned the pattern in different places. Once satisfied with that, I applied a heavily thinned mist coat from about 12" away of the Dunkelgelb to the overall vehicle to provide a touch of fading and tie everything in together as a foundation for later weathering.



I also worked on the road wheels and since this is something that comes up from time to time, decided to add a couple of photos on the process I use. It's pretty simple, I mount all of the wheels on toothpicks using a small ball of blue-tack poster putty and then spray the rubber portions Flat Black. Some of the black gets on the rim portions but that's not a problem and actually helps provide some pre-shading/color variation as well.



Once the tire portions are painted, then I use a plastic circle-template, the type found at most hobby stores like Michael's or HobbyLobby or in the hardware sections, it's basically just a sheet with different diameter of circles cut out and you choose the one you need and mask it off. In this case, I needed to use three different circles, one for the main wheels, one for the outer diameter of the half-track road wheels, and one for the inner diameter of the road wheels.



I mount the wheels on toothpicks for two reasons: 1) it allows them to be stuck into a Styrofoam block for drying and 2) provides an extra "handle" and reduces risks of handling the freshly painted surfaces. The wheels are fitted to the individual circle template, the paint sprayed, and then stuck into the block to dry. Once the outer rims are dry, the same thing is then done for the inner rims.



Next up now that everything's painted will be building the tracks, mounting the suspension arms, and installing all the running gear.

While watching the playoff games for the NFL yesterday evening and today, I managed to complete the tracks for both sides. My method for these cap-block style of tracks is pretty simple, just hook two links together where one is hinged all the way down in an L-shape, then carefully apply a spot of glue and attach the pad. The instructions call for 38 links per side, so 19 sets is all you need. Once the pairs are constructed, then I join them into groups of 4...then 8, then link the runs together to get the 38. Each link needed to have the raised ejector marks trimmed off on either side of the guide horn but that's normal for DML "Magic" links.

Once the tracks were constructed, I installed the suspension arms that had been skipped way back in Step 1 and made sure they were all aligned and then installed the road wheels and idler, leaving the sprockets and main wheels dry-fit. There's a little pit of play in the suspension arms and doing things this way allowed me to insure that the vehicle would sit right with all the wheels contacting the ground when the tracks were installed vs. just sitting on the road wheels alone. The tracks were slid under each side and minor adjustments made where needed. The idlers were left positionable by not gluing them to the hull...the kit design allows for the idler to move somewhat back or forward for track tensioning, so while the idler was glued to its mount arm, the mount itself wasn't glued down just yet.



Once the wheels were all set up, I painted the tracks using Non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal as the base, dry-brushed with Steel, then applied a thin Raw Umber wash to blend it all together. The rubber track pads were painted with enamel Gunmetal. I dry-brushed some Burnt Umber around the hull sides and the front fenders for some wear and then installed the tracks, sprockets, and front wheels.

I also detailed and added the pioneer tools to either side along with the muffler/exhaust and MG42. The driver's mirror was painted with some Silver and the tips of the width indicators given a touch of Light Gray to finish things off for the day.





Next up will be a coat of Future and the decals then on to the weathering.

Stunning work Bill. I'm now lagging behind due to family & work commitments. I'm eagerly awaiting the next instalment. To add my 2 penn'orth to the black/brown seat issue, lately I've been sticking to black, as I suspect they were leatherette or leathercloth rather than actual leather. If the Germans were reducing the height of marching boots to save leather, I can't imagine them fitting real leather covers to vehicle seats. I'm pretty sure leatherette was available then (typewriter covers?), but I wasn't around then, so perhaps someone older could advise.

Nice to see this one coming all together, Bill, looking pretty cool! I still have not tried the circle template for wheels, do you find it easier, faster or neater? Or all three?

Steve,

That makes sense from a plausability standpoint, especially considering the shortages of many different materials that started to show up in 1944 and onward.

James,

Yes to all three. It's how I do all my rubber-rimmed road wheels and I've tried numerous methods and settled on this one as the one I was most happy with.

Started off today by laying down a coat of Future by airbrush, let that set for an hour or so, then applied the decal markings. The markings for my choice of vehicle were simple and no license plates required, just a pair of balkenkreuze and the vehicle numbers. These were given a dose of Solvaset to get them to snug down tight and then another coat of Future to seal them from the weathering process.



Then the weathering was applied in the form of an overall wash of Raw Umber followed by dot filters of Raw Sienna and lightened Dunkelgelb to add some variation.



The final step was a pin wash of Burnt Umber to all the raised detail and the suspension and then everything was sealed with a coat of Testor's Lusterless Flat in the rattle-can.



Next up will be some pigment treatment.

Bill-- marvelous workmanship.
DJ

Thanks DJ, appreciate the comments!

Looks great, Bill. I was surprised to see you applied the future and decals within a few hours. I was under the impression that the future and decals had to dry for a day or so each, so was a lenghty process for me. I'm pretty sure you use enamels (I use acrylics) but would not think that would make a difference. Anyway, your's came out fine, almost ready for the next project

James,

Some prefer to allow their Future to cure for 24 hours but I've never had any problems working with it after an hour or so. After all, it's originally designed to be floor polish and endur being walked on within 15 minutes of air drying. I don't apply heavy doses of any kind of liquids to it when positioning the decals, others have had issues with it clouding or turning foggy from what I understand before it's fully cured.

Ola Bill looks very good so far. I love these small halftracks the Germans used.
I have a question. Looking at your pics you first painted it in primer red and then you went along and painted it yellow after that... It looks from the pics you obscured the primerred. Can be the pics though. Was it meant to be preshading? Would love to know what the primerred layer's use is in your technique. Further I love the camo pattern you sprayed. Did you freehand that or did you use some sort of mask?

Can't wait to see it finished.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Robert,

The use of the primer coat is mainly to insure all of the plastic is covered and to provide a uniform color underlying the Dunkelgelb. Enamel paints will settle into each other somewhat as they cure when they are applied together and the primer coat subtly influences the Dunkelgelb as a result. Since this one has a camo pattern, the use as a pre-shade coat isn't really there although on single-color finishes it's more detectable. I also apply the primer coat with a different nozzle (I use the yellow wide-bore tip) on the Aztek since the purpose is to provide wide coverage vs. the gray tip and thinner coats for the Dunkelgelb. The underlying primer coat provides a little bit of texture, not much, for the next coat and isn't something that the photos capture but is there when viewing the actual model. For darker colors I will use a different primer (Flat Black for Panzer Gray, Deep Yellow for OD/Russian Green).

As far as the camo pattern goes, that was sprayed free-hand, no masks. I sprayed the red-brown first, then the green, then came back with the Dunkelgelb and touched up (again using the AB) some of the over-spray in different places.

Work continued today with the weathering of the suspension and running gear but first up I dry-brushed some lightened Dunkelgelb to the hull surfaces to add some additional variation to the previous day's weathering, particularly to the markings. Once that was done, I mixed up a batch of Mig pigments using Dark Mud, African Earth, and Europe Dust in a prescription bottle cap mixed with tap water and applied this wet with a round brush. The pigment/water mixture was allowed to air-dry, which took about an hour or so, and looked like this.



This was then given some attention using various stiff-bristled brushes to remove the excess pigment and get everything looking the way I wanted it to. For the hull sides and main wheel tire sides, I used a moistened q-tip to further remove the pigment and blend it in to the finish.



The tracks were then dry-brushed lightly with Steel to bring out their details a bit more.



A couple of touch-ups here and there and it was off to the photo-booth for the completed photos.





More photos to come when the finished build article is ready.

Again, a stunning piece of work!

How long did the build take, including painting and weathering?

Thanks Herbert! I started this one at the end of November, so subtracting about 10 days or so in the middle for the holidays, it took just about 1 month in terms of chronological time. In terms of actual build time, that's a little harder to state accurately but I'd say roughly 30-40 hours.

The devil is in the detail, your weathering has really finished this little beauty to a tee Bill. Very nice.

Cheers
Henk

Thanks Henk, appreciate the comments. Have to say I enjoyed building this little guy even with the issues encountered.

Nice work Bill

Very nice little Neu

Darryl

Doug and Darryl, appreciate the comments!