Even though Bill Plunk(wbill76) did a smashing build log for the Panzerjagerwagen Vol. 1, I'm going to do one for Vol. 2. Typically with armor models we start with the wheels and suspension, and it is no different here. Step 1 is broken down into 3 sections which is further broken down into small sub-assemblies.

Here's the parts used for the hub and springs


Fine detail here, it's a shame that it will be hidden, the writing is from a brake system manufacturer, Knorr-Bremse AG Volmarstein 1940, though some letters have been slightly altered (same as DML does with thier Continentau)


When assembling parts A6, one side is beveled, and I placed A6 & A9 together like this.


Also, do not be tempted to drill out the hubs. That's not flash in there, the axles are hex keyed to aid in alignment.
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And here we are with the finished hubs


The axles were a little loose, so they got glued, leaving the wheels and spacers free to turn. In hindsight I should have assembled the wheel wells first before getting the axles glued, so I could make sure that the springs would seat in the mounts squarely. As it is I just eyeballed them and hoped for the best!




The wheel wells, parts E10-E13 and E1-E4, are shaped different, so they all got marked before leaving the sprue. I see in Vol. 1 this also applies, so as Bill stated just mark them on the side that will be inside the hull. I also filled the pin marks in case my train got derailed by my cat.....I mean a mine. The funny thing is, the sides that face the inside of the hull and will be covered are nice and smooth! Too bad the pin marks were on the side that would show (if you turned it upside down and looked)



Everything so far has gone pretty smooth, the instructions are quite clear, just some clean-up and dry fitting to be done. This is where we are....


As always, comments and criticisms welcomed.

Jim, good build so far. Keep up the good work.

Thanks, Joe. That was one of the busiest steps, using a good amount of parts. Pretty clear cut, we'll see how the rest of the build goes. Thanks for taking a peek

Thats gonna look really kool James! I've always been interested in german armored trains since seeing the old Tamiya SU-100 box art many years ago!
Looking forward to seeing this built!
Cheers!

Off to a good start James, looking forward to following this one.

Joe, thanks for looking. I've always had a spot in my heart for trains (Dad worked for NYC so I was in and around them often) and if Trumpeter continues this series it should be quite impressive.

Bill, glad you are following along, this is probably looking familiar to you

Little more progress today, step 2 has us install the wheel assemblies. Fit was excellent, the wheel wells practically snapped in place and lots of glue surface for a nice strong bond. Make sure they are snug to the bottom of the hull so the top hull will sit flush. The raised areas of the wells will help support the top hull so it's a good idea to dry fit the top before the glue sets up in case any adjustments are needed. Here's a couple of shots of the bottom....

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The other half of step 2 is the plow blades, which fit tab and slot. I could not fit them without a good sized gap where they meet, so I glued the blades together at the center and enlarged the slots in the hull, then fitted the assembly as one piece.
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Step 3 deals with the front coupler linkage which has 7 pieces. I wanted to keep everything moveable so no glue was used. The only part that would not stay together was the threaded adjuster (A8) to the linkage bars (A12), so I melted the ends of the pins, like peening them over. In this part of the instructions the handle of the adjuster is shown pointing up....
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But the box art and the following step the handle is down, which with vibration and gravity makes more sense. Not sure if the linkage is correct, could not find any reference of this set-up, but this is how the instructions and box art show it.
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Front plate fit on with no problem, just make sure everything lines up. I dry fitted the top hull once again and it looks like we are good to go! More to come, thanks for looking.

Looking good James i took a bit of an interest in these after Bills blog so i will be following yours closely an do believe i will try one in the near future.

Ron.

Looks good! It is a bummer some of the detail will be lost on the wheel assemblies. But none the less it looks like this will be a head turner for sure.

James,
You don't have to put the IMG BB-code tags around the A & IMG html tags you are getting from PhotoBucket. That code will work in the forums by itself. Also I noted that that A tag links to PhotoBucket are not working. If the images are at full size probably best to drop them anyways and just use the IMG tag for the photo itself.

Nice photos too!

Cheers,
Jim

Interesting to follow this one, James.

Thanks for the effort in making another build log on this kit.

Ron, glad to see you here, I'll be looking forward to your build of one of these.

Thank you dannyarizona, since the flat car is quite plain it's nice to do a little detail, even though it is hidden. Makes the build interesting.

Jim, nice to see you here, even if it is just to get me to post pics the right way I thought there would be an easier way and maybe those red x's & border=0 were only on my screen, just got lazy and did not look! Thanks for looking.

Jesper, thank you very much, glad you are finding interest in the build

Getting back to work after the holidays was a little rough, but I did manage to get a little build time in. So to continue...

Step 4 deals with the front area and is also broken down into 3 sub-assemblies. Part of the first section has us install the front plate, which I have already taken care of. I deviated from the instructions at this point to install the top half of the car (step 6), to avoid knocking off the details on the front. This is a much larger part than I am used to assembling and I was anticipating problems, and rightly so! Having only Testors liquid glue and Tenax I was ill equipped, a glue with a longer working time would be a good choice here. I managed to get the front and back fastenened with the Testors, then did around the superstructure with Tenax working through the turret opening. After that set up i brushed a thin coat of paint on the seam so I could see what would need attention. I'll let the paint dry and get to work touching up the perimeter. The paint will also help me see what I am sanding, so as not to grind away the details on the deck.



Back to step 4, the air brake lines were attached. The holes were quite a bit bigger than the pins so care needs to be taken to get them on without sagging. A D shaped hole and pin would have been nice here. Next up is the headlamps and brackets. The brackets fit on a tab on the bottom of the front plate, I glued and lined them up and will let the glue set before adding the weight of the lamps to them.



Did not get much done, but more to follow! Thanks for looking. Comments, critiques and recommendations always welcome.

Kool build log James! ...like I said...I like armored trains! Looking good buddy!

Ditto what Joseph said, your doing a good job on this one, and as a fellow armoured train buff its good to see them getting some coverage.
Your blog is going to come in handy for when my two get built.

Looking at the refs I have James it would appear that Trump have go the linkage pretty much spot on, the only thing I would say is that the loop thats hanging lowest should be hooked back over the main hook itself, other wise it sits too low and would catch the sleepers. If you need a pic of what I mean just let me know.

Thank you, my 9 toed tanker friend, always great to see you here!

Thanks, Mark, I'll be impatiently waiting for your build
Joe, aka dispatcher, kindly sent me a pic of the linkage, and from what I can make out it looks like the first pic below. Just seems to me that the other loop hangs too low,also. Joe also recommended a couple of good reference books for the armored trains, though I'll be finished with this build before I receive them.

Finishing up step 4, the headlights were glued onto their brackets. I have to comment that where ever there is a pin/hole or tab/slot locator on the parts that the fit is loose and care should be taken to try to get things lined up. A straightedge and small square come in handy for this, but even a small box or anything with a 90' angle would work.
The bumper bracket halves were glued with Tenax, which I like to use on cylindrical parts such as these and gun barrels. I find using Tenax leaves me with less of a seam since some of the plastic bubbles out. Once again, the locator pin allows the two halves to shift around, so careful alignment is needed.



The steps were glued on but since the slots are too large will need filling, the same will need to be done for the rear steps



That finishes up the front, and not much to do on step 5 which is the rear. Only 5 parts here, the rear bumper just needs a little sanding and the steps need filling, like the front.



Step 6 is the upper hull, which the hull plate was taken care of already. In hindsight again, (20/20 vision there!) I think I would have attached the upper hull before the front bumper plate. The front plate is 45' angles instead of butt joints and would have been easier to take care of any problems than on the hull itself.
The other part of step 6 is the superstructure armor plates, the instructions marked all 3 the same callout number, which does not matter as the size difference is easily seen. Two easy steps in a row, trouble must be coming my way!



Step 7 deals with the main gun and is quite busy. I am not leaving any hatches open so not much time will be taken on the interior parts. If you are going to have the interior visible, some very prominent pin marks and mold seams will need to be taken care of. Otherwise the interior is nicely detailed. The main gun halves were glued together using Tenax once again, and sanded smooth (hopefully) The gun elevation is geared, so you might want to not glue the gear in place to allow movement. The breech end is a snug fit in its plate, so I'll just leave it unglued for now and be able to slide the gun back a little then pull it forward to lock in place, then glue it later. The MG barrel was drilled out and everything put together.





Problems arose while doing the gun sleeve, the sleeve was about .5mm too large top/bottom and sides....



And the bolts on the sleeve are too close to the edges to just sand it down smooth....



My friend, Joe Rion (dispatcher) kindly sent me a pic of the Panzerjagerwagen, which I could clearly see a seam between the sleeve plate and the armor box behind it. So I decided to add .25 Evergreen sheet to build it up a little, we'll let that dry and trim it off and see how that works......



More to follow, comments, criticisms, etc always welcome!

Speaking of trains...here's a pic that my brother in law sent me today that he took with his cell phone camera right after this train hit this semi truck today. He's a painter and was heading back to his shop to get more supplies.
He was the second vehicle on the scene...not even any cops yet. Its a John Hancock steel truck semi carrying a load of steel joists that has just been clipped by a Norfolk-Southern locomotive and loaded train of coal cars. Kinda small pic.

No problem James, that pic does look pretty much like how my refs show it stowed, the long loop does seem to be hanging a bit low, not sure what can be done to rectify that however.
As for good books the 3 by W Sawodny printed by Schiffer are a good set, there is also a hardback by the same author but is only available in German which has a lot more pics in as well as a lot of scale drawings, alas I dont have my own copy of this but borrowed it from a guy at my local model club. If they are the books Dispatcher mentioned thenyou wont go wrong.

Joe, are you trying to tell me this is turning into a train wreck? Could not make out the pic too well but hope nobody was hurt, luckily your BIL wasn't a few minutes earlier!

Mark, the Sawodny books are the ones dispatcher recommended, found vol.1 & 2, is there a third? Thanks for all your help

Continuing on with step 7, trimmed the Evergreen flush and attached the sleeve. I'm happy with that and it fits onto the back plate pretty good, too. Sliding the barrel through the sleeve reveals quite a large gap, on the reference pictures I saw there was a gap here, though not nearly as large. Out came the Evergreen strip, which I wrapped and glued around the barrel, then everything here assembled and the Evergreen trimmed flush. It left me a bigger gap than I wanted, but it'll do.... Last up was the muzzle brake, which is in 2 halves. The opening was oval shaped instead of round, so I carefully drilled, sanded and fit in in place.









Step 7 finally complete brings us to the turret exterior. Step 8 deals with the rain channels, lifting hooks, bump stops....pretty simple step. Just to mention here, and wbill76 also noted in his Vol. 1 build log, sprue B has many small parts and virtually all of them have flash that needs to be cleaned up. In fact, if flash was gold Mr. T would be wearing sprue B around his neck! To give you an idea of what to expect.....



I'll clean these parts up a bit, but most will be attached first, as I find cleaning them up is easier after they are on. The mounting holes for the stops are a little oversized, so filling will be done. Otherwise this step goes quick and the rain channels especially have some nice details.
Step 9 continues on with the turret exterior and mainly deals with the side hatches. Fitting the hinge blocks in reveals a large gap towards the rear, otherwise a very tight fit. I found that the opening in the turret for the block was beveled incorrectly on the rear area, thus causing the gap. In other words, the opening on the inside of the turret is smaller than the outside. I decided to trim the inside area, without changing the dimension of the outside opening. Hard to explain, so I'll let the pictures do the talking since they speak better than me! If you can see how I have the knife blade positioned, I'm just trimming the inside part....





One side done....



Hatches on and step 9 complete, will let that dry and then clean up the smaller parts...



Next up....turret interior

Looks like a lot of the issues with the Volume One have carried over to the Volume Two James. You're making good progress though in spite of it.

Thanks, Bill! Yeah, same issues with sprues A, B & C. Sprue E, the one that is not shared, was better molded though the part fit was still a little sloppy. This has been a real good learning opportunity for me, though, getting to try some new (to me) techniques. Still, I'm leery to check your build of Vol. 1 to see what's coming up next

Looking good James seems to me like you are coping well with the problems at hand and fixing them as opposed to replacing them that is something i always like to see and learn from i look forward to more.

Ron.

Hey James, yes there is a third book too, its German Armoured Trains on the Eastern Front, I'll get you the ISBN later once I get home.