While waiting for the Pz 38(t) E/F to dry, I started in on this project today as a way to keep busy since I had the week off from work and had the time available.



I started in at the beginning with Step 1, which deals primarily with the interior details for the engine and drive-train. The first little assembly deals with the final drive elements and is a 5 part assembly that then goes into the hull nose. The attachment of the circular parts, C3, is a little tricky as they fit loosely on the drive axle part C8 which is in turn capped by part C9. The alignment of all these parts is critical since the end portions of C8 and C9 mount into tabs in the hull nose, so I did a lot of dry fitting and testing before committing to glue. The hull nose itself had two very large remnant mold posts that I could only partially remove due to the tight space and curvature of the piece. Fortunately much of this will be hidden from view, but it was still a bit aggravating that they were there. That's the price I guess for the fine detail on the exterior in terms of cast pattern and the "Hotchkiss" detail.



Although it will be completely hidden from view on this model with no way to access it or show it, I went ahead and built the provided engine just to see how it would look. It's got good foundational detail, even going so far as to provide grooves on the pulley/fly wheels for the fan belts, but it's all going to be hidden away in the end.



The next little sub-assembly was the construction of the transmission, drive axle, and radiator. I left the radiator only dry-fit to insure a positive installation along with the rear firewall since that's a critical element in Step 2. The radiator had quite a bit of flash that needed to be carefully trimmed away. The Bronco plastic is soft, so it's very easy to cut too deeply if you're not careful.



To complete the step, the details for the driver's area were assembled and installed. There were three large raised ejector marks that needed to be dealt with to allow everything to fit level. These were easily removed with a #11 blade and some light sanding. The driver's seat bottom and top both had some flash that needed to be trimmed away and the driver's controls and foot pedals are just representations without any real detail to them. The steering controls had a prominent mold seam that needed to removed but otherwise everything fit where it was supposed to.



Step 2 essentially takes everything from Step 1 and installs it into the lower hull. The key element here is the installation of the rear firewall, part A19. You can see in the pic below that it's slightly warped where it dog legs in terms of how it aligns to the hull. This is something that I corrected after this pic with liquid glue and patient use of finger pressure. This is critical that it be aligned properly as it will serve as the base for a major component of the fighting compartment that covers the engine bay in a later step. Part C6, the door to the dog leg compartment, had to be sanded down about half a mm or so in order for it to fit where designed without bowing out the hull side at this point as well. I used a sanding board and carefully sanded it down, checking the fit multiple times, until I got it to the right width. There were two prominent raised ejector marks on the door that also needed to be removed with a #11 blade since this area will be exposed/visible on the finished fighting compartment.



Rounding out the step is the attachment of the hull nose. This fit snugly and required just a touch of liquid glue around the join areas to get a good fit. I lightly sanded the join area to remove the seam and let it dry before adding the towing eyes. These are parts A6 and they are designed to have their tabs fit into molded in slots on the front hull but either the tabs are too wide or the holes too narrow...and trying to fix either of them was more trouble than it was worth. I used sprue cutters to remove nearly all of the tabs, leaving just a small stub behind, and glued them directly into position. A small amount of putty was necessary even with this expedited method to fill minor gaps. The U-shaped towing hooks required some very careful removal from the sprues as they had very large attachment points that were almost fully integrated into the hooks themselves. These had to be carefully trimmed down and sanded to retain their shape, a very delicate operation considering the small size of the parts to begin with.



I also installed the same towing eyes, giving them the same treatment as the front ones, into the rear hull along with the conical covers parts A3...I'm not sure exactly what they are but I'm guessing they have something to do with the idlers. Anyhow, they had a bizarre method of attachment consisting of very small angled mount posts that were D-shaped and supposed to match up with similar holes in the rear hull. Those holes weren't completely formed on my hull tub, so I clipped them off and just glued the parts directly without bothering with the mount posts.



Next up will begin work on the suspension elements.

I've got the popcorn ready for this one Bill. I'm looking hard at the Trumpeter version but might be swayed after watching this!

Hmmmmmm......2 builds going at the same time, very unlike you Mr. Bill

I'll be watching this one with interest, also. In regards to the soft Bronco plastic, how is it to deal with? More difficult to sand/clean up, or basically the same techniques as with other styrene?

Looking forward to more

Good start Bill. From looking at your next to last picture, the one that is a front view of the lower hull, looks like it may be a little warped? Is that primarily due to the softer plastic used? Hopefully the upper hull pieces will straighten it out...unless it's just a figment of my imagination.

Thanks for sharing! Cheers -
Tim

Hi Bill

As you suspected the conical parts A3 are the covers for the idler adjusters. I'd also suggest that you don't fit the mounts for the idlers until you're ready to assemble the tracks as IIRC Frank had problems getting everything to fit under the trackguards (and I had the same ones with the Trumpeter H39).

David

Jeff, thanks for the comments and for watching!




James, normally I NEVER have more than 1 project going simultaneously but because the 38(t) was in a "hurry up and wait" stage, I decided to go ahead and start on this one. The Bronco plastic responds well to sanding although it has a tendency to create more of a "burr" edge if you get too aggressive although I consider that to be minor. I use finer grits and haven't had too much problem so far at least. When cleaning up attachment points, you do have to be more careful not to remove too much as that's very easy to do...although that may be more a function of the large-ish attachment points too than anything else.




Tim,

There is a slight warpage to the area where the driver's lower hatch attaches but I think it will straighten out once the upper hull front plate is attached and the hatch itself is installed. The slightly softer plastic does seem to be more prone to some warpage on the more delicate areas although things like the hull and the superstructure panels appear to be unaffected. I'm not sure if the softer plastic is to blame, but I have encountered a lot of minor flash (yes I know that's somewhat of a paradox! ) particularly on Sprue A's parts so far.




David,

Thanks for confirming my suspiscion! Your suggestion is a good one, I made sure to re-read through Frank's Build Log about the tracks and am going to approach that carefully. The difference in this kit from the normal H38/39 is that the fenders are integrated into the superstructure side panels and have separate front fender extensions, so I think I'm going to be able to get away with installing the tracks without the fenders in place and still be able to paint everything like I normally would in terms of build cycle. That's the theory at any rate at this stage.

alright, bill i am glad to see you build bolgging this kit i am exited to build this kit thanks man johnny

My pleasure Johnny, so far it's been working out well but I have to tackle the suspension next and, judging by Frank's experiences, it will require some care to get everything in order. More to come this weekend!

Step 3 of the assembly process is a very important undertaking as it deals entirely with the suspension and all of the parts come off the "A" sprue for this. The first thing is to assemble the spring cylinders that need to go into each of the 6 suspension elements. The provision of metal springs in the kit is a nice detail touch for this area and they simply slide over the posts on A4 and are capped in place with A5. Two parts, A10 are then added to the opposing ends to complete the element. A word of caution about the A10 parts, they need to be aligned correctly on both ends to fit properly into the suspension, so be sure to quickly install them into A23 so you've got a bit of time to adjust if needed to keep everything squarely aligned. The attachment points for these parts are also on the large side, so careful removal from the sprue and careful cleanup is imperative.

The wheels then attach to the posts on A23 and the front halves added in the form of A24 for the very first suspension on either side and A25 for the others. The contact surfaces for these parts are not large and depend mostly on the protruding posts from A23, so be careful not to get glue into the wheels if you want them to remain able to rotate. The final step is to add the attachment block A1 which will be the contact point with the lower hull to mount each assembly. While there are slots inside both A23 and A24/A25 to help position it, I found that gaps to be just a touch too wide so the contact is not as solid as it should be and had to run liquid glue liberally around the inside and at the top contact points, adjusting carefully to make sure this was squarely aligned on each element. This slows things down considerably as a result and I set them off to the side to dry for a while before coming back to them.

I also removed the sprockets and idlers from the sprue and cleaned them up. The idlers have a very large seam all around their diameter, so this required some careful clean up and sanding to eliminate. The sprockets have their sprue points inside the row of teeth, so their removal also required very delicate attention. I clipped them from the sprue leaving a long post and then gently removed that post with a sharp #11 blade to avoid damage. The return rollers were also cleaned up at this point, they didn't have a seam so it was just a matter of carefully removing their sprue points to avoid damage to the round surface.



The next move in the step is to add the suspension elements to the sides. The connection points for these are not very solid consisting of a slot molded into the hull that matches up to an L-shaped tab/bracket on the attachment point A1 added earlier. This of course creates a tendency for the suspension elements when they are first attached to want to toe out if any kind of weight is placed on them before they have set up properly. To address this, I added the elements to both sides and then kept the hull elevated for 1 hour using a paint bottle until the glue had mostly set up. Then I checked the level set of the hull and made some small adjustments and braced the hull with a series of bottles to keep things in place and allowed it to dry overnight.

The mounts for the idlers were installed but test fits of the idler arm itself showed that the arm is too thick to fit properly and will need to be sanded down. I'll do that and place the idler when I get to the tracks to avoid problems there. The front hull final drive housings were also added and this is a tricky bit as well since they need to fit perfectly flush and in the correct position for the sprocket height to be correct. I checked this by dry fitting the sprockets and return rollers but haven't glued them into place just yet, so things "should" be aligned properly.



Next up will begin work on the superstructure and fighting compartment.

Step 4 deals with the track assembly and installation so I've skipped over that for the time being. Step 5 begins work on the superstructure with the left hand side. The insert panel is installed first followed by the large ammunition can and a couple of cylindrical cases. The ammo can had some fine flash and a large post in the hollow back side that had to be cleaned up and each of the cylindrical cases had fine seams that needed to be sanded down before being glued into position.



Step 6 continues work on this side, assembling the twin pack radio/receiver and its mount arms. The radios are a two-part assembly that produces a seam all the way around that needed some putty attention to compensate for due to the open-square type of rack they are mounted in. The small transformer unit that installs on top has a hollow square base that is supposed to mate up to a raised block on the frame but the block is too large, so it had to be trimmed down to allow for the proper fit. The reinforcement panel also received a third cylindrical case.



This step also installs the large fuel tank which had a prominent seam that needed to be trimmed and sanded down but otherwise it fit fine into its designed location. The instructions also call for two molded-on mount points to be removed, this was easily accomplished with a #11 blade and some light sanding.

While the instructions don't indicate it here, there are small PE latches provided for inclusion on the cylindrical cases. These are parts P2 on the fret and they are very delicate. The attachment points to the fret are rather large, so a lot of care is needed when removing them as a result to avoid damage. Fortunately the fret contains extras just in case.

This step also calls for the installation of some of the pioneer tools on the outside but I've left that for later to avoid possible damage during handling.



Step 7 moves over to the right side of the superstructure. It's clear that Bronco intends to use the same molds for their upcoming release of the same vehicle mounting the leFH18 as there are molded in mount points that aren't used for this kit. The instructions don't offer any guidance on these, but there are 6 round mount holes that need to be filled in since they are unused. These were duly puttied and sanded smooth. As with the left side, the insert was added along with the base of the rabbit ears scope and 2 cylindrical cases and the transformer for the additional radio. The assembly of the rabbit ears scope is a complex multi-part affair and it's best to have the base and part B33 in place and solid first before actually adding the scope itself, so that was done at this stage. The mount posts on the back of the base were too long to allow for a flush fit to the panel, so these were carefully trimmed down prior to gluing.



Also added in this step is the mount for the MG34. The instructions indicate that some PE parts are available as options but it's vague on just how they should be used if you decide to go this route. After much studying, to use the PE P9 to replace the base of the swing mount, you would have to do quite a bit of surgery to the styrene part B12 in order to use it's swing post and internal brace to go with the PE part. There's also an optional PE part P8 that is meant to replace the semi-circular perforated plate, but it's too large and doesn't have enough width to fill the notches in the side panel. As a result, I decided against both of these PE options and stayed with the styrene parts.

The styrene semi-circular part, B10, doesn't have holes molded into it, only depressions, so I used a pin vise and micro-drill bit to open these up all the way.



With that out of the way, I installed the base of the swing mount along with the mount itself and the semicircular piece as well. Mounting the semi-circular piece was a challenge as it's not supposed to sit flush but protrude somewhat on the outside, so careful use of liquid glue and positioning was required. I also assembled the three MG34 drum magazine holders. These were multi-part assemblies with the base plate separate from the two sides with the locking bar across the front. The drum magazines simply mount to two posts in the base plate and 5 of the 6 drums installed just fine while 1 didn't have its hole completely formed in the base, so it had to be drilled out to be able to fit. The sides have small notches that are supposed to mate up to tabs on the base plates but these are too tall to allow for a flush fit, so the tabs had to be carefully trimmed down. Finally, the small mount posts on the back that are supposed to match up to the superstructure molded holes are too tall and also had to be trimmed to allow for a flush fit.

This seems to be an area of challenge with Bronco engineering/design with this kit at least. Quite a few of the mount holes, tabs, etc. don't seem to have a close tolerance and in many instances I've had to trim, open, alter, etc. in order to get a good fit. Sometimes too big, sometimes too small, very rarely just right.



Moving on to Step 8, I installed the radio, bracing panel, small storage box, and the Pak 40 ammunition bin. The radio for this side was also a two-part assembly but since it's a full rack instead of the hollow square, the top seam could be dealt with by sanding and no putty work was required.

The fit tolerances here are very tight with the ammo bin barely clearing the angled brace at the bottom as well as the MG 34 drums at the top. I also installed the rabbit ears scope after carefully drilling out the eye pieces with a pin vise since they were molded solid and carefully deepening the top lenses faces with a drill bit.



Rounding out the step is the construction of the rear hull panel and access doors. The step says you have the option of open or closed but the internal faces of the doors don't have any detail and so I opted for closed.



Step 8 continues on over to the next page and brings the side panels and rear panel together along with the gun mount base. The mount points for the gun base, G7, are two small short pins that are supposed to mate up to the mount pieces that install to either side and this makes for a weak spot in the whole assembly. To address this, I glued G7 to the left side first along with the cross bar G13 and let that dry a bit before adding in the engine deck cover G26 and using that to bring everything together.

Once that had dried up, I added the rear superstructure panel. It was necessary to trim some of the rear portion of G26 on the left side to get a proper fit as well as trim down the small square tabs on the inside of the rear panel. Careful use of liquid glue and finger pressure achieved a good join and once set I sanded down the areas on both sides to eliminate a slight protrusion due to the panel increasing in thickness as you moved from top to bottom.

I added the rear air vents along with the Notek light and brake light. The instructions incorrectly indicate that the Notek lenses should be red, they in fact should be green if you decide to paint them. I also installed the rear portions of the fenders, using a sanding twig to thin them down as they are on the thick side. A small amount of putty was needed to fill a small gap where they join the rest of the fender under the superstructure.







And, just to check and make sure I'm still heading down the right path, I dry-fit the superstructure to the hull. Everything is looking good so far although there are some very tight fits with the tabs into the hull top as well as the fenders, so I will likely give them some attention when it comes time to install them. For now, I'm leaving the separate to facilitate painting of the interior and the fighting compartment. What has become clear though is that very little of the driver's compartment will be visible once the gun is installed, so the short cuts that were taken in that area in terms of detail won't be too visible in the end.



Next up is the Pak 40 itself. Don't forget to set you clocks back if you haven't already!

You're doing wonders with this kit, Bill, looking really good. Drilling out the eyepieces was a nice touch. Are you planning on using the PE tarp hooks?

James, thanks for the comments! Yes, I'm intending to use the tarp hooks but won't install those until the very end and I'm ready to paint the exterior.

Can you tell me (if you're using them) which aftermarket sets you're gonna use?

Lars

Lars,

Since this was provided as a review sample for a kit that's not yet available for purchase, it's straight OOB with no extras. I only use what's supplied in the kit so that people can see and evaluate what areas they might want to address themselves should they decide to purchase it and want to improve the detail. When I do a build like this, I generally follow the IPMS rull of thumb that you can't add but you can take away, so things like drilling out the periscope or the mount ring, etc. would be fine but I'm not adding wiring for the radios for example or replacing the tracks or PE, etc. HTH.

As promised, today focused on the business end of this vehicle, the Pak 40. I skipped over Step 9 which attaches the upper hull to the lower and adds various things to the glacis but will return to that later. Step 10 has multiple sub-assemblies all aimed at bringing the various parts together, mostly on Sprue D, together.

The first sub-assembly I tackled deals with the gun barrel and breech block. All of this is assembled using a single diagram and consists of no less than 12 different parts including the aluminum barrel. I started by assembling the breech parts first and the top part, D25, has two long tabs that are supposed to act as supports and mate with the lower halves. These tabs are too long to fit into the space provided however, so they were trimmed down in order to get a proper fit.

While the instructions direct you not to glue the breech block into position, presumably to allow it to be posed open or closed, I elected to secure it in place because if fit too loose. You can also see in the photo below that the dimensions of part D23 are too small as this should sit virtually flush with the open square in the block and not have that large of a gap around it.

I glued the aluminum barrel securely in place with thin CA, letting capillary action draw it inside the circular ring of the two breech halves as the fit there was a bit loose and it needed to be solid and straight. Next I installed the recoil sled, D28, and immediately discovered an accuracy error by Bronco. The recoil sled on a typical Pak 40 attaches right at the band where the barrel steps down, not behind it. I checked the barrel dimensions with the 1/35 scale plans in Nuts & Bolts #18 that covers the Marder III H since it had plans for a Pak 40 as well and the Bronco barrel is 5mm too long. The recoil sled and all the rest of the gun parts are correct but because the barrel is too long, the recoil sled can't attach in the right place. There's no way to correct this problem without replacing the barrel entirely unfortunately, and this has some repercussions in later steps.



Another sub-assembly deals with the mantlet, this assembles the main exterior plates D1 and D27 as well as adding the bracing arm at the top. The back side of the angled plate had several ejector marks that needed to be trimmed or sanded down, which was a little awkward as they were at an angle so care had to be taken to avoid creating a flat spot in the process. I also assembled the two part recoil armored cover and attached it, only a light sanding was necessary at the nose to eliminate the join seam.




The next big challenge was the assembly of the gun mount. The instructions direct you to construct each half of the mount in isolation and then assemble it all together along with the gun barrel and recoil sled but I didn't follow that path. I first assembled the two long rectangular housing halves D31 and D3 together first, then added the mount halves D32 and D33. This allowed the mount to swivel and elevate and insure the join was solid before adding the details. The elevation pin on D33 is shallow and isn't really a pin at all, just kind of a nub, so the burden of elevating is actually carried by D32.

Once that was all set, I added all the elevation and traverse gear as well as the gun sight on the left side. The wheels are over-scale in thickness and chunky in terms of detail and the gun sight was solid on both ends, so I drilled them out with a pin vise. For some reason, Bronco left off the cap at the end of the rectangular tray that would prevent the gun from recoiling completely off and instead just left the end open, so there's another accuracy error in how they've rendered the Pak 40.

If this gun were going to be mounted on an actual Pak 40, you would see it positioned as it is in the pic below.



I've shown the "plainer" right side as well so you can see another area that I consider to be an issue and that's the hugely thick top portion of the sliding breech block. Bronco did this presumably to help position the block if you wanted to show it in the open position, but because of the way they designed it, that thick chunk at the top is the only thing actually holding the block in place, so there's no real way to get around that since the plate on the left side that would be able to help keep it in place is too small.



The next sub-assembly is to install the gun mount into the mantlet. It's at this point that the 5mm error really compounds itself. Because of the "step" in the barrel, the diameter of the opening in the mantlet prevents it from extending through any further than what I show below. This in turn means that the placement on the recoil sled is too far back, 5mm too far back in fact. Because the incorrect 5mm is in the middle of the barrel, only a replacement barrel would fix this and still have the correct length protruding from the mantlet.

I also encountered another fit problem when it came time to glue the mount into the mantlet. The two-part armored housing added earlier is hollow in the back and the front end of the rectangular tray is supposed to slide inside of that, however the sides of the hollow are too thick and had to be trimmed down. This was a challenge considering the cover was already secured in place but I was able to make it work. In hindsight, I should've test fit it first before committing to glue and thus been able to trim it before attaching to the mantlet, lesson learned.





The final step was the assembly and attachment of the muzzle brake. This is a three part assembly with the two halves of the brake and a circular insert meant to go inside the back half, E3. The problem is that the insert, E8, is circular (as it should be) but the place it needs to go into in E3 is not circular...it's flattened at the top and bottom. In trying to sand and shape it to be the right size, I tweezerpulted it into oblivion and it's just as well I suppose as the thickness on the part was about double what it should have been anyway. On a positive note, the two halves assembled cleanly and use of some liquid glue was all that I needed to get a seamless look. I used some CA gel to secure it in place on the end of the barrel as the fit was a bit loose and it needed to be aligned properly all the way around and the gel allowed for a bit of work time. There isn't a locking nut included and the detail on the collar portion is rather plain.



Finally to round things out, I used a small amount of poster blue tack to test fit the mount of the gun into position on the vehicle. Everything looks like it will go into place as intended after I get the interior painted.

nice work bill
very clean built!

koen

Thanks Koen!

For those following along with this one, I've included an Edit to the original In-Box Review in light of the problem encountered with the barrel:

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/review/3585

Thanks for sharing this build, Bill. It is a an interesting kit and good to get some insights in the kit.

Still with you on this one Bill, step by step.

..Tony the Mutt..

Thanks Jesper and Tony, appreciate the comments.

Bill you didn't waste any time in starting a new project I see. Looking good so far. I'll check in next week or at weeks end. Nice so far.

Bill, this is a nice looking kit. I was always interested in the captured vehicles impressed into German service. I've only seen one Bronco kit in real life so I know little about their
quality and accuracy. I would hope they look over what you and others have found and try to correct what they can on future kits.
Joe

Thanks James, appreciate the interest.

Joe,

This is the first Bronco kit I've built myself and I think overall they are on the right track in terms of subject matter and as a growing company will also experience some teething problems along the way. Hopefully they will continue to improve the quality of their offerings and remain competitiave.

Hello Bill. Enjoyed your build review so far. Everything you mentioned, brings back "not so fond" memories. Even simpler things like attachment points and sloppy fit/engineering of parts, drags down the build pleasure IMO. I too hope they improve their quality, because their kit prices demand they are placed alongside the big boys ... and they have to play by big boy rules. Dragon would get crucified for similar issues. Im looking forward to see how the tracks fit and your opinions on this step. Keep your idler as low as possible!
As already mentioned, they do have cool subjects and when the build is complete the rest can be fun. Havent had a chance to do any modelling for the last 5 weeks or so, because of work commitments, but Im yearning to get back in. I have the base coat on my hotchkiss, and looking forward to get stuck in with the weathering. Will be watching.

Thanks for the comments Frank! I've definitely taken your cautionary tale to heart regarding the tracks and am saving that for the very last. I agree with you as well about the design of the attachment points in many respects, sometimes the connection point actually integrates in with the part instead of being clearly delineated, this in turn of course requires a lot more work/care in the clean-up process.

Looking forward to seeing your H39 cross the finish line.