Matthew Lenton takes you through a build of his Pz.Kpfw.IV Ausf. H from Bandai in 1/48th scale

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Thanks!

Matthew you have done a good job of resurrecting this old kit, well done. Please do not use that yellow background again it hurt my eyes.

Very impressive piece of construction. Might consider a cat or dog whisker for the antenna. With luck you can find one more or less the right size, and they taper nicely.

nice wall colour certainly attracts the peoples attention lol!

great panzer 4 though

[quoteMight consider a cat or dog whisker for the antenna. With luck you can find one more or less the right size, and they taper nicely.[/quote]

Strangley, I did think of that, and we even have a black cat who stays in doors all the time, but I have no idea what she does with her old whiskers as I can't remember finding one for ages. Not sure if it is possible to straighten them? In the end I made the antenna from a piece of Plastruct 0.5mm round section rod and achieved a bit of taper by sanding down progressively from one end. Something I discovered in Halfords (a car spares shop) is P1500 sand paper which will abrade something that fine and without kicking up any granules of plastic. Once it starts to clog up a bit, it can actually be used to polish plastic back up to a sheeny surface again.

Sorry about the yellow, that is our dining room wall! It looks a bit less bright under normal lighting conditions. Next time I might take photos in the hall which is bright orange . . .

I did send in some photos of the fully finished version, complete with some crew - and the aerial - not sure if they will be published, or I might upload them later if I can get around to working it all out.

Matthew if you have some new pictures by all means send them along as they can always be added to the feature for you.

Thanks Darren, I have sent them.

Matthew,

Well done! Good to see another Bandai fan.

I have put two Bandai reviews up, with more pending. If you care to join in the endevour, please do.

Hope to see more of your work, Bandai or others.

Fred

Considering their age, I thought the Bandai 1/48 was pretty good. Although the Pzr IV H had a very large (diameter) gun barrel. Did you taper it down some - it looks more the right size. I did my zimmerit with green stuff (body putty) and parts of an old hacksaw blade. Interesting that 1/48 armour didn't catch on back them, but now that everything else has been done and redone in 1/35, they are getting back to it. I just wish that Tamiya would quit using the metal parts!

Must admit I didn't notice a problem with the barrel diameter, but must admit that I had to do a fair amount of filing and sanding to get rid of the join in it, so by the time you've done that and tried to keep the cross section round, the diameter was considerably reduced any way. I think in fact the barrel isn't quite round any more, but it doesn't show much. . .

Yes, I think they were good for the time - being mainly brought up on Airfix and Matchbox, they were certainly better than those, and as good as a lot of the Tamiya. I remember the Wespe as being very enjoyable build which led me to buy the P.IV. Might get around to revamping that one some time. I was tempted recently to buy a Bandai Tiger from eBay, but the price went a bit too far. I wonder if people are collecting these things in order to keep them in the box? I'd certainly build it !! Was half thinking about a Tiger / Pz IV diorama, such obvious companions.

So I guess this one took about as long as one of my builds?

Nice job.

Scott