been pottering around with my old Tamiya PZ IVD and decided to try a bit of scratch building to make it more accurate, i've got Dragon's more up-to-date kit, but thought i'd try my hand at scratch building with nothing more than spares from the spares box and some good old plasticard and filler lol. just hope i can remember how to post pictures

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ok i've got a red X hmmm... guess it's been a while stumped now might as well explain what spares i've been using on the kit, whilst i try to figure out how to post pics basically i replaced the tamiya lower hull with a spare from dragon.... well most of the kit has been replaced by dragon parts lol. the new suspension is from tristar - on a side note i hope they release some early Pz IV indy tracks so i won't have to use an old set of italeri vinyl tracks haven't used any PE on this yet because i'm happy with the progress so far. hopefully if i can sort my uploading probelm more pics will follow fingers crossed.

Ant,

Underneath the image in your gallery there is a linked thumbnail address in a box, and an icon next to that on the right. Click the icon and another URL box appears below with the correct URL for the image. Copy this URL and paste it in your message, and job done!

Tom

thanks Tom will try that now

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Ant,
Did you replace the head on the figures too. I have the same kit sitting on my workbench that needs an overhaul, so I'll be watching your progress.

i did replace the heads Sal, they're from a verlinden set, 2084 figure conversion parts german tank crew ww2 in the set was three heads with the early panserwaffe berets so it was a simple swap just got to add wiring to their head phones and throat mikes will post some more pics soon, now i know how to upload them again.

Ant,
I was thinking about chopping of my heads and adding heads with the newer M40 Schiffchen cap. Then I would give my Panzer a white wash coating and transfer then to the Eastern Front. I'm not going to go to crazy with replacing part because I'm happy with the way the built turned out. Maybe add some gear as well to it. Just a thought for now, future project.

Funny how these things happen. I came home after finishing the new Tamiya BT-7 build at the store and decided to bring out just this kit for a quick build and paint. I want to try some new weathering and filter techniques so I'm not overly concerned with accuracy. Actually the kit stands up very well and I think give you a great 3D canvas. My only consession to bringing it up to date so far are a set of TriStar individual tracks. By the way, if you use the aftermarket tracks you have some real issues with the drive sprockets.

Keep up the neat work! I'll be following along.

hi Pete i haven't got indy links yet still waiting to see if tristar bring out the earlier links the set they have out so far are the mid production links, which aren't really appropriate for the Pz IVD so it'll probably be the italeri one peice vinyl tracks as a temporary solution... because the tamiya tracks won't fit the tristar wheels the teeth on the tracks are too thick.

Hi Ant,
I agree. The mid-tracks were rare on the D (have a pic of what might be a D in Africa Korps sporting 40 cm mid-track). If it's too off the mark I'll ubstruct the track with lots of 'modelling stuff'. With me it's a matter of finding something that looks okay. The rubber bands in the box were also from 1977.

Needless to say that they are like Elvis... they've left the building. I picked one up from the box only to find it was now several peices of something once called vinyl! The TriStar were in my stash for a kit I used Fruil Track for so I looked and said, "Okay... this can work..."

Pete

i'd only turn to fruil's in manic desperation, as this is an OOB build where i'm testing my scratch building and painting skills paying £20 for tracks kind of defeats the object a little, though if tristar don't do an earlier set of links i might be tempted to snag my magic tracks from my dragon Pz IVD and get fruils for that... haven't decided yet.

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here's some more pics

as you can see there wasn't a great deal of the tamiya kit left, but after several nites of cursing, cutting, filling and sanding. i finally got the kit to a degree i'm happy with i even replaced the lower half of the turret, though i won't be sprucing up the interior too much as there will be two figures there, so not much of the turret interior will be seen. the hardest part was the commander's copula, which i had to sand out like hell to get the spare dragon periscopes to fit! but after a few dry fittings, i was happy to finally cement in place. Ant

okay add some paint to the Pz IV
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and one more for now.
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comments welcome, but go easy on my i'm still a beginner lol

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here's my Panzer IV with the italeri vinyl tracks.... ughh... but these are gonna be binned in favor of the tristar links Frank was kind enough to sell me thanks Frank, i must say they really nice to work with! spent two hours the other night and did 26 links, and not a single smidge of glue required! awesome.

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finally got the wiring done on my figures headgear and added some chains from the spare box to spruce up the detail, the one thing i noticed whilst working on my tristar links is that the sprocket and idler are too wide! so straight away these will have to be binned, so i've source the idlers and sprockets from spares from my dragon Panzer IV's, which fit the tristar links perfecly the sprocket though isn't entirely accurate for a D model, but when it comes to muddying up the tracks i might get away with it

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okay my last two images for now will post new pics when i finish tackling the running gear

one last thing can anyone suggest what color either Humbrol, or Tamiya would be best to give a base coat to the exhaust before i weather it with various rust pigments later on? thanks

Hi Ant

You need to get rid of the white on the inside of the hatches. They were the same colour as the tank exterior, otherwise they'd be nice and visible to the enemy.

Alan

yeah i was wrestling with that decision for a while i thought with it being an early Panzer IV D the germans wouldn't have been overly concerned in the early stages of the war, later in the war when the Luftwaffe lost the fight for ariel dominance i could see why a big white hatch would be a prime bullyseye, but i might give it a painting over just to err on the side of caution
Ant