I´m building german Pak 36 of Zvezda and now I have a trouble. In kit, there´s 3 equally long rods, that should be attached into the Pak itself. Now, there´s no any kind of instruction, how to paint them. What was the purpose of these rods? To use as a guide for right fireing position/direction or are they barrel cleaning tools? Just seem to be too long for that.. And what´s the right way to paint them?

Maybe a picture would help to ID these rods Here's one from svsm.org :



Looks like they're made of wood....

Frenchy

Thanks Frenchy.
Those are the rods, I´m talking about. Zvezda has moulded them just plain smooth rods. So you just can´t think them as barrel cleaning rods and I have already painted them panzer grey.. Is there any other kits, where I could steal better finished rods?

In that scale brotha, smooth would be just fine.

Think of a 35th scale broom handle, it would be smooth at that scale.

Paint it brown and streak some oil on paint to simulate the wood grain...like the Biplane builders do.....

Ryan

They appear to have screw ends on them, kind of like drain rods; that would make them the barrel cleaning rods I'd think. Natural wood seems to be the correct colour. As Ryan says, they would look pretty smooth in scale as they are turned wood.

Kimmo, I also believe that the rods are used for cleaning. On the PaK I built one rod is about as long as the barrel. You'd need two to properly handle cleaning as one would be too short. There are some nice pictures of a restored gun at http://www.heritage-group.org/ex-37cm-PAK.html .

Cheers,
Jan