No update today.
But as I saw in my first post, I made a small error.
I wrote "now" instead of "no" in the part of the build-feature.
Sorry for that mistake!

For me this was only one forgotten letter, but for the english-language-speakers these are very different words; and in this case, these also will fit into the text.

At that time, I got no answer for my written text and possible corrections or additions of my (completed) build-feature.
Also some useable photos (of my first diorama) were collected for this, but not sent.

But I will use this build of the "same gun" as a comparison-build, as I did it with the barrel.
Also some other parts are a bit different to Trumpeter´s kit.

Both are very good and have nice details, but Dragon´s kit looks "finer detailed".
A combination of the parts of both companies (using the machines by one company) will give a great kit and easy to build kit, I think!

For the difference of the 2 barrels and its parts, Trumpeter made one sprue, consisting of 2 separate sprues for the different parts of both breeches and parts.
(I have a good photo of this)
Also Trumpeter removed the un-needed sprue for each kit, but has an plastic and metal-version of the barrel.

Dragon made an additional sprue for the new parts, which also looks good.
So I have 2 breech-parts, to compare 15cm and 10cm.
Also Dragon has only a metal-version of the barrel, but no plastic-version.
But the metal-barrel looks very good and seems to be correct in length.

As I mentioned, Dragon´s barrel has a finer rifeling, which also is "turned". Looks great!
Ahh, the bigger brother (Dragon´s s.Fh.18 kit) has no rifeling, so this is a great progress... also for the smaller calibre!

thats all for today...
Soeren

I forgot:
I planned to build a dio and the gun in "in firing-position".

I´ll use an image from Ace-model´s webpage again for an inspiration.
(thanks again to Ace-models for publishing the image!)


I will see, how to make the dio and which size for the base.
For this I have some sizes, and I will see, which more are available. (also depending on my available space)
The limber is not used in this dio (or not visible), and was built just for fun.

Also I have no information about locking the gun in the gun-site.
(were there used the shovels? - I don´t think so, in the concrete-covered place)

Perhaps one of the readers have more information about this.
I have a small "book", but it´s not useful for this weapon.

greetings...
Soeren

Nice!! If you depict the above scene it would sure be great. I really need to get this gun at some point. The more I look at it the more i want it.

Looking forward to seeing more...

Rob

I made some progess today and yesterday, but I will relink the images tomorrow. (saturday)
Images are uploaded to one of my photobucket-pages for see it first.

greetings...
Soeren

Hi, yes this kit is nice, but I have some problems with the instructions.
If one has a good "condition", so this should not be a problem.
But I read, that its brother-kit (s.15cm Fh.18) also has inaccuracies in the instructions.

I will try to build a scene as the shown above, but I´m not sure about all of the content of the fire-place.
My idea and plan for it was to build a "comparitive scene"; I mean the wooden parts and the concrete ground and so on.
Later I will plan "the add-on´s". (perhaps figures, boxes and so on)

build:
I completed the other shovel some days ago, but possibly I can not use both.
But we will see.
Also I glued the parts of the limber, but planned to do this after painting.
My ideas were, becaouse of the low contrast to use not the dark "panzergrau" instead to use the lighter "gun-grey" (translated; Revell -174) and for the second color an "okre" tone. (dark-yellow, dark-sand "Revell -188")


I made a comparison-view with Trumpeter´s limber. (for the gun, I can not do this)




Also I´ve completed the wheels-part..


Be careful with part C8, it´s on the other side... instead of the shown one.

The completed parts:
Also I had some problems, but can solve them.


Adding all parts together:


Note: parts C30 (hand-weels) are on sprue D! (D30)




and



So, I´ve finished to edit this message. ;-)
But all new images can be found in my photo-bucket-gallery. (linked, and not linked to here)
Also you´re invited to vist my other galleries.

greetings...
Soeren

There is no update today or the last days.
Hmm, I only started to add details to one of the trail-arms. I decided to let the shovels and other tools away. And perhaps I will paint and add them later.

But for the actual scene, I thought about the colors and the parts of the diorama.
I have a medium-grey (from my other project) and for the second color I would use an yellow-color (Revell 36188 - ocker, ocre).
I would buy some flat and some round wooden parts. (I can not translate it correctly)

greetings...
Soeren

I´ve added some parts to one of the trail-arms.
There were no problems with the instructions and parts. (how and where to place them)
I will add photos later.
My "charging-machine" for the "recherchable batteries" was destroyed yesterday by me using the wrong power-cable.

Today I bought a new one, which seems to be a bit better. (in the case of the power-cable)

I have no tools added to this trail-arm, but perhaps I will add them later.

greetings...
Soeren

update:
I´ve completed the other trail-arm, but also without any tools.
But I made no photos of these.

Also I made a comparison of the completed parts, and in this case of the fit of the 2 gear wheels. (see red arrow)

I tried to fix that, but I stopped my work.
So It´s better, to add the small gear wheel later and try to shorten its holder-part.


Also I found another small mistake in the instructions.

Part D24 is on the B-sprue.
But this is no problem.

But: a great idea for both kits... Dragon and Trumpeter... would be different types of wheels and their characteristics.
I made a small collage of my fotos of them.



From left to right, Trumpeter uses number 3 in its kits (sFh18 and sK18), while Dragon uses number 4.
Number 4 is the newest version, while I have no exact information about type one and two. (I think, no. 2 is newer than no. 1)

Both earlier types would be nice, to make pre-war scenes!
A resin-manufacturer also only make both newer types, shown at the right side. (no. 3 and 4)

Note:
Also the bigger guns (17cm K18 and 21 cm Mrs 18 used type 2 and later type 4, but they had bigger wheels)


greetings...
Soeren

Good progress, Soeren!

Regarding the cogwheel, it looks from the picture as though the entire part isn't seating (glued) well against the trunion piece. Perhaps by sliding the part up a bit more you will get the cogwheel to line up with the toothed strip. Again, I don't think this is a matter of shortening the plastic as opposed to just sliding the entire plastic piece (of which the cogwheel is a part of) up a bit to get the wheel to seat parallel to the strip.


And yes, these are practically the same wrong instructions as they appeared on their sFH18 kit. Would have been much better if they at least took the time to revise some of those...

Rob

Hello, some days ago I uploaded some images to my photo-collecting-webpage... now, I will relink them.
The reason was, perhaps I can make changes while building the kit.
(how to write this?) Yes, these happpened.

But to make a good start: ;-)
Rob, you´re right... using "babelfish" as a help for translating your text, you´re right.
Also I made an arror, or perhaps Dragon can "announce", that the cogwheel (named by me as "gear wheel") can produce some problems.

But also perhaps I made an "error" of glueing the mainwheels. (I thought, you meaned this)
As I see, I placed the glue at the wrong places, and after that I had to hold/ fix the wheels "in place" to get a good fit of the wheels.


So....
I made a photo of the next steps.

On the right side, these show the parts for making a fixed or moveable addition for the gun/barrel.
I have no good words for these parts.

The upper one drawing shows the ... actual build by me. (using metal-parts)
Now I´ll try to make it moveable, after the other (fixed parts) situation was not successful.
Also the gun-barrel is not moveable in height using the parts A52 or A3. (made of plastic)

I removed the single parts and the next days I will start another try using 2 photo-etched parts as an addition to A58 and A60.

Until now, this is the "most delicate" part of the build! ;-)

Also... when I see my last build of the gun, the paintwork and the diorama-scene, I´m very sad!
When I see other good looking kits with great paintwork on it or something else, I´m enviously. (correct translated?)
Yes, I´m very sad, when I see these great images!
But I saved some of them on my computer as an inspiration.


There are the 2 metal parts:


And here:


or here:

... you can see the result.


Also I glued the sight/ vision-system, which is made ot transparent plastic.
It will look like this.


Here are images of the trails arms.


Also again I used the glue to weaken/ soften the plastic and this time to fill some gaps.


After painting, I will see the result.


That´s all for today...
Soeren

Nice work there, Soeren. I checked my 1/72 Revell 21 cm and it also has the later style wheels. I was sure that it gave you the choice of two types but I was wrong. It also looks like Dragon has trouble with their instructions in the larger scale. Nice to know us 1/72 builders are not alone in this.

Cheers,
Jan

Why are you sad when both of your builds (this one and the snow diorama) look excellent? Let me say this, assembling artillery kits can get extremely involved as the details are oftentimes too small or really fragile to deal with. I've had it easier putting together halftracks than most of the artillery kits I build. It does get a bit easier with practice though as you know that some areas are often similar (gun slide, etc) and allow you to anticipate problems.

Keep going, you're doing a really good job assembling this kit and detailing the trouble areas for us.

Rob

Looking good so far Soeren.

Hi Soeren,
very nice progress on the gun, thats for sure.....also sorry to hear about your grandma - its been a while, but I did not drop in any earlier, always keept away with my busy projects...
Cheers
Libor

Sieht super aus!
Weiter so!
Guido

Yesterday and today I´ve updated my gallery. (for link the images and writing text later)
During the next days I will update my build-log here.

Thanks for reading and commenting!
Soeren

PS: One short comment:
the artillery piece is nearly completed (without sight-system and without tools), but the trail-arms were added.
In comparison to Trumpeter´s kit, I´ve noticed a small "problem" .

Hello to all and thank you very much for the comments!

Rob, I was a bit sad about my snow-scene, because of the many changes I made and the result is not satisfying me.
I saw some better painted guns, but these were grey with a great weathering and sand-brown, also with great weathering.

Also the snow-effect and the landscape could be better, but I think, it´s okay so far.
To compensate this and the not painted rods and tools, I added the empty cartridges/shells and the wooden box.
One wooden box ist left, perhaps I can use is on the actual build.

Libor, also thank you very much for your nice comment!
I appreciate it.

Hi Matt, new poster on my projects.

Guido, in english please.
Also thank you for your comment!


So... the build:


A photo-montage, which shows locks for the gun-cradle for travelling.

top part of the image:
Not visble are the numbers, also these two parts (one lock on each trail-arm) have reversed numbers.
But also this is no big problem.

The lower part of the image show the lock in travel-mode.
For travel-mode, there are 2 parts necessarily to build the part..
There are 4 complete travel-locks in the kit, but only 2 are needed.


One problem was, that one can not open the trail-arms as wide as possible.
For this, one should remove small "noses" -before- attaching them.

From a good drawing I found an overview of the angle of the full opened trail-arms.


The overview shows the actual model.


I have not attached rods and tools, and planned to paint by hand, attach them, and finally covering them when I spray-paint the parts of the gun.

Comparison with the completed Trumpeter-build... lit by an LED-light.


and ...




greetings...
Soeren

Looking really good, Soeren! I must say that the long barrel makes the kit look simply spectacular!. Your build, as a whole, surely brings back both good and bad memories of my failed attempt at DML's sFH18. I do have one more of those in the stash so I hope my next build goes smoother.

Man, I do need to get moving on buying one of these K18s. Costs a lot though from what I've seen...

Rob

Nice work Soeren !

The gun looks great - you mentioned some alternative resin wheels for this kit - who makes them please ?

Hello, the maker of the replacement resin-wheels is R&J products.
http://www.rjproducts.com/

I made an montage of the two types, but these are the newer style wheels.



Also the instructions is not accurate enough, "where and how" to place some parts.
It´s better to use other modelers reference-builds.
Also for the parts of the underside of the trailarms, no exact information is available.
But I was sure that I saw it on the kitbox-underside, which has some CAD-images, or other -more exact- images.

Here´s my one.


greetings...
Soeren

I have images of the underside of the trails for the sFH18 and I am sure they are the same for the K18. I could scan them and send them to you if you want.

Based on my build of the sFH18, it seems you got the parts correctly placed though.

Rob

P.S. Those revised wheels from R&J look amazing!

Hi Rob (and all other readers), the "base" of the 2 guns is the same, as I know.
The only difference is the barrel and the breech.

No, you don´t need to scan/send the images to me.
When you said, it looks okay, I also think, it´s okay.
When I have the drawings, perhaps I´ll find parts, which I would make correct.


Hmm, to the progress...
I made some drawings in DIN A4 and DIN3 sizes, which could be the base-sizes.
Are the sizes DIN A3 or DIN A4 familliar to all?
If not, DIN A3 is 297mm x 420mm, while DIN A4 is half the size.
(297mm x 210mm)
I made different images (shown from above) in both sizes, in vertically and horizontally type of the base.
Images will follow soon.

Also I bought the second color, an ocre-yellow. (Revell 36188, or RAL 1011), which I also could use to paint the wooden parts of the tools.
NOW, I will do it.

I used the gun-grey (translated) at my other project, for spray-painting a (venusian) landscape. (it was hard work; the edges should be as rough as possible and not "sanded " by the airbrush or a brush)

For the gun, this is a medium grey, and would give a good contrast to the yellowish color, I think.

I will paint the red-white parts using white color and a red-Edding-paint-marker.
Perhaps this will be a good solution.

Also I bought wooden parts which I would use for the base.
My inspirating-image is another Ace-models -based image:
(thanks to them!)


I think, I will not use any figures, but I´ll try to cover the base as good as possible.


greetings...
Soeren

Hello to all, a small update today.
Some weeks ago I bought new colors.

A "real" dark-yellow possibly would be better, but I think, I can use the ocre-tone instead of this.

Today I removed the small cover and it was possible to make a small but visible change on my build.
I partly removed small "noses" on the inside of the trail-arms to get a wider angle of the opened arms.


The difference can be seen.


And the result.


Also I printed a plan for the diorama-scene.




greetings...
Soeren

This is looking really good, Soeren. Looking forward to see it painted.

Rob

Hello to all, small progress to my build.
I´ve made some photos of the actual progress, but I will upload and relink the images tomorrow (Friday) or later.
I´ve painted some tools, but I´m not sure about connecting/adding them to the trailarms of the gun.
Also I made photos of the wooden "sticks", which i want to use for the wooden "walls" of the scene and a comparison of the 2 colors, which I´ve planned for the gun itself..

Hmm, I found the image of the underside of one trailarm, which can be possibly found on the underside of the package of the base-kit. (15cm s.Fh.18)
I found this and others on the net, saved them to my computer and used this image as an reference for that special part.


Greetings and thank you very much to all readers for about 600 visits of this build log since my last update!

Soeren