Hi all!

I got my first camera! Its a Nikon with a 60mm macro lense. I have started a build on a Bronco H39 with a Voyager Upgrade kit.

This first post is really just a test of my camera. I hope you like the photos.

I tried to follow museum photos as best as I could for this. The only thing that is a little ficticious is the top of the transmission. The kit lacked detail on the top of the housing, so I tried to add some that looked a little like the scarce photos on the web. Most of it will be covered by the gun. The scratches on the surface are superficial, trust me. I spent a lot of time with 1500 grit, this early bronco plastic scratches easily.

Damn that radio joint!!! If you built this kit, you will know what I am talking about.

I hope you enjoy!!!

Nice looking build so far, waiting on the final and some paint. Keep pressing.

Hi all! New update.

Spending time getting the thickness right. This kit has everything there, it just needs some attention. Again, ignore the sanding marks, I have done finish sanding. This darker plastic shows strain lines more than others. The left side is finished compared to the kit thickness on the right.


I need the recuperator from the kit for the brass AM.


But wait! There is no recuperator on the kit. While it may be invisible at the end, it would be a shame to not have it. A smoke discharger from my scrap bin and styrene rod will do.


Here's how I cut hollow plastic. I keep rolling back and forth until I have a nice score without caving the pipe in.


Before installation.


Installed.


Now next to the rest of the mess for the next update! Stay tuned!

Good work Mark and nice photography too

Nice work and nice pictures. I have had my eye on one of these kits, Might just have to spring for it.

Excellent detail work, the weld beads came out especially nice. How did you make the weld beads so thin?

Hi all.

Not a big update. You will find I am a fast builder, but a slow planner.

For the weld beads, I have two methods. The one I will show is by far the most useful. Maybe I can find an excuse later this build to demo my other method.









Once the tape is off, you have to press the putty down to ensure it sticks. You can also shape the weld to your liking. For this build, I am using very dirty seams as this is what the pictures of H39's show. On the kit, the exterior welds may look garish at first, but they are right with one exception. The weld below the rear doors is too clean, you should rough it up as well.



Sorry for the dark photo, but you get the idea. Small.

I did some work on the gun tube.



Aren't those nice seams?



It puts the Mr.Surfacer on or else it gets the hose.





Well didn't that turn out great.



I kept sanding and sanding. I think my breach block was crooked and for some reason it never looked right until I lined it up with a ruler.



Robbert Blokker posted a nice leHF 18 walkaround. It really shows how nice and clean my breach looks!





Oh hey, what about this?






Well they say you can't hide bad modelling with weathering? Hmm.... Well, maybe you can hide bad modelling with good modelling.




Yes, I will be building a cover.

looks good, I've had my eye on that kit for a while

You are doing some really nice work on this kit. Thanks for sharing.

Darryl

Ola Mark

I love these kind of built logs. Not the standard subject when it comes to vehicles and I love this kind of interim solutions the Germans used during ww2

And you are making a great built out of it as well. I love all the details you added. Looks really good. Also with the gun. I'm glad my Walkaround is of some use. As for the cradle. You could sand the bottomside smooth even with filling it up with putty first.. And on the inside you could put a strip of the thinnest evergreen you can get your hands on. Problem of seam solved.

looking forward to the rest. Actually this built reminds me that I need to get Friul tracks for my H39 I started last year. Did full interior detail work and did a lot of extra work on the exterior. But I haven't done plastic tracks for so long that I forgot how to do them properly.. Kinda stupid really.

Your build so far is great. As for your photography, it's nearly perfect. All your pictures were sharp with even lighting. Something that's not always so easy to do with Macro pictures.

Hey all,

I had to get a Flickr account for all the pictures. Not a big update, but I need to keep the wolves fed. Some of the paint hasn't even dried in these pics!

Thanks for following. I appreciate any feedback on my photography (this is my first camera). Thanks for the help!

I am paranoid about the strength of my models. I would rather risk a glue joint visible over a model that falls apart.

I used milliput to make sure the breech does not move. The glue joint holding the end of the barrel to the slide is small and I don't want it to break.








The slide rod thingy?




The front metal sheild is only held in place by the recoil tube. So I hid a glob of epoxy underneath. It will not be visible, but will help with the strenght.





Oh yea, remember the work with the front section of the recoil tube. Here it is installed. I think its pretty good for something you probably won't see as well.




Ok now on to the breech cover (mistake hider )










Some wood glue and water. Yummy!







All dried.







Now, I put a light coat of Mr. Surfacer on. Make sure the first coat is light. Then I repeated with heavier coats. The stuff is still drying so don't worry about the air bubbles.








Ok! I am happy I am done piddling with that stage. It didn't turn out the best, but I think it is pretty good. I have to do some clean up work that the MACRO is showing me. Hope you are finding this log helpful.

As an aside, I have many photo's of Nashorn's with muzzle and breech covers even though there was a over all tarpine for the vehicle.

I will keep this in mind in the future. I always try to putty, but sometimes a strip is better. In my mind, this is the most troublesome area on any SPG.

Hey guys. New update.

I have finished the gun. Sorta. Well, ok I still have to add some bold details, but most of it is complete. I should get back the interior details.

I built a little white post so the gun can rest on. It is invisible once installed, but again, I am nuts about strength. The kit's cradle isn't that strong and I feel a heavy metal barrel would sag overtime. Sometime plastic barrels are nice for this reason. Sorry I don't have any pics of it installed, and it isn't visible installed, which is good I guess.

Anyways, the guns position is locked, but I know its safe.

I added a cover to the sighting mechanism. Most pics I have seen that have a breech cover also have a sight cover.

Hope you guys enjoy!



















You have to be very careful with alignment. IMHO it is the one thing that can make or break a model. The second something looks out of line, I remember that I am looking at a model. This kit had 3 sheilds that needed to line up. All had different attachment points, so it took time to make sure they looked good. For this, I glued the connection points, then held the shield until it was straight and set. I found that in some places, the connection point just barely touched after eye alignment. I then went through and puttied the joint for strenght and looks.

This Bronco kit does that a few times. I am spoiled with some newer Dragon kits that are very good in terms of alignment. But! If you want a H39 10.5cm, Bronco is the only game in town!

Hey, all that thinning I did on the kit's shield looks pretty good against the brass aftermarket.

This shot shows the top alignment sighting.



This is the front alignment. The camera was a little crooked. That said, I give myself a B- for here. If you follow the barrel, the recoil cover drifts to the left a little.



































Long post is long.

Hey, some photos you may not have.















Oh yea, and the awesomness of this photo is greater than anything I will ever be in life.

Hey all,

First, if I come across sarcastic, sorry. I have been mulling over some bad customer support at retail. Man, it's getting harder everyday to try to support some retail shops. I really want to, but sometimes enough is enough. In the battle of retail vs online, I think websites like Armorama are the future if things are going to be dominated by online.

I have also been having a little too many beers tonight regarding zet incidents so I apologize for blurry photos/attitude.


Anyways, I am fully done with the gun and cradle assembly. I need to do some clean up work, but all the parts are attached.

Some of the additional parts cut from the photetch fret.



Smaller please! I can't not see them yet! Bring the pain on!



Mr. Surfacer doesn't adhere the best to metal. I still use it as an overall primer. For some reason my Model Master paints adhere very well to it and I never have flaking issues on metal parts post Model Master paints. Maybe the MM paints dissolve the Mr. Surfacer a little and improve binding to metal.

Anyways, I usually scrape some of the Mr. Surfacer to ensure parts stick better. One may ask why I didn't solder the parts? I am not good yet with protecting other joints. I didn't want to lose dimensionality by soldering a decorative nut. I figured Cyno would be good enough to attach the decorative parts. Yes soldering all brass would be the best, but I am not there yet.





For small parts, I attach cyno straight to the part and then transfere the nut with a tweezer or the edge of a blade (I'll press the blade into the part so it peirces it and holds it slightly).

BTW, yes, that is a lot of glue. I needed more for the photogenics. In the Real Life, I have only a very tiny amount.









Ok, now for the camo loop holders. I cut with a little flash. I then bend this flash so I have a better attachment point. It is usually / hopefully invisible, but makes it way easier to attach.





Bending of the flash.





Before and after bending. It is hard to tell, but I think you get the idea about the attachment. Note, if you soldered, this flash is not needed; but then again, you have to have the skills to pay the bills for that kind of soldering.



Top is the bent one.



Installed. The flash is pointing down to help hide it.





Check out that glob of glue above the right camo loop.



A quick swipe of an exacto got it!



The best part of the standoffs are the loops have some depth/spacing to them!

See, not really that visible. I told you it would be realtively painless.





The remain parts installed. See my above post for muesem pics.









At some point, I lost a camo loop holder. About a few minutes after I couldn't find the part, my right eye began to itch. Eventually it started bugging me real bad.



What the heck is that!?



After a quick flush.



Well hello, what do we have here?




Ok, I'll shutup for now. I know there is a lot of clean up after review the macro's.

I hope you are all finding this log helpful.

Fascinating log-especially the eye surgery part

Hey all,

Sorry for no update in a while.

Anyways, this post is going to be filled with so much fail, we might as well get on the fail train now:



I will attempt to make these. Long story short, go buy a lot. Now. In every size. Twice.



I attempt to recreate the little tarpine holders.

FAIL ATTEMPT #1:

Drill plastics rod.



ermmm..... a little goofy looking



Attempts to hollow out.



Toot toot. Here comes the fail train.



FAIL ATTEMPT #2:

Create brass tubing.









Ermmm..... it looks like we are headed to failville....

Trimming the excess.





The top wrapping around the rod was the semi finished target. Ignore the trimmings. I couldn't roll it small enought. For bigger sections of custom piping, this method would be fine. A little solder and sanding would give a nice custom rod.



REVISITING METHOD #1 WITH PRECISION:

I retried method 1, using another pin vise to hold the rod stready. A fresh #80 drill bit was called upon as well.



CAREFULL JOHNSON! CAREFUL!





Some first samples. A little offcenter, the later ones get better. Hey man, gimme a break, these buggers are about the same size as the rivets I was working with!!!



Once I had the hole drilled, I cut the section out. Note, it is not hollow all the way through, but this won'y be visible (especially with black washes).

Oh yea, the fallout of this process is 0%. No little peices were lost. Pigs can also fly. Ok in seriousness, it is faster than you would think to drill the rod, so if it is off center or the carpet monster is hungry, it is pretty fast to do this method.

Number 80 is happy to be back in his home. Its a dangerous world out there for these little guys.



I can't say his friend made it safely.



Ok, so the glue is drying and I can't clean the marks yet as they are still wet, so please ignore the marks.

For something not looking half bad, these things don't look half bad. Did I mention buy some of that Griffon tube now? Twice. At all sizes. Now. With some extra.














So I did some other work on the port side details. I know the holders on the right canister stick out too far. Oh well, there is always beer to correct that. The aftermarket came that way, and I didn't think to trim. Did I mention there was beer to correct that. Good.



I hid a piece of styrene on the back to help attach the part. It also gives it spacing from the hull.









As I did more research, I found by diamond plate tread really wasn't accurate. I had a hard time finding photos, and I tried to share all that I find with you. That said, I tried to correct the area as best I could. I still don't have the best photographs, but its the best I could do.

After ripping off the treadplate.



I bought this for ~$20. I didn't know what the hell I would do with it. The handle is a little crooked (and so are the cuts). Given that it is actually pretty fast and accurate at making quick sections of styrene. I should bend that handle so I can use the guide. But hey, its made in the USA. Go economy. Sorry international members. I guess go world!





Some overlapping peices fitted and glued. I want the gaps visible as to my knowledge, it looks like sheet metal was bolted to a structure (See my previoud museum photos for the remains of that structure).






~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

So those camo loop holders look ok. But really I gotta get some rod stock (and the Griffon ones look pretty good). Also, I don't like getting period photos as I go, but I am finding these little nuggets at like 3am on some weird french forum. Oh well, I think I will build a tiger next where I have a bazillion photos so I don't have to rebuild / guess.


As a side note, I hope you are all enjoying this log. I hope the photos are ok. I like to show my thought process as well as my mistakes. I think it is fun to watch how others think and build, and I try to give you the same. I am not superman, stuff will happen. Stuff will get real. I hope you can follow me throught the bad and learn.

Ok upon review, that right canister looks pretty bad. No amount of beer can correct that!

I will fix it for next time.

Update.

I spent tonight cleaning up all the joints and problem areas.

After removing the canisters for cleanup! Do it right the first time Mark!





Ok these look a million times better!









Hey make sure you spend some time with cleaning and sanding. It is not the most glamerous part of modelling. All the plane trips to photo shoots and the dieting......wait ermmm not that kind of modelling. No in scale modelling, cleaning and sanding is not fun. But blemish marks don't get better with painting.

Seriously, spend 10-30 minutes and clean up your joints. Put on 3 or 4 of your favorite songs. When the songs are over, you can stop. Even in that little time, your modelling will look so much better! Here are some pics of how I clean up small details.













Tired sanding rags.



Bigger work will require blade sculpting first.



Yourself will thank yourself for spending some time cleaning.





Have a good weekend all! I will post more FRI and SAT.

Excellent progress. You're certainly making good use of the new camera- photos are great.

Mark, Wow !! what great modeling. I need to reread your thread again as there is so much information to be learned from. I used your wield method on my M7 build. Not only is it an easy method, the wields come out perfect time and time again. Thanks.