Hi all,

I had this happen last night.



I am going to do a new blog on DML's FLAK sd kfz 7. Considering my success rate, 0/1, I'd say this one should go great!



But wait a minute, what did the title say again?

Hey all,

This is my first big resin job. I'd have to say this is my most favorite AFV. This thing is like a big ogre. Remember, this thing was automatic fire (probably not fast though) at a 5cm bore!

The only photo I think in existence.



The kit is from Robert Schatton in Germany. A little expensive, but I ordered straight from him. He speaks (or writes rather) enough english. He is very trusting, he sent me the model before he even picked up my Western Union transfere. The conversion is for a trumpeter kit, but to heck with that. DML's offering is better and less of a headache.







All clean.



Very nice barrel from Schatton that comes standard with the kit.









Some parts were broken, but thats fine. I plan on scratching these curly cues out of brass any ways. I might scratch some of the sheilds as well. I feel more comfortable with brass / styrene. Given that, the rest of the molds from Schatton are ok. They need some lovin' but they'll get you a 5cm flak.

I am only showing the worst parts.





All nice and clean.



Oh wait. What? Awww.....



All the major casting blocks removed.



Wear one of these!

Hey guys new update. This is going to be a very slow build for a while. I am having to rebuild much of the kit's parts. That is fine, at least I have a "template" for all my parts.

Its pretty easy to mimic. Its harder to create.

Here is what I am up against. Broken and warped parts. I still think this resin kit is very good. If I had to pick resin over styrene, I go styrene any day. So while I am rebuilding, the rebuilds will be better than the kit could have been. Don't be afraid to get one of these kits if you love the 5cm subject.

Some of you may be thinking, why the hell would I buy a kit if I just have to make all the parts myself?! Its a fair question. I don't have scale drawings, nor can I make the very specific parts (gun breech, barrel, etc...). I am thankful I can have a model of a 5 cm flak in the end.















The other parts.



BTW, this chopper makes it fast to do all the planks.



To save weight on the part (the attachment point is small), I am going to recreate the bar out of styrene. I tried heating and bending the rod first, but it didn't give the right look. I then cut sections with 45degree chamfers.





I gotta do some smoothing, but I am happy with the effect. Again, brass rod would have been too heavy for this.





Thanks for looking. I think this thing will get going faster when I get on the halftrack, which I have built several of. I hope this is enjoyable.

I'm enjoying this. Keep it coming.

Hi all,

If I don't die doing this kit, I think I am invincible.

This won't do, the chamber depth is too short.



After attempts to coerce the kit's parts, I decided to make my own.







Smoothing the breach out with various tools.





Roughening up the barrel to help the epoxy hold.





Pinning the joint with roughening.







I was letting some putty dry and I was going to work on other parts when I saw this.





I hope it is worth the effort. I think I should be able to not kill something while I fix those air bubbles. Any words of encouragement are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

The best suggestion I can think of is make sure you are very calm before you start. Good luck with those air bubbles.

little drops of CA applied with a pin?---Pat Jones

Hi Mark,

That is stunning work you show here. Looks very nice. Is the chopper you have from micromark? I would like to hgave something like that too. It will come in handy when you're going to scrtchbuild things.

Again, nice work!

Hilbert

Hey all,

A new update. Not much was done, but very time consuming. I think I will conquer the air bubbles. I think this kit was made with resin that had a lot of air bubbles from mixing, not necessarily pouring / casting.

This is my first resin kit, I think I am doing ok. It takes a lot of patience and the process is very slow. I appreciate the feedback. The chopper I have is by some "Northshore RailRoad Line" company I think. The super glue recommendation was helpful.

Thanks.

I did some filling.

Before:



After a coat of Mr. Surfacer to show the errors. I did some sanding.





It's pretty messy, but its better than before. I think persistency will pay off.

I think when I get to the injection molding dml sdkfz 7, I will die from joy. I decided to take a break from that part and work on other areas.

Still there are some bubbles and sculpting necessary. I DO like that resin takes to sculpting a little easier than styrene in that minimal finish sanding is necessary if you have a sharp blade. In other words, the resin doesn't scratch very easily.





I still have some work to do, but its getting there.



Missing bolts galore. More work for later. You can see the air bubbles. I am not going to cut into these, I will leave them there.







Some crooked lines.





I think it looks a little better.





I ask myself why am I doing all this pain to myself. I have a tamiya hetzer with Voyager AM kit that should go together like a dream, yet I am boiling parts on my stove to make them straight.

I can dream can't I?







This is pretty cool. A 2cm flak barrel, a jadgtiger 128mm, and the 5cm flak. Its amazing to think the 5cm FLAK 41 was automatic!




I appreciate all your comments and help. Really I do. I hope I become a better modeller from this and I hope you enjoy looking.

You will.

You will get more and better perspectives of how to handle parts. For now, you are using the resin pieces. But be careful, before you know you'll make them by your own with some plastic cards!

MWRAAAGGGGGGG!!!!

You all thought I was dead!



I may have well been a zombie these past few weeks. I was busy cleaning up and rebuilding a lot of the kit parts!



I'll show some of the completed parts. They may not look exciting, but they took a long time to clean up:















I was proud of my scratching on the elevation indicator.







I did pretty good on this device as well (radar or acoustic range finding?)







Ok, now on to what I like best, showing how I do some stuff! Take what you think is useful. Maybe they help, maybe they don't.

Pedestal Mount:

This needed some missing bolt detail.





Air bubbles (x1000):



A fresh tube of this was perfect for the smaller voids.





Once that was dry, I could file and sand it down. This is what took soooooooooooo long the past few weeks (not that specific hole, but the many that were found).

I scavanged from old kits for bolt details.



Recessed bolts:

There were these on the kit, but many were soft or missing, so I decided to redo them all for consistency sake. I also redid the ribbing on the side. You can see it was sanded clean here.

First I drilled the holes oversized.



This is you, the modeller. Deep in concentration, you go to work. You are tediously cutting little peices of solder. Your prowess is displayed.





So then all these little bits are glued into the holes.





The excess is trimmed.



They should like quite good when painted. Remember the holes are oversized, so the recess should have a nice effect.



Oval holes:

There are some guides on the gun that have oval shaped holes. I do not have a mill, so this is my method. Its a little convoluted and has a high fallout rate. Oh well, the parts look OK in the end. I'll get some installed photos later. Below is a picture of a real 5cm Flak. You can see on the 2 guides on the side what I am talking about.



First, I start out by drilling a series of holes as best I can.



Then I start to walk the drill from one hole to the next.



The one on the right is connected. The middle 2 are halfway.



Once adjacent points are connected, I use a reamer to better clean the holes out.





A slobbering of this helps to smooth things out as well.



Here is a section complete. It is then cut from the main strip.



Here are a few.



Other detail:

I rebuilt some rectangular sheets with a raised rib and bolt detail. The kit's were airbubbled and irregular.

I cut the basic shapes out of styrene stock.



A pretty simple assembly to do "offline" and then superglue to the resin body.



Repairing a slide:

Similiarly, I rebuilt some missing sections of a slide.





Installed.






Overall assembly. I am not complete on the gun yet. I still need to rebuild the cradle. It is almost there and it makes me happy to see that everything is alinged and epoxied properly with pins for strength where needed.



















Well that's it for a while. I hope you enjoy following my build. Thanks for looking. I know the 5cm is a little weirder subject, so one may not have a large reference of what it should look like, I'll try to include more real photos as I go so you know what I am trying to build.

Despite all the pain of filling the bubbles, rebuilding, etc... It is nice to watch it come together in the end. I think that's the point of this hobby. I gotta always keep that in mind.



The point.

Very Impressive work on display here and I enjoy your sense of humour with the zombie picture !

Very original

Hey guys!

I have an update. I am going to work more tonight, this is just a primer.

I added the support handles on the top. I used copper so I could crush the tips for a contact point. If you look at the photos, you can see the same thing. If you used brass, you might have a harder time.



I also added some features to help keep the gun horizontal for the years to come. I will still add other braces to keep the gun fixed. I don't want it to sag over time.





After some coats of primer. Sorry for the underexposure.









I also finished the base:









I also added this bolt pattern. It looks like it was here on some scale drawings, but the kit did not include it.





Ok.


Ok, so the parts are complete (sans gun shields which will be rebuilt with sheet styrene. Here they are all laid out:





And I cleaned all my tools:



Here is my humble abode:





Thanks for looking! I'll be working today on the assembly of the above parts. Hopefully all of the grunt work will pay off and have an easy assembly.

'Till tonight
Mark

Loving your build. Your effort is showing amazing results.

Thanks Noel.

I have finished most of the detail on the gun. All parts have been expoxied. I really like this brand of epoxy for the plastic / resin parts. It smells good too! No seriously it smells like nail polish remover and not that weird epoxy smell.







That MACRO shows some errors. Oh well.












Thanks again for looking. Your comments are helpful. Hopefully the beginning of your week's are good.

Mark

Hey all,

A new update. I have some progress on the base and some more scratch building.

Some detail attached.




The horizontal traverse didn't fit well.





So what do you do when life gives you lemons? You make new horizontal traverses.

From left to right: Bronco sprue piece (Bronco's are more circular than dragons), styrene stock, a spare 2cm flak 38 base.



I used a saw to cut off a section of the styrene stock. I also cut part of the mounting bearing of the 2cm.



After cleaning up the two cut parts, here's what we have.



I filed a little mark in the Bronco piece to help center the drill.



Some drill action!



The rod was then cut and filed to the proper length.



After gluing the pieces together and adhering it to the base.




Thanks for looking! Hopefully you can start to see the gun come together. The forest for the trees.

A lot of other good build logs going on here. Don't be afraid to comment on any of them.

Mark out.

Excellent. Two beers for you.

Resin bubbles are unavoidable in even professionally-cast pieces. One solution is a drop of water onto CA glue. The glue "dries" instantly, and frosts, so you have the hole filled and can later sand it.

I've been following along with this one for a while. The work arounds you're introducing are impressive. Keep it up!

Thanks for the comments guys.

Bill, is that how super glue dries? Is it moisture and not air? That will be helpful in the future.

Mark

It can't be just moisture, because if you leave it out, it will dry on its own. But apparently moisture does cause a chemical reaction.

Spit & polish takes on a new meaning, LOL.

This looks to be one cool model. wow, those resin parts do need a lot of work. Is this an actual AM resin kit ?!. The quality is pretty poor but good thing your handy. Nice work on the new parts,, they actually look a lot better than the resin ones.

Hello all,

I appreciate the comments. Thanks.

I have worked on the sighting mechanism tonight. The elevator needed some cleaning up:





After some cleaning.



When using a blade, make sure it is sharp. Drag it along perpendicular to the surface (don't angle it or you risk cutting into the part). Sometimes a blade is best because a file will bend the part and may break it.



Now onto pinning the joint for the sighting mechanism.



The wire used for pinning and the drill bit used. The bit is a bit large, but it still worked ok.





The elevation bar is pretty small and would benefit from pinning. I am going to use superglue because this part is too small for epoxy as it would be hard to goop it on. I can use the capillary action of the superglue. Note how the wire and bit are smaller.







Here is the pin on the main joint.



And the pins in the elevation bar.



The main sighting mechanism attached. Epoxy was used.









Uh-oh, the sighting bar is a bit long. I think the kit is meant to be posed at a slight angle. I enjoy my armor to have a zero elevation on all the guns. I find the silhouettes look way better. This is similar to DML's flak gun kits where they provide multiple sighting bars.

So I cut the bar in half.



And I carefully hollowed the cylinder out to take slack on the piston. Remember to use multiple bits. The first sets the guide for location. The second prevents the large from grabbing too much. When working with fragile parts, let the drill do the work. If you push too hard, the drill will walk or blow out the side wall.





I then used superglue on the joint. The elevation bar was then fit up. It's a little too short now, but that is ok. I think it should be down and to the right more, but I can't really confirm this with photos. This section won't be that visible when the model is finished.










I hope you are all enjoying the blog. I hope you don't find it too painful / simplistic. I am not try to insult you with some of the stages. I know parts need clean up, it's not news. To some it may look like I attached two parts. I don't know, I just like to show in all gory detail what is involved. Hopefully newcomers can see what it looks like to build a model.

Thanks - a - bunch.

Mark

Wow. Really. Wow. You have the patience and dedication only the truly obsessive compulsive can comprehend. I salute you, brave soldier.
I've been building a long time. I love styrene, it's easy and usually neat and makes clean models. I venture into resin kits only when I want the advantages resin brings to the model.I use resin for small arms and MG's..radio sets...resin renders fine details and keeps small parts sharp better than styrene does. That is, when the resin is done well. This 5cm flak? This resin kit of the 5cm flak is..nightmarish. This is everything a resin kit should never be. You are a better man than I my friend. I would never have tolerated this abomination, no less taken on actually extracting a model from this heap. Wow. Just wow. Your patience is astonishing. Scratch building would have been easier.

Hey all,

Another nightly update. There be some gods on this site lately (Steven you know who I am talking about). Anyways, us mere mortals must toil away.

There is a post on the left that a handle attaches to. If you notice, it is shorter than the rod I was working on last night.



Needless to say, it won't fit.



This wheel is connected to the elevation meter. So I installed it along with a styrene rod. The post that was too short was drilled through. This will provide a cleaner look anyway.





Head on, the styrene rod is a little crooked, but from the top down it is fine. A shield will cover the front, so I want the top down to look good.





You can see there is clearance with the new rod.



I also added a more positive attachment point.







And installed.



I also pinned a different hand wheel member.



And installed.




Now some photo booth time.









And some dreamer pics with the gun in place. I am trying freehand with an Fstop of 22 in some cases, so please excuse the shakiness of the photos. The only tripod I am using at this point is my two legs and Jack Daniels.

















Ok, I'll stop with the film'noir stuff. To quote William Murderface "get back to work, you ugly humps".

Anyways, hope you like the stuff. I think it is coming together. Tonight I didn't show as many "action" shots. I can't take up all the site's bandwidth on this crummy thread

Have a good night and please comment on some of the other awesome threads on this forum!

Markus out.

You have done a rather impressive job with the 50mm flak gun, all those extra details will help lift the model when painted.

Slightly off topic.....

I find it interesting that you have been supplied with a brass gun barrel and flash suppressor in one piece usually the barrel at least would have been aluminium. In my 222 build I have also been given the brass equivilent with my Lionroar 20mm barrel. I wonder if this is a new approach to making small caliber gun barrels ? Looking at your gun barrel is is almost certainly made by the same manufacturer as mine.

Keep up the good work

S