Okay, here goes! I'm gonna do this!! Never done it before, big step for me, boldly posting about my building CyberHobby's PzKpfw.II Ausf.F ... it's from the '39-'45 Series # 6263.

Whoo-hoo! I've been looking forward to building this model. It has a partial interior. The fighting compartment and the turret have internal details. It also has those MagicTraks. I've built two models before with individual track links.

Gee, I love those tracks. Geeze I hate those tracks. They're great when they're done. Not so much when I'm still putting them together... still putting them together... still putting them together... still putting them together...

And now I open the box. Yikes. I think this is going to be right at the edge of my modelling ability. Good thing I have 3 pair of reading glasses plus the magnifying headset the family got me for my birthday.

Those MagicTraks are mighty small. They also don't indicate on the packaging which is left or right. There's lots of other parts, and I notice they're well made with no flash that I see. At first glance through the plastic baggies, there is very little in the way of seem lines or injection marks.

Now I look at the instructions. I've built a couple Dragon / CyberHobby models before, but none with interiors and not as complex. These instructions follow suit with the previous CyberHobby instructions I had... nicely done but a little short on descriptions.

With step number one I have my first question... Steps 1A and 1B.

Step 1A shows 3 options for the rear sprocket(?). Step 1B shows two options for the front drive sprocket. (At least I think it's called a sprocket.)

So which one do I use? I guess I'll have to hit google and do some searching... Or maybe somebody here can point me in a direction to find this out?


In the meantime, I'll open the baggies and lightly wash the parts with soapy water. I probably better put a piece of cheese cloth down over the drain hole. Once they're dry (and in between looking up the drive and return sprocket differences) I'll start putting together the roller wheels and suspension parts.

I wish you the best of luck with your first build log, I have just completed a Dragon Panzer 2 Ausf b myself and the build fell together quite well.

One point to note, the interior is based on a Sturmpanzer 2 Bison an earlier Dragon kit so there will be some differences between that and the Panzer 2 even though they are essentially the same vehicle. Here is a link to my build

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/179399#1506782

S

Looking forward to this build!

nice looking kit. am 99% done with the basic PzII from Tamiya so look forward to a more complex build to watch.....

Now that is an impressive build! (Steven's build above)

Also very inspiring. I've read through about half of it so far and wow, you've got me going back through my model's instructions and revisiting my tour of all the parts. I already feel a little challenged by this Ausf.F kit, but some of what you did with your kit I'm feeling eager to try also.

Don't be surprised (and I hope you won't mind) if I borrow some ideas from you!

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/179399#1506782

Thanks everyone, for the encouragement. This is going to be fun!

Dragon's Panzer 2 is really a strong kit externally but the interior has some issues. Its the same with the Dragon Panzer 1a strong exterior but poorly detailed and sometimes completely incorect interior.

I know that you will have alot of fun with this kit and I look forward to your progress.

S

Yeah, the three-day Labor Day weekend (here in the USA) gave me some time to get started. Friday night I washed the parts in soapy water. Here they are drying on the dish rack. Not shown is the stack of dishes my wife collected for me. I guess she figured since I was washing things I wouldn't mind washing some more! *sigh* It did give the parts time to dry though.

I found a walk-around video on YouTube of a Panzer II Ausf.F that was captured in Tunisia. From that video, I identified E6 as the part for the rear return sprocket and E3 for the front. There was also a link to a web site I found with stills of the interior of the same tank as in the video. Unfortunately the web site appears to be down. Bummer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt5yMGKo_rQ

I figured I'd start off following the instructions, so I worked on the wheels and suspension first. There's an inner round surface (part F1) that goes inside the back of each wheel (D2). These little guys proved quite annoying. Despite sanding smooth the remains of the sprue connections, they were too big to fit into the wheels. It took me a bit to sand them down, while keeping them rounded, so they'd fit.


The rear return wheel (D1, above left) has a ring that is very thin and fragile. I think I made a good choice deciding to wait until it was glued onto the rest of the wheel before sanding smooth the remains of the sprue connections. Knowing me, I probably would have broken or bent it otherwise.

The rest of my available Saturday modeling time was spent with a freshly sharpened blade turning "CONTINENTAU" into "CONTINENTAL".


Sunday I tackled the suspension parts. The leaf-springs all have seam lines I hadn't noticed earlier. These are going to take a while of flat-blade scraping to even out the shape and remove the seam line.


Well, I don't know if this is very exciting so far. But it is just the start of things. Don't worry though, I'll hold off posting too much more until I have some photos of stuff actually taking shape.

Good beginning. Just take each step one at a time and it will all come together. Take notes in the instructions as to any steps you need to go back to. Please keep on blogging.

JB

I'm surprised at how much work I've put into removing the seam lines from the leaf springs and suspension arms. The stair-step of the underside of the leaf springs took the most time. The two pictured here are almost done with just a little touch up left to do. Compare these to the freshly-clipped-off-the-sprue photo above!



Here's the bottom side of the suspension arm. This one's about halfway done removing the sprue attachment marks and seam line. The X-Acto blade took the sprue attachment stubs off flat. Flat-blade scraping then does a good job taking off the seam line itself. Then I follow it up with a sanding stick to remove any remaining high spots, and lastly a finer grade sanding board to smooth the surface out.



The seam line goes ~all~ the way around, and is more prominent (and noticeable) on the top. There was also an outward injection circle on the inside of the arm that had to be sanded flat (the red arrow points to where it was). It interfered with the fit of the piece against the leaf spring part. This one below is "in-process".


Yeah! Test fitting! I wanted to see how things lined up first. None of the suspension parts are glued yet. The fit looks pretty good so far. However I'm now thinking the (I'll call them) bumpers that stop the arms from coming up too high (parts H2 and H1) I should have waited before gluing in place. There was a lot of play for the hole the bumpers slip into in the hull and I guess that should have been my first clue... some of the H1/H2 bumpers don't meet up well centered in the quarter circle notch of the D5/D4 arms. I don't think it's going to be noticeable on the finished model though. I guess I should have dry-fitted the arms, rotated them into position to meet up with the bumpers, positioned the bumpers in the middle and then marked their positions. That way I could have made sure they were all positioned correctly. Like I said though, I don't think they're off enough to be noticeable, so I think I'll just leave it be.


Here's that real thin rim piece on the rear return wheel. I glued it in place before sanding off the sprue attachment marks and I still think that was a good decision; it's pretty thin and I could see myself breaking it.


On a side note, I think I'm finally getting my fancy-fangled digital camera figured out enough to take halfway decent pictures!

Gee, so far I've only done steps 1A, 1C, 1D, and the unlabelled step for the bumpers. Dressing those seam lines really took up my limited modelling time. The instructions show a step 1F for making the photo-etch tool clamps. I'm afraid I'd just lose them or they'd end up getting squashed if I did them this early in the project, so I'm just going to mark that step for coming back to later.

I've also decided I want this tank to be one of the 5th Panzer Regiment, Leichte Division (Libya 1941) tanks shown in the instruction's Marking & Painting guide. I haven't decided yet between the 1st or 2nd Battalion tanks shown, but so far I'm edging toward 2nd Battalion.

Great start T.Mike! I built that kit a couple years ago and i know how tuff it was cleaning those springs....mine didnt look near as good as yours do. Great job on that man! Looking forward to more of this build. SUBSCRIBED!!!

Gary

Thanks, Gary!

Those springs took a lot more time than I thought they would, that's for sure. I'll hold the sharp edge of the blade of the x-acto knife at a 90-degree angle to the flat of the plastic. Then I use my thumb to push it slowly flat across the surface. That way it shaves the high spots off and levels the surface. The downward pressure on the blade is very slight; press down too hard and it'll take gouges out of the plastic. I just keep repeating that until the surface is leveled out.

I don't know how others do it, but this works pretty well for me. I don't have a file or sanding stick fine enough to get in there and not end up rounding off edges.

Yeah! The garden stuff is done now that the first frost has hit, so I can get back to the Panzer II !


There are these little tiny bolt heads that go on the drive shaft cover. Part J9 is supposed to be shaved off the flat part of the sprue and then glued on to this flat spot on the housing, four per side. It would have been nice to have a really thin saw blade, but what I have is an x-acto knife. I made do and managed. Then I had to figure out how to get these tiny parts glued in place. What finally worked for me was wrapping a piece of sticky tape around a modelling spatula. With a tiny dab of glue on the spot on the housing, I then picked up the bolt head by touching the tape to the top of it. I was then able to set the part down on the glue, hold it there for about ten seconds, and then pull the sticky-tape-tool away when the glue had more "hold" than the tape. Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure this is officially the tiniest piece for a model that I've ever worked with!


Here I'm picking up the bolt head with the sticky tape. This is also what it looks like when I let my thumb get in the way of the flash. I'm glad Dragon included a bunch extra of those bolt heads. I only had two remaining on the sprue when I was done. At the time I was ready to swear they evaporate into thin air if you so much as blink. Either that or they're like those statues from that Dr.Who episode where they move when you're not looking at them!


One side of bolt heads finished! Most of them came out pretty good. I'm hoping a layer of primer will take care of the little flaws on some of the others. But then again, they're so small, I'm not sure any one would ever notice.


The next major step in the instructions is working on the rear of the vehicle. I'm really pleased with the quality of the details on all the little parts. The two right-hand holes and the small gap next to the tow ring need to be filled in yet.

The muffler gave me a little problem though. I wasn't sure what I'd done wrong at first, but the pin on the exhaust pipe would not match up with the hole in the side of the muffler. I ended up shaving the pin off. With the muffler in place however, the hole that pin on the pipe was supposed to go in showed clearly. Checking the walk-around video I have, it really looked like the muffler was sitting too high. In the end, I shaved the pins off the backside of the muffler, filled in the holes, and positioned the muffler in what looked to be (from the video) the right position. The hole in the muffler for the pin from the exhaust pipe then matched up just right... or rather it would have if I hadn't already shaved it off!


Here I have the parts just sitting in position checking the placement and fitting. They're not glued down yet, and only the outer shell of the smoke candle box is in place (upper left).

For the first time I got out the little set of metal dowels that I bought from a vendor at a model contest last year. It really made bending the photo etch heat shield a lot easier. I still can't figure out a good method for getting the very ends to curve though. At least I managed to get it to sit flat. At first I tried to just bend it around the muffler part itself. I'm glad I quickly gave that up. I couldn't bend and hold it all together at the same time. Using the metal dowels and the length of my thumb to get an even pressure, I was able to bend it a little at a time. I just kept at it until I had the bend I wanted, frequently holding the piece in position on the muffler to figure where and how much more to keep bending it. I've heard and read the trick is to only bend in one direction and not end up going too far and having to unbend it. Apparently unbending it can cause the brass to crack and break. Fortunately I did the bending in small enough increments I got it were I wanted it and stopped.

The little brass bracket for the rear light was easy as pie. Of course, I used a bending table for it. I could have done it with tweezers and modelling pliers, but the little bending table with its clamp and folding blade is totally worth it. It makes the job ~so~ much easier. The only trick was getting the alignment just right before clamping it down, and making sure the line on the photo etch piece was on the inside of the bend.


Here the major parts are in place. The piece for the smoke candles and the box lid will follow, along with the brass shield and the rear light. There's a photo-etch chain for the tow pin, but I've already marked it to come back to later. It's such a tiny piece, I just know it'll get knocked off and lost if I put it on now.

Good start. Its important to take time and clean up the parts, as theres nothing as annoying when you see them sticking up later when you are painting. I also use a blunt-ish blade for scrapin these off, but I have a great little set of small files for finishing off parts. Im sure somebody from the States can advise you where to get them locally. Really worth the investment. You´ll find when you build a few panzers, and with the right tools, most of these jobs get done pretty quickly ... you´ll soon realise where to put in the effort and where to skip ... because its not seen. Keep it going.

Thanks Frank!

The smallest file I have is 1/4th inch wide. I guess that'd be about half a centimeter wide? There aren't any model shops around where I live, just the larger type stores that also sell toys plus maybe a handful of models. As such I end up having to get stuff like CA glue, the bending table, etc., from online places or the occasional model show.

I would appreciate any small size file suggestions. That, and a small, good cutting, pair of scissors. I built an inexpensive P-40 a while back, and trying to cut the masking tape for the canopy was a real challenge.

TMike;

Cool stuff! Gives me some encouragement, seeing you do this, as I'm thinking of doing my first build log soon! I'll be lurking and seeing what you do with this!

Now, sorry to have to toss a wet blankie at you... but I have to say you have me a little bit confused! It's that smoke-candle box. In one pic (where you are I think showing stuff in place but not glued on), you have it positioned right-side up. In the next pic, where you are showing things assembled, looks like you turned it upside-down and glued it in!

I have the exact same Dragon smoke-candle box on a 38(t) kit... my instructions call for it being placed lid-side up (openings down) - just as you had it in your "dry placement" pic. Which makes a lot of sense, seeing as those candles faced downward...

I've done that one, too!

Bob

** erk!! Arrrrgh! **
Ohhhhh crud. You're right... I've got it on upside down!!!

I have no idea how I managed that... and even after setting them in position before-hand...

Well, I know what I'm doing tonight.

Thanks for catching that, Bob!

TMike... going back to your Magic Tracks,if you look closely you may find that the links in one bag are a lighter shade of grey than the other.If this is the case,somewhere in the instructions it will tell you which color goes on each side.The last CyberHobby kit I built was that way.
Your build looks great so far,keep it up. Jeff T.

Not trying to break the topic. TMikeCurry Micro-Mark http://www.micromark.com/ has a lot of nice tools for the modeler. I bought a file set # 83180 and the standard file is 1/8" on the flat, even smaller on the edge and there are others to choose from.

Jeff; Thanks for the note on the MagicTracks. You were right, I did have to look closely 'cause that really is just the slightest difference in shade of grey. I've kept them in their sealed bags so far, not wanting to get them mixed up.

Steven M.; I'll take a look at the MicroMark site when I get home tonight. The files I have and use are pretty much intended for larger work. Thanks a bunch for the link!

About a week ago...


I got the upside-down-oops for the smoke candle box fixed. I was able to get the flat, but not sharp, tool you see in the picture up against the CA glue at the join between the box and the hull. A couple of light but sharp taps with a little steel mallet on the hobby tool made the CA glue crack in half on first one side, then the other. The trick I've learned is to hit it with a light sharp tap - not a hard blow, and not a driving blow - and using a metal on metal strike gives it the sharp rap I think it needs to crack the glue without messing up the plastic (usually).

After that I just had to sand down the previous glue with a narrow sanding stick and re-attach the part right-side up.

The next step in the instructions is the floor of the interior. I started looking over Steven Davie's excellent work on his Panzer II-C interior, plus the II-F photos I've managed to find on the internet.

But then the seasonal flu decided it had other plans for me.

Five (miserable) days later...


I was finally feeling human enough again to want to do something, so I got to working on the floor. Here's the floor for Dragon's Panzer II-F on the left sitting on a printed page from Steven's II-C build. I hope he won't mind, but since he's already done the research, I'm going to use his build as one of my references. I'll have to be on the lookout for differences between the II-C and the II-F I'm building, though.

The Dragon floor panels are very different. The entire bottom portion where the radio operator sits will be coming off, and I think I can use half of it to make the small "ramp" piece. The small side wall braces are simplified rectangles when they should be triangular with two holes through them, and that just bugs me. I'm feeling pretty confident I can make the triangular braces out of plastic sheet.

After careful use of a small-toothed jigsaw blade, an x-acto knife, file, and sanding stick, I've arrived at this. The "ramp" piece is just taped in place at this point. I have some more cleanup of the edges to do, but I think it's looking pretty good so far. I'll need to cut some plastic strips to close the gaps between the floor and the plates.

Also, I'll note the little square nub on the cap of the tube toward the top left in the photo. That's not the nub of the sprue connection left there, it's actually a detail molded into the part. I think it's supposed to be the hinge for the cap. I'm glad I checked, or otherwise I'd have sanded it right off. I guess that tube is a map case? Anyway, the one (not so good) photo of the real tank that I have shows it has that hinge(?) pointing toward the rear of the vehicle. The instructions show it pointing in a different direction however.