Bob,
Thanks for the tip. I'll try fitting one, to make sure.
Regards,
Georg

This is one spectacular build!

Bob et al,
I test-fitted the 75-mm rounds into the rack and they fit fine. It was a great suggestion to try that BEFORE getting everything together! I also painted the metal parts of the tools. Tomorrow night will have more pics, plus some more of the build. Stay tuned!
Regards,
Georg

Georg these pictures of the interior of a 234 may help to some degree.

Hi All,
As promised, I'm back. CMOT, thanks for the pics, but the interiors are totally different. When I started research on this beast, I found similar pictures and realized I would be able to use the 234 layout. Also, the gun mounts are totally different.
Here's tonight's progress. I was able to get the painting on the tools finished and get the wood-grain decaled on. Yes, those are decals.



Also, I was able to get the ready-rounds painted. The black ones are armor-piercing and the gray ones are high-explosive.



I put a new decal on the rear driver's instrument panel, too. My wife is studying for another exam for her EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) course, so I'll have some time to get more work done. See you soon!
Regards,
Georg

Wow, smooth application of painting on those little stuffs. Your post motivate me to practice harder, thanks for sharing Georg


Cheers


Garry

Garry,
The wood grain was a decal. The base coat for the ready-rounds was spray painted and the rest was brushed. The tips of the rounds were dipped into the paint in the cap.
Regards,
Georg

Thanks for your further explanation. I'm keep following this topic

Cheers


Garry

Hi Georg,
fantastic build mate , keep it coming.

I can´t understand why there is still no plastic kit of
this lovely vehicle. I know you´re all saying "Bronco is about to release one" but it ain´t here yet!

Paul

Paul,
Part of the reason I'm building this thing is because I'll want to buy the plastic kit if this one isn't built yet! So, as a service to the rest pf you, I'll take one for the team and ensure a rapid release of the Bronco kit. It's an all-around win! Thanks for the positive comments.
Regards,
Georg

PS- I hope to do more work on this beast later tonight. Stay tuned!

Hi All,
As promised, I have more progress shots of the SdKfz 233. I added the early rain gutters over the vision ports. I used the left-over parts from the Eduard set for the Tamiya SdKfz 232.





I also did some more work on the interior, by installing the ready rounds in the rack. They went in very easily and the PE retaining bar also went on without a problem.



Once that was in place, I gave the interior a dirty brown wash, just tie everything together. It was get a dust "wash" to highlight nooks and crannies tomorrow. With that, the model should be ready to be closed up. But, that is for another day. Good night!
Regards,
Georg

Cool conversion. Now I want to do one too lol. Good to see everything fitting properly and nice work so far

Hi Georg, happy to see there were no fitting issues on the ammo. The shells look good snugged in their rack. The rest of the interior looks good, too, with (to me) a minor exception. It's your model, and you've done a lot more research into it, but if it were mine, I'd paint the steering wheels and gear knobs black, as shown in the 234 pics above. To the best of my knowledge, those items wouldn't be painted to match the interior. Just a thought....

Hi All,
It was a big day for the 233! I got the upper and lower hulls together this afternoon. There were some gaps, which got sealed up with diluted putty. Here's what it looked like when everything was together:





I'm letting the putty dry and will do some clean-up sanding later.
Regards,
Georg

Looks good. I wonder if anyone has ever put out one of these that didn't have to be puttied.

Looking real good Georg. Real good.

Hi All,
I was able to get a second round of putty on the seams. I hope to get it sanded down tonight. Bob, it wouldn't be an SdKfz 232 conversion w/o it. Jim, thanks for the kind words. More soon.
Regards,
Georg

Oh, I wasn't just talking about this one. I meant any of the 220 or 230 series. I've built 5 or 6 different ones and have never run across one that the hull halves matched up perfectly on.

Hi All,
I haven't posted much recently, but I have been busy. While this weekend was taken up primarily with my wife's birthday celebrations, I did get some time on the bench. One of the next things on my list was to replace the bolts and rivets I destroyed during the sanding operations to get the hulls sealed up right. With micro-punch in-hand I replaced them on the nose:



And the hull side. I also replaced the trafficators (directional signals) on the upper hull sides. The Tamiya parts just did not look right, so I used the brackets form the Royal set.



With that done, I moved on to other parts of the vehicle that needed attention. This included the bracket for the spare wheel:



I also replaced one of the horns with the resin part from the Royal set:



I now returned to the trafficators. Using the shell from the Eduard set and some styrene, I made up a new casing and doped up a dummy arm. I used the kit part for the guard.





I used a little "gloop" from the bottom of my glue bottle for some weld detail to the feet that attached to the upper hull. I'm hoping to complete this job on the other side tomorrow. Until then!
Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
Well, I think I'm just about finished building this thing. Here are a bunch of views of this beast.





From the angle above, the most prominent addition is the antenna, which was scavenged from the DML SdKfz 251/17 kit. The antenna itself is stretched sprue.



At the rear of the vehicle, I added PE license plate frames and the driver "knows." The notek light at the rear is from the DML 38(t) tool set.



These are the only parts not actually mounted on the model. These are the muffler guards. I made them from the parts in the Royal PE set. Those legs are TINY!



Not too much up front except the driver "knows." I used the kit parts because I did not want the hassle and the DML 234 parts didn't look tall enough.

That's all for tonight. Tomorrow I should have paint on this beast! See you then.
Regards,
Georg

Hi All,
The AMPS Nationals are rapidly approaching and I'm going full tilt. Tonight I spent some quality time in the spray booth. Using my Iwata HP-BCS airbrush, I put down a couple of different of shades of Tamiya paint, starting with XF-63 German Gray. I threw in a couple of other shades for some contrast and tonal variation once the weathering is done. Here's how it came out:











Here's the muffler guards.



And the gun:



I did some camo painting, but we'll save that for tomorrow night!

Regards,
Georg

PS- As always, any/all comments are welcome!

Hi All,
OK, it's been long enough. Here's the camo pattern I was talking about in my earlier post.











I used Tamiya's NATO green and dark yellow for the stripes. The vehicle is going to depict one belonging to the 4th Panzer Division in Russia in late spring, 1943. Stay tuned for more updates.
Regards,
Georg

Hey Georg, been a little bit since I stopped in. You've made great progress on the beast.

Looks like I'll see this one "in person", if you're bringing it to Atlanta.

Bob,
That's the plan. I've got 2 weeks, so I should have enough time. Hope to put a face to the name down in Atlanta.
Regards,
Georg

Are you setting up as a vendor down there? If so, I'll know where to find you to say "hi".