Assembling the Fine Molds Imperial Japanese Army Type 41 75 mm Mountain Gun continues. I haven't shot ever step because this is a fairly simple and straightforward model. These photos display the level of detail and interesting features of the partially assembled model.

These images show how fine some parts are such as this sighting assembly:


Notice the fine detail on components.


Finally, the gun mostly assembled:


Check back - attaching the shield is next!

Progress: attaching the shield, breech, sight and fiddly parts.


Touch up the paint, THEN TERRORIZE IT WITH WEATHERING, and the gun is complete. Next, the crew.

Note about building this. Fine Molds molds fine parts. To allow the gun to elevate the cradle attaches to a component that the axle passes through. That component is top-bottom pieces that sandwich the axle; the edges are less than 1/2 mm wide. FM shows not to glue these parts to the axle and it takes some finesse to put them around it. I fitted them, held them together with a mini clamp, and used thin CA to bind the lips around the axle.

Supporting the shield are two very thin brace arms. They have pointed ends that fit into molded brackets on the carriages via small holes, and tiny 'fists' that fit into small holes in the shield. FM shows to mount these arms first, then attach the shield. Tricky because the arms are so small. I tried a zillion times to align them but never could.

So I attached the shield first. It attaches to the carriage by abutting to the end of the carriage via two small pins at which fit into holes in the shield. The butt of the carriage are slightly rounded and only afford about 1mm of surface area to contact the shield. I found that the gun and carriage will balance against the shield if you get the angle correct. I attached the butt-pins to the shield with the smallest amount of CA I could manage. As it set and before it cured, I quickly fought to get the support braces set between the carriage and the shield.

It took about 2 hours for me to finish this step!

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It looks really nice, Fred. I did the same thing with the brace arms on my kit. Setting the shield and then the arms is much easier for aligning everything. I'll keep watching.