Good day, ladies and gentlemen!

I want to create a blog on building next model - Sd.Kfz.234/4

It's awsome model!review, interior, etc.

also use:



Overall - I would like your help!
Photography, books, interesting buildings, camouflage and prototypes - will be glad of any information

It's a great kit Dimitri.
I did the other Dragon version some years ago.

Here's some references:

Please Note: the wheels on the Patton vehicle are re-drilled US tires and wheels, NOT the originals.
Vehicle: the Patton Collection (Photo by Mike Koenig)

One piece of advice: cant the wheels instead of just leaving them straight. The model steering gear will let you do this by just cutting off one alignment pin but do some research on the correct wheel angles before gluing them in place.

Oh, thank you so much, John!




Thank you, Michael!







in this version - this kit 2013 release, the wheel can be rotated.
his number 6772.

Patton Museum Vehicle; Ft. Knox, Kentucky.
(All Photos Mike Koenig) Many of these photos appeared in the Kagero Photosniper book on the 234 some years ago!

looks like fun!!

and a bit pictures of what I'm found on 234 different modifications

As you scroll through the pics there are a few different 234 types with identical, or near identical, 3 - color hard edge camo jobs. Presumably these are factory applied paint jobs? Are these from the same assembly plant and production batch?

The 234/4 with the exposed PAK 40 is the topic. It has always been my favorite Spahwagen b/c it offers the greatest overall exposed visual detail of the gun and the interior for the modeler.

I've got the original kit half-finished, minus the AM bits you've got. Great kit, great fit, so this should be even better! I'll be watching

-Conor

I've got this one in my stash ,so I'll be watching for ideas.. Have fun with it.

Rick

I was browsing Dragon USA the other day and saw the latest 234-4 kit. There was like 7 pieces for each tire . Stop the insanity already.
I'm currently building the Puma kit, and it is very nice. So yes I would consider this kit,with aftermarket wheels of course!!!

Marc it sounds worse than it is....all the joints are hidden in tread.

Got my 234/4 all built up and stalled at hull join stage..
Had some fit problems with firewall and hull top.
But seeing all the 234 goodies here as me jonsing to pull it back out and sort it all out.

No real AM on mine, but I have the White Box 234 w the schwelblafette (sp?)turret still in the stash to go to town on.

Mike

"Here is a diagram of the steering angles on the German heavy 8-wheeled armor cars. Note that the angles shown here are for the tightest turn possible and that lesser steering angles are, of course, possible. However, you can see the amount of difference between the front/rear wheel angles and the center wheel angles. Also note that the inside wheel angles are higher than the outside wheel anglees."
(Caption is quoted directly from the article.)

@Mike;

Hi!

I have that CH white box kit, too. IF you are accuracy-minded about it, I would counsel "caution" in "going to town" with AM! Bear in mind that there may have been exactly one of these "schwebelaffette" conversions done. One example is pretty well documented in the Concord "Panzers in the Gunsights vol 2" book, so you can get a good photo - look at both the mount and some external details of this individual car, and a look at the rather different camouflage scheme... (Looks like the car hull, upper armor, and gun-shield each had a different paint-scheme! Perhaps this reflects that the pieces came from different "donor vehicles".) That scheme (interpreted from the BW photos) is, I believe, provided in the Concord book in a color plate.

Of course, there is a lot of outside kit detail which may be enhanced by some AM (although the kit is, I think, very good in most details). We have less info about what exactly was inside of it...

I will swap in a nice metal barrel for the kit styrene item, and consider replacing the styrene gun-shield and the upper compartment armor bits with PE or with (much better to-scale, IMHO) 0.010 styrene sheet. I THINK the kit's side-bins are the correct types. You may want to find a couple different tires - I THINK the kit offers all of one tread pattern and the photos may show a mix of ties...

Cheers!

Bob

Bob,
It was the Panzers in the Gunsights book that got me interested, but I seem to remember seeing a second vehicle pictured in one of the Panzerwrecks volumes as well and now that i think of it, a third in some of that famous late war ,color, surrender footage.

I will have to dig into the references tomorrow night and see what I can dig up.

Now I've got 234's on the brain. The vk 4502 will never get finished...

Mike

234/4. Day 1.

Just want to apologize - a photo on the phone. So that was the day job:

Began to build transmission and braking systems.
What is not pleased - 8 parts suspension was 3 pusher, had to putty, that has not caused much joy. Just Dragon gives brake cables, but they are not correct. Using photographs of the brake system, courtesy of Michael Koenig had to do the braking system itself.

234/4. Second day.

So today was the first experience soldering PE. Practice was held on a box for ammo, since it closed, and the experiments will not be seen. I have to say - it's not finished.




Just added etched on the bottoms of all ammo and shell.



Assembled under Pak40, and ammo box under them finalized etching. unit As you can see in the photo - made ​​working latches and hinges.




In general, the interior looks like. As you can see - did folding seats. Most of the parts installed without glue. Empty box with pushers later be filled all sorts of scrub, so the pushers not touch him.






Tomorrow plans to continue working with the interior, in particular with photoetched and start making batteries that Dragon does not give in the plastic.

Good-looking stuff, Dmitrii!

If I may suggest, however, that if you are replacing that transverse "H-beam" under the gun with PE, that you also do some thinning work on the visible edges of the vertical plates at either end of that PE beam?

The PE is pretty under-scale (too thin) for this particular piece of metal - makes it look like it was sheet-metal, when it was rather more robust than that (see the interior pics). The PE is only perhaps 3 - 4 thousandths of a US inch thick - 0.0035 or so - making it the scale equivalent of perhaps 1/8th inch thick... the real piece was certainly at least 1/4 inch, if not a bit thicker than that.

Being overly-thin, it makes the adjacent styrene side-pieces look way too thick! Those ARE a bit over-thick already, and this makes them look quite fat! You could, I think, carefully shave off the bolt-heads (rivets?) on the outer sides, scrape the sides down and thin their edges by maybe half with a hobby knife, and replace those bolts (rivets?). It would make this visible bit more balanced!

As you have done some cool brake-cable work... You should also add on or make sure there are some suspension-travel limiter-straps in place (I don't know if the kit has these, but each swing-arm had some steel cable or strap to keep them from swinging down too far if air-space was available under the wheel. It's a standard feature of about all such vehicles with fully-mobile independent suspension. And a visible detail from either end of the car, I think!

There was some discussion of this feature a ways back on this and other model sites, and looking at pics of 234 suspension and frames will reveal this.

Just an idea, of course, seeing as you are going some distance to add in some missing stuff

It's going to be NICE! I keep looking and fondling my 234/ kits...

Bob

I very much like what you are doing with the PE. I had never even looked at the etched set before but just the ammo storage box door is enough to make me want it!

Hi Dmitrii, here are a couple of pics from the vehicle in the Panzermuseum Munster:



















hope they help





Paul

234/4. The third day.

Continued to work with the filling of the interior, in particular refined rear wall. Problem caused a window in the wall. Cut out Dragon window, it appeared that he had a hole larger than the lattice this Voyager. Had to build a plastic sheet. Worked with plastic and wiring - has almost completed the back of the interior.

Just finished the box of ammo. Hinges and latches work.


And did place the radio station.

In general - almost without glue. What is interesting and can be seen on the photo - there was virtually no place given four crew members.