Darren Baker takes a look at the German Panzer IV/70 (A) Sd.Kfz.162/1 in 1/35th scale from HobbyBoss, a re-release of the Tristar offering.

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If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

I did not know Tristar even made armor, in fact all I recall of them were their Ta 152s.

Good looking model.

I believe you are thinking of Trimaster. Tristar only did armor.

KL

This one I've always wanted to do. It has that look of a quick conversion of a previously used PzKw IV.

We do have a review of a Tristar Fiesler Storch on Aeroscale - in 1/35 scale. That doesn't seem to have come back yet via HB.

Hi All,
First off, let me say that this one of my favorite vehicles, so what I'm about to explain is not without some sadness. I built the Tristar version of this kit and it was terrible. Darren, did Hobby boss use soft styrene? My kit was made of stuff that resembled the plastic used by Russian manufacturers back in the late 90's, so it was a pain to work with. Also, the rubber used for the tires was like mush (and had a large amount of flash). I am hoping HobbyBoss has not repeated the error.





There is, however, a relatively easy fix in the form of the earlier Tristar Pz IV suspension set, which uses plastic tires.

Next, comes to something I am sure this kit has too: either the hull is too long, the engine deck is too short or the casemate is too short (I believe it is the engine deck, because their early Brumbar had the same problem. But I have not measured it), because it requires serious shimming to get the fighting compartment into the right place.



A good piece of news, however, is that HB has replaced the skirts, but got them wrong. They should be three piece affairs. I recommend replacing them (or cut them, if you are that brave) with the Eduard Thoma screens:



Finally, there are numerous engineering gaffes in the kit. Now, I may have feebed out and lost them (or couldn't find them), but the casemate is missing two of the lifting hooks. I replaced them with DML parts



Further, the drive sprockets don't fit properly and need modification:



Same thing with the idlers:



The amount of work required to get this thing together makes you ask, "Why?" Why do we need 6 & 8 piece road-wheels? I'm OK with workable suspensions, but 10 parts per piece is bit excessive and makes it fiddly to put together. My answer is, if this kit is the same as the Tristar kit was, buy the DML offering.
Regards,
Georg

Thank you for the info Georg. Touching the parts of the model did not give me the feeling of nasty plastic and the vinyl felt as it usually does.