Hi Guys,

I stumbled on to this site through a link from the the Fine Scale Modeler forum . It's fantastic. I' ve been a modeller since I was a kid and love 1/35 scale armor, especially early ww2 ( i.e. Pzkpw III, 38 T, 35 T Skoda,
etc.). After an extended hiatus, I wanted to at least build something ( my last was a Zveda BT 5 Dio. finished in 1995!). So after years of reading and collecting modelling magazines, armor reference books, tools, paints, kits, etc. I fianally got to to the bench and said, OK i'll do a quikie right from the box and get it done in a week. From my collection of I chose the dated Italieri 155 mm Howitzer . My thinking was that I could knock it out in a week then go to a high quality kit I have the AFV 155 Long Tom. Right? Not! Sink holes, injection pin holes, poor fit, lack of detail. Well, that was April 2005. With no reference I started guessing about what to do. I sanded off the detail of the inner trails and added brass wire and scratch stuff, replaced the recoil and recuperators with aluminum and brass tubing, filched the spares box ad nauseum so I wouldn't have to make it and got totally bogged down and left it undone. Anyway, after staring at the pieces on the bench I got back into it. Unfortuneately found a site with photos os a 155 mm and found out how truly inacuate the kit is. After down loading the photos i decided to try to add the extra detail even though i had finished the major assemblies. I guess my bigest disappointment was the detail of the wheel brakes. There is none. Then the trail locks and detail. Totally out of whack. ( i.e None). Since I had already finished the major component construction, I thought at least I could buiuld the trail lock. After 9 hrs. of work I finally had it it made and enjoyed every minute, it was great practice and all the things I've read about and learned came back. So here I am allot of more i could do but wanting to just get it done and go on to the painting and weathering wfhich is much more relaxing. I want to get this thing on a small dio base with maybe one or two figures and move on! That's my story. I have pics
of the model if I can figure how to show them.

First off welcome to the site!, there are some great people on here who have vast knowledge on this hobby. To post pics you should first load them in to your gallery. If you go into your account (upper right corner) it will say gallery pics you should be able to upload them there. if that doesnt work then I am sure someone on here can explain it better than me.




once again welcome and enjoy yourself here,

Herky

Hi Hecky,

Thanks for your repy! I spent allot of time tonight photographing my project and down loading it into my album. Some of the pics were too big and got rejected but there are a few. Thanks again!

No problem

Here maybe this will help get you some responses and critisizm






Herky

Hecky,

Jeez! How'd you do that! Anyway thanks . So what do you think? Should I spend the time to put the rivets and hinges on the shield? And what about the storage boxes on the inner shield? They should have been located lower, with the bracing rods there's no way you can get them open. As for the gear for the elevatiion quadrant, iwas the only one I could find in my vast amount of Tamiya motor spares ( am I dating myself)!!

Thanks

Incorrectly scaled to boot, but you've done a nice job there. I see I'm not the only one who's had trouble removing the seam from the tires, having to sand most of the details away. The good news is that many of these (later) had tires with automotive tread patterns. The Lindberg 1/20 Chevy S-10 Pickup tires are a perfect fit.

Thnks for the input. Actually I' m hoping the tire seams will disappear when I paint the model. I took allot of care to sand the wheels down only so much to try to preserve the detail but not the seams.

Thanks!

I think it looks pretty good. I am not a rivit counter so i wouldnt know what to tell you a bout the rivits., but an idea for the tires if you still see the seam after painting. You could just make the tires really muddy. Have you started painting this beast yet?

Oh how i put your pictures on there. I simply went to your gallery looked at each picture and below it there is a URL in a box that you can select to copy, once you copy it then just paste it in your thread and voila, there you have it.


Herky

Looks like you are off to a good start. I would finish it off if I were you. It can come out looking great when detailed out and done. The tires are really bad. I replaced them with a set from the Tamiya Dragon Wagon. They look much better and are closer to actual size than the kit ones.

Here is a link to a build article at Modeling the U.S. Army in WWII website where the modeler superdetails the Italeri M1 howitzer kit. He also mentions using the Dragon Wagon tires as well.

Good luck.

One more observation:
If ever a kit cried out for rifling, it's this one-no muzzle brake, (except for one at YPG) and a nice big bore. On the Mark made a nice fret of several different sizes, or you can make your own from heavy foil.