Have started Italeri Crusader III AA with Eduard PE.

Most of the bits needing removal have been removed.


This my first use of PE in a long while and it's a lot more delicate than I remember.
My previous experience was with Dragon FW-190 Nightfighter, and Sherman Vc Firefly, and this Eduard stuff is both easier and harder to work with.
It's so much easier to bend and thats also the problem as it can be difficult to avoid bending it when I don't want. However I am definitely a fan of this stuff.

The Hull.




The turret. Mostly finished the interior, though I need to find some debonder, as several bits ended up a tad misaligned.

Nice work so far. I'm making the same kit for Achtung Jabo but oob.

Looks good so far Pave, I have to agree that sometimes its hard to not bend things where you dont want to, but stick with it, it gets easier with practice.

Hi PH,


I'm tempted to get one of these in the future so keep us posted on the build.

Cheers

Al

The turrets prett much finished with a quick coat of white paint, just need to do the gunsight and it will be complete. will take some pics and post a bit later.

More photos of the turret, a bit rubbish unfortunately.

Not sure what the things on either side of the seat are, but still have to add the strap to one of them.




The exterior. The photoetch sight needs to be added, and I think that is it.


The guns are also assembled and painted, ready for installation.

Pave,

Nice looking interior. I'm not familiar with this vehicle, so I look forward to seeing the rest of your build.

-zon

Did a test fit of the arm that attaches between gun sight and guns that allows them to move together.
The arm was slightly too long and left the gun sight pointing noticeably upwards when the guns were dead level. Had to shorten it by a very small amount to get the sight in alignment with the guns. I may end up just fixing them in place.

Hopefully I can get the turret primed and ready for painting when it's not raining (my spraying has to be done outside)

Been raining most of the week, so today I decided to paint the turret anyway.
Heres the floor interior completed.


Turret primed sitting on a mostly finished hull



And painted.



Just need to touch up the guns and reattach sight/gun alignment arm, and do the spotlight and it should be ready for decals and weathering.

Hi PH,

Looks good so far!

I've been looking for a Crusader for sometime now, how do you rate the Italeri kit? How are the tracks and detail out of the box?

Yes, the photo etch stuff can be difficult to work with - I nearly went insane with my first go at it! :-)

Cheers,
Charlie

I don't know how it fairs accuracy wise as I haven't done any research on it, but for detail it actually seems pretty good. The kit goes together pretty good too, just a few seams that need cleaning up like on the gun barrels. There was only really the on gap between upper and lower hull that needed a little filler.

I haven't even looked at the tracks yet. I'm not a big fan of rubber band style tracks.

The hull just needs most of the little detail bits and it too is ready for priming/painting.

I do find the factr that the parts aren't identified on the sprue to be annoying, as it meant I was constantly refering back to the instruction front page to figure out where the part was supposed to come from.