Jim R
SMF Supporter
Great additions to the interior.
At this point I would have either set fire to it and turned it into a wreak or given up ! Hat off to you . As for those tracksThis kit is not endearing itself to me.
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That is the floor with the seat frames installed, but no seats yet because I want to paint underneath first. I cleaned up and glued those frames in place yesterday, and when I went on today, I discovered something rather important that the instructions make not clear at all:
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Yes, for the wooden slat seats, you don’t need those frames at all … but that’s not how it looks from the drawings. They give me the impression that the wooden seats go on top of the frames just like the leather ones did.
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So I duly cut them off again, and cleaned up the area after taking that photo. The instructions make another mistake about the wooden seats, namely that they show parts B12 and B13 without their legs, which go into the holes in the lockers under the seats. I had to trim down those legs, except the ones on the corners, because the other frames had filled the holes for them.
Also, those same parts don’t sit completely underneath the seats: instead, the seats sit inside the L-shape you can see in the top half of the wooden seats drawing. If you do glue B12/B13 fully under the seats, the rears will sit far too high and the inboard sides will be outboard of the locker edge — guess how I discovered all of this.
Those little parts also all come with a ton of ejector pin nodules that you have to remove, so these seats, of either type, are not a quick job at all. But this is them in place:
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Still loose, because like I said, I want to paint underneath first.
Oh, yeah, and I filled the holes for the driver’s gas mask container on the left side of the firewall, as I doubt the French would have kept that in.
I thought much the same, and it’s always an encouraging sight when the model actually begins to resemble the real thing.Starting to look the right shape Jakko
Just trying to make it somewhat believableGreat additions to the interior.
Every time I get to deal with tracks that have issues like these, I just think to myself: at least they’re not Crab flail chainsAs for those tracks
I think I’m lucky to have escaped those so far...or Merkava ball&chains...
Thanks Though I’ll dispute the great painting skills — there are plenty of people on here who are far better painters (and builders) than I am.Wow just gone through your thread amazing build great painting and weathering on this build...
Well, let’s have some more, thenlook forward to seeing more..and also like all the reference photos on your post
The problem, really, is the size. On the Sd.Kfz. 7 I built earlier this year, the tracks are constructed in the same way, but because the links are a good deal larger, they’re far from as fiddly to hold and there’s more tolerance in the whole thing, so they went together much better.Fraught with problems. Dragon have not done a good job with those tracks. The Trumpeter tracks on mine are much better thought out.
Those are slightly smaller, IIRC, but yeah … I can’t say I’m liking these.I made some of this type up a few years ago for a 250. Hated them….far too fragile.
I would like them to articulate to make installing and painting them easier, but I don’t absolutely need them to. It’s not like this is a motorised modelQuestion Jakko….do you really need them to articulate? If you do, then carry on
I had been thinking about that too, but I would ideally want to keep the whole wheels and tracks off the model until after painting. I’m not sure I’ll be able to assemble the tracks fixed together in the right shape with the wheels still loose on the model, though. Perhaps some Blu-tack might come in handy to ensure the wheels stay on the model, though. I think I’ll try that.If not, then glue them together into link and length units and add the blocks afterwards…..it’s quite easy to make them removable when assembled.
If I do go this route, I think I’d prefer them as one piece rather than sections to be added after painting. But it might just be that it literally falls apart and I will have sectionsjust glue them up in sections.
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