Hanomag Sdkfz 251/1's Winter Scheme

Progress has been made! The 251/1 is nearing completion and I'm already eying up the next project. Before I get into looking ahead too much, let's finish this one. I had a day off this week and I was able to focus on painting and chipping the vehicle while watching Bruce Lee's Return of the Dragon. The kids were in school, the wife was gone and it was awesome! I was even able to have the volume loud enough to hear the dialogue, in all its overdubbed awfulness over the intermittent drone of the air compressor.

I used the same red primer on the machine guns as I did the vehicle.

I hand painted the guns with Model Master Acryl Gun Metal. I didn't have "wood" paint so I mixed Leather, Dark Earth Ana and a touch of Rust. The guns still need a dry brushing and wash on the wood.

Before applying the white, I sealed the primer and base coat with matte lacquer, then I sprayed on the chipping fluid.

I tried to apply the white unevenly.

A little more uneven on this one.

With some water to activate the chipping fluid and a brush, the chipping worked pretty well.

After a few weeks of sitting I coating the wheels with Alclad Gloss. I still need to get better with painting wheels. I think the trick is having a glossy surface, and thinning the paint so it flows into the edges and carefully spinning the wheel while holding the brush still.

Terribly painted wheels. I used Flat Black with a couple of drops of Flat White mixed in.

The machine gun shield before I realized I could take a better picture by not holding it. Duh.

Perhaps it is chipped too much? Oh well.

I did some oil washes and streaking prior to putting on the white acrylic paint. I was going for an old streak/new streak thing, but you really can't see any of it after the white was applied. I did seal it with a matte coat to make sure there were no adverse reactions between the oil and the acrylic. In this picture I used the calipers to take some measurements of the decals to create some masks out of an index card. I used some sticky tack to hold it off the surface a little to create soft mask lines.

Masking is done. I also just noticed at this point that the left fender guide broke off. I have no idea where it could be, so I guess it will just be part of the vehicle's wear and tear!

After painting was completed. Again, I tried to keep it uneven and it worked out pretty nicely. I wasn't crazy about how the masking turned out, but I dealt with that to soften it up.

The more I look at these pictures, the more I like the vehicle without chipping.

When I pulled the masking off, the sticky tack took some license plate with it, doh! More "wear and tear".

I'm not sure what I think about the chipping at this point. Some of it will soften up in the later stages of washes and weathering. At least I think so.

For the mask lines that I wasn't too happy about,  I tried to soften those hard edges by chipping it away.

The Iron Cross got pulled up a bit when I using some Tamiya tape to pick up some Q-Tip fuzz. I used Tamiya tape to loosely mask under the fender during painting. If you notice, a good chunk of paint and primer came with it. I hand painted it in with primer and some Panzer Schwarzgrau to cover it up. It will also be behind the wheels so I'm not too concerned about it. More "wear and tear".

Here's the stuff I used for painting the vehicle.

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to gloss coat the vehicle and do some washes and weathering. I still need to paint the tools and the tracks. I think the wood paint mixture worked out pretty well and will probably use that on the tools. "Thank you, come again."