Tamiya 1/35 Stug IV sdkfz163 Building Begins

Late August I purchased Tamiya's 1/35 Stug IV. It was a German armored infantry support vehicle in WWII. What I like about armored vehicles is that you can focus on doing all the building up front and paint after construction. With aircraft you build a little, paint a little, weather a little, build some more and so on. I got this kit for $18 on Amazon, so it is pretty cheap compared to most armor kits that range from $30 - $70.

Let's do some building!

The box!

Upper and lower hulls. See all the holes in the lower hull? We'll have to take care of those as I don't think they were accurate to the real vehicle! The mold for the kit is from 1975 I believe. It appears the lower hull had some sort of option to install a motor and batteries, which is probably why all the holes are there.

More rubber band tracks. I don't think I'll try painting them this time.

All the wheels.

More miscellaneous parts.

We're on to the initial construction! This is the rear plate that attaches to the lower hull.

Here's the muffler. There was quite the seam line, which was more of a ridge, on the top and bottom of the muffler. I added Mr. Dissolved putty before attempting to sand it down. The end caps have those feet that attach to the rear plate. The notch on the left wasn't well designed as the feet were not symmetrically opposite. The muffler didn't dry fit properly on the rear plate, so I had to pop off the left side, cut away some plastic, so the feet were perfectly opposite each other. The fit was much better.

The inside of the muffler had a big seam line. The best way to take care of that was to drill it out, just like a real muffler!

The near completed rear plate.

That's where we will leave it for this time. I'll try to devote some effort to getting more of these posted soon. Thanks for checking in.

New Storage and a Quick Mini-Project

Since I have limited space where I live, having an accessible workspace for building models on a more regular basis has become quite a challenge. For the past several years I would work on a model one month during the summer when the family was visiting relatives out of state, then I started working on them fairly regularly the past year. The most recent setup was a cardboard box under a TV tray that stayed in the corner by the table along with some tool boxes, which didn't exactly match the decor of our domicile. We are also going to be getting some kittens in the next couple of weeks, so my wife was thinking of ways to get the stuff organized, off the floor and looking a little more respectable.

She found a bookshelf at Ikea that fit the bill for the immediate need. After Thing One and Two assembled their first piece of Ikea furniture, there were just a couple of modifications needed:

1. I needed an extra shelf because the way I organized it,
2. My paint shelf needed some kind of mini-shelving so I could see the paints in the rear.

Here is the construction of the mini-shelf. I used some Poplar boards that I picked up at Home Depot, 1.5" wide and 3" wide, as well as some 3/8" dowel.

Here is the bookshelf in its location. It fits the space pretty well and I'm able to have the most used tools at arms reach. "First order of retrieve-ability", I hate moving stuff to get to the stuff I need. I've also found that I keep things more organized and clean up goes a lot faster.

Here was the issue, I wasn't able to see the paints in the rows passed the front.

Tools were pretty basic. I love opportunities where I can use my combination square. Thanks Crazy Cat Lady for letting me borrow the hacksaw!

This is what will turn out to be the top shelf. I had to locate the holes for the bottom...

  ...and line up the holes that would go into the lower shelf.

I cut the dowels to length and marked the bottom of the bottom shelf for the feet. During test assembly I found that all my dowels were 5/8" too long. Don't know how I managed to be that off, but at least I was consistent!

The boards are only 1/2" thick so I was careful not to drill straight through.

Some wood glue and wet paper towel for cleanup.

A test run for the real thing!

The shelf in place is a near perfect fit.

Now I can see all the paints and saved some room overall!

Thing Two said: "Wow! That's great Dada!"

The only thing is, I still have more paint! I suppose I don't need to put all of it out, only the stuff I use most often. Which if you want to get down to it, it's Flat Black, Semi-gloss Black, Aircraft Interior Black and Flat White. If only I had a chop saw and drill press, this shelf would have been near perfect. Hack-sawing a straight line on 3/8" dowel is not as easy as you may think and it takes about 36 pulls to get all the way thru.

The only other item that is still rolling around in my head is to install LED strip lighting to help illuminate the somewhat dark shelf interiors. I'm on the fence for a couple of reasons; I don't want to drill any holes if this unit is re-purposed in the future, and I don't have a lip to hide the LED strip. That's a battle for another day!

Thanks for looking in!

Tamiya A6M3 Zero (Hamp) Completed

No need for a long winded introduction, here's another plane done. All my words will be at the bottom, well most of them.

After undressing the canopy, I discovered a fog that had wafted from the rear. I hypothesize that when I glued the antenna in place and fixed the canopy over it, the fumes from the unset Extra Thin caused the slight fog wisp on the inside of the canopy.

Well there it is. It's only taken me about five months! The body received a final coat of AK Ultra Matte Varnish and the cowl and propellers, Winsor & Newton Satin Varnish.

I've got a couple of the Zero's greatest adversaries in the stash that hopefully I'll be getting to soon, the F6F-3 Hellcat and one of my personal favorites, the F4U-1 Corsair. Perhaps they will be up next? Maybe....? Along with the PR.IG that is in progress, I started another kit that you will find out about shortly.

It's that time again to go through what I learned for this build, it's been a few months so here is what I remember.

• I really didn't care for the mix of raised and recessed panel lines on this kit.
• The kit details were soft and delicate, too easy to be obliterated by primer and paint. 
• I think the instructions really led me astray by painting the interior Metallic Blue, I won't do that again in the future.
• Alclad Black Lacquer primer can be touchy and leave a rough pebbly surface. Maybe it was too windy on the balcony? Maybe it was a bad batch? Maybe it just dried before it hit the surface? Maybe I used "maybe" too many times in this post?
• Don't force an airbrush needle through an airbrush, otherwise you'll end up with a curl like the Wicked Witches toes.
• Don't use glue like Extra Thin or CA glue anywhere near clear parts, even if they are not touching!
• Humbrol Maskol works great on un-varnished acrylic surfaces, very easy to remove and leaves no residue.
• I don't know if I would say I perfected my wheel painting, but it was definitely the best I've ever done.
• Let a decal sit for an hour before using Micro-Sol. I used it too soon and a decal floated off the surface and then it was too soft to move without damage.
• Oil weathering is not as easy as it looks.
• Sometimes you have to push through problems on a project to completion, even though it may not be up to standards. If you've learned something along the way, it was worth it. Especially on a $14 kit.
• I really need to get that lightbox built, the final pictures aren't the best.

Thanks for checking in and I hope to see your web stats return soon!