Stug IV Construction Continues

Apparently little effort was given to getting more Stug updates posted as I casually mentioned at the end of the last Stug post. The first and only post was at the end of September! I'll keep this brief and just proceed with the pictures. On to the pictures! Could it be anymore brief?

The plain old side of the basic lower hull.

The wheel things are attached. Don't feel like looking it up right now.

Hmm, I don't think those holes are accurate to the real vehicle. I'll have to take care of that.

It appears that this kit must have had some sort of battery drive back in the day to be a motorized "toy".

Covered the holes with some sheet styrene and glued into place with some Extra Thin.

This was a new method for me. I took an old bottle of Extra Thin and added pieces of sprue. Over time, it melts to make liquid plastic. The down side is that this takes a number of days to fully cure.

After a day or so, I started to sand it down and found it was still a bit mushy underneath. A number of air pockets were uncovered during sanding. I added some Dissolved putty to fill the micro holes. Filling and sanding seemed endless with this method. I just had to accept that it was "good enough" for the bottom.

The thing about armor kits, seam lines!

Cleaned up and removed from this part and all the other ones.

Here's the other thing about armor kits, all the wheels!

And the return wheels.

Just when you thought that was it, the drive sprockets and the idler wheels.

Another challenge with armor kits are two part barrels. Glue it together and try to make that seam line disappear on a cylinder! You won't be eliminating the seam inside the muzzle, that's for sure. Some better kits have rifled aluminum barrels instead.

The best I could do with some Mr. Dissolved putty and sanding.

No seam on that muzzle. I said "on" the muzzle.

Ejector pin marks to fill and sand.

The gun assembly.

Completely assembled. No, I didn't realize it until after I added the picture to the post.

After gluing everything together, I dry fit the gun into place and noticed that when it is elevated, the gun was going up and to the side. I took a piece of strip styrene and glued it to the offending side.

The upper hull with the gun installed.

That's where we'll end this week. I have another draft post of the Stug and the other projects in the queue. Well, they have pictures added anyway. Time to watch Bob Ross paint with shades of gray.