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I have been away for a while with some real life things to deal with, but am now back in the wonderful world of plastic armour with this little Swiss watch of a kit. It is beautifully detailed and complex model that needs some care to assemble. With a full interior and engine/transmission I am thinking of a small vignette with a couple of figures to show it all off, still early days though. Hope the image displays as the Flickr hosting site has changed since the last time I did this.

Looks like an exciting build, can't wait to see how it develops!

Thanks for your interest, yeah it's "exciting" though other less polite words have also been used recently!





Some of the parts are microscopic, the last photo is of a tiny wee pin to secure the handbrake linkage. I had it on the tweezers and just about to insert and suddenly it just wasn't there anymore, just gone, spent an hour and a half going over the bench and with a strong torch on the carpet, nothing, started thinking about making a replacement which would have been difficult as the part actually has a bolt head moulded on the end. Then put all the stuff back on the bench and what was lying in the footwell of the chassis/floor of the model, yes the missing pin! Oh the rush! just like the feeling when you stop banging your head on the wall! This is an insane hobby.

I shelved this kit at almost the point you are now in order to work on less intense builds without interiors. Still waffling on when to pick it up again. Maybe this will be the push I need.

I've got one in the stash waiting to get insaned. Fortunately I love doing insane things. Will have to keep an eye on this, good job so far.

Kimmo

nice! I'm following.

Looking good so far!

Here are some new pics to show some progress.




Yes this is intense, thanks for all your intrest. Although fiddly in the extreme it is going together well and the fit of parts is very good. The painting is not complete yet, with really just the basic colours and a little black pre shade done, still pin washes and scuffing up to do. For anyone who has this kit and still to start it my only advice would be take great care that when building up the chassis to get the parts in the right position, follow the diagrams arrows right to their point and try to keep everything square. Time will tell whether I have managed this properly. The next stages are the assembly of the hull side walls with relevant fittings and look to be a little easier!

Here are some pictures showing a little further progress;













I'm really enjoying this build, though it is obviously quite challenging with most of the work having to be done through a magnifier a wee bit at a time as the old eyes are nearly falling out. I read on another site that a sten gun should be attached to the left hand ammunition locker, so I had one in the spares department and made up a little reatining clip from lead foil.
For anyone who wants to see a really nice example of this model have a look at the britmodeller forum. There is one done up in Polish markings there and if mine can turns out half as good I'll be well chuffed.

They're coming to take me away, HA HA...Those nice young men in their funny white coats...they're coming to take me away HA HA!!! I've had that feeling before...where you'd rather take a real torch (flashlight to all of us Yanks...but torch sounds sooooo much cooler) to the workbench than a battery powered one!

Jeff

Coming along nicely.

Kimmo

Still inching forward with this;









Well that's the top on. Remember I mentioned about getting things lined up properly............Despite my best efforts they weren't and I had to fill a large gap at the front with a styrene strip and a smaller one at the joint where the rear louvres meet the the top of the hull, apart from those two areas the fit was pretty good. The optional etch reinforcement strips along the side joints help to cover any gaps that may arise there. I decided to put a pin up on the left hand ammunition locker for a bit of fun, you know what squaddies are like!

Hi Paul,
Wow, nice interior weathering, looks great so far.I like poster inside, it's great idea.

Thanks for your interest. My brother who knows about these things doesn't beleive "pin ups" would be allowed and would not pass an inspection by Rupert! I like to think maybe it would.
Anyway here are a couple of pics of the very modest progress to date;









As can been seen the pile of bits and sub assemblys grows.
I am now doing the turret, the breech for this is quite a delicate thing made up from many tiny peices and proved not to be a very good fit through the inner mantlet and needed a little sanding and jiggling about which was a bit tricky once fully glued together, my advice would be to just cement the two basic halfs together and then check the fit of both the inner mantlet and also the main gun barrel which didn't fit very well either leaving a rather ugly join to the breech this will be hidden between the inner and outer mantlets.
I did manage to get the steering swivel hubs to work though ! Using the old heated blade trick to flatten down the ends of the pins to keep the linkages free to operate. So it'll be great fun steering it around the floor going broom broom.

Hi Paul,

Just came across this one, excellent work so far.

Al

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So it will be great steering over the floor, going broom, broom
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Hmmm....
Remembering me (with a painful smile) a day years ago when I found my 6 year old son and his friends doing just that with some models.
As you may understand they had a lot of fun, my wife tried to explain that I always could build a new one and I experienced the loss of many hours fiddeling around with tiny parts to come to, in my eyes, very good results......

Great progress! Love the pinup idea.

If you think you're having a headache filling gaps with styrene strips can you imagine how mine must be from reworking the entire engine bay of a 1/35 M4A3 Sherman with Verlinden parts that are so inaccurate it's not even funny? Have a look in my topic if you want to see pictures of what I am talking about.

Love the effort you are putting into your build, lots of superb detailing

Thanks for your encouragement men. Here are another couple of pics. Did I say this was a fiddly wee kit, well it got even trickier;
DSCN7027 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

DSCN7025 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

Getting the main gun and the coaxial with the MG belt feeding over the top of the main breech all to line up nicely into the two mantlets and then to make sure the two cartridge case shutes line up with the bin on floor was awkward. I have had to use a bit of licence with the painting of the turret internals as there isn't much contemparory refrence material out there apart from the restored one called "Vandal" which I think was used as refrence for the design of the kit. Not a lot of this detail will be seen when it's done but for me that's not really too important, I suppose it's really the challenge of getting it all to fit in. It did make me think about the driver of one of these things, he has no access hatch of his own and once he has crawled in the side doorway along the floor over the folded down backrest of his own seat and finally at the controls he has virtually no way out once the turret is facing forward. It must have been truly terrifying under fire.

Nearly done with it, still a little more weathering, touch up, some crew clutter etc. Will post better pics when finished. Still thinking of a small vignette parked up in french/belgian barn/shed, to be continued.....
DSCN7053 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

DSCN7051 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

DSCN7055 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

DSCN7054 by tankglasgow, on Flickr

Anybody spot the howler of a mistake?

Well, I'm guessing which ever crew member painted that F number, his commander is not going to be pleased. Apart from that, a very good build.great paintwork and weathering. I have the version of this kit with the additional clear parts but I can't imagine using them, luckily you get the plain plastic parts as well.

Excellent detail and the paint job is 1st rate.

Awesome work, what did you use for the SCC15?