ska2d2's Panzer III Build(II)

[SovereignZuul]

I love the detail! The brass "diamond" plate under the headlights is superb!

[ska2d2]

Bank holiday sun!
It's been a long week chipping away at some more details so here goes!
I've been working on the engine deck and tow cable clamps and fittings.
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The first job was to remove the plastic tow cables and to fill all the location holes. The aerial has also been removed as i'm going to use the 2.4ghz system.
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More 'milliput' welds.
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Carried on along the rear armour plate.
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The cleats? were made from 'photoetch sprue'.
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I started off trying to make the curved channel from ready made channel but gave up. Instead i used some sheet plastic and compass cutters and attached the sides. The 'butterfly wing nuts' are from 'schumo-kits' and come in a packet of six, all thats needed. They come in three pairs with the wing nut in three different positions on the thread. "A nice touch" i thought.
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The clamps are made of cut strips of sheet brass rolled around 3mm brass tube. Plastic 'half round' was used for the hinge with small discs of plastic added to the ends. Four more 'wing nuts were then added. The lower clamps on the left and right are slightly shorter than those above.
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All the parts glued in place with bolt heads added. I had to adjust the position of the curved channel and clamps at the top as the armour plate is 4mm short between the moulded hinge and weld bead.
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The rear lifting hook is still to be added. It sits just below the two central clamps.
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The next job is to add welds to each part.

[Wildboar44]

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B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L ................


nice work Ska

[ska2d2]

Hello all! A little more to show! I've been waiting for a few bits and pieces in the post that have now arrived so i shall start posting more often once again. Whilst i was waiting i've removed the escape hatches from the 'Heng Long' hull and remodelled the 'breather hoods', so here goes.

I removed the escape hatches using the same method that i used for removing the front hatch hinges. i.e. a doctored razor saw.

In position on the 'Taigen' hull. I have been unable to find a single picture of a Panzer III L without the hull escape hatches so unless your modelling a Panzer III M or N this needs doing! It is not unusual to see a hull escape hatch on an M or N but it is to find one omitted on an L. The hatch is a good scale item but the position of the road wheel suspension is out on the hull so a little 'artistic licence' is needed when placing.
Next up the 'breather hoods'. As you can see in the picture below the 'hoods' are right at the bottom of the frontal armour plate. This is a problem when it comes to adding a weld bead across the front of the tank, so i decided to remove and reposition them.

Again i used a doctored razor saw to separate them.


This picture illustrates the before and after positions. For a more accurate model the 'hoods' need moving up and outwards.

Here i've removed the curved structure at the top of the 'hood' and added the 'breather' hole. The front edge of the plate needs sanding square as it isn't sloped on the real thing.

Plastic tube was attached to remake the top of the 'hood' with an open end, as shown.

PZH.jpg (59.03 KiB) Viewed 2629 times

Welds and armoured bolt heads added. I used the pommels from 1/35 entrenching tools for the bolt heads. If anyone knows of any 1/16 armoured bolt heads that you can buy off the shelf please let me know!

Moving on! After remaking the front fenders i decided to go for it and remove all the moulded on tools and replace the tread plates and tools for individual items.


The replacement tools arrived in the post and they are all pretty good apart from the spade.

I decided to remake it mainly because the shaft should be longer and straighter than it is. Also the thickness of the blade lets it down.

Using a needle file i reduced the thickness of the blade. Above is a before and after shot.


The remade 'long spade' with brass tube shaft and reused metal pommel.
Next time i will highlight the pro's and con's of the 'Aber' and 'Voyager' early 'clamp and clasp' sets.

[Wildboar44]

Hey Ska ...

Prime stuff once again , like your touch . How do you do such neat weld lines ?

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[philipat]

This is awesome. Love the tiny details. I'm posting a build log on RCUniverse...now I'm so sure that I should. Pales by comparison.

[ska2d2]

Onwards!

Added the sleeve for the spade. I wanted to make this as a separate part and failed, so i attached the top and bottom to the blade and built it up around the end.

Small brackets were added to the bottom of the sleeve.
As promised here is a description of the 'Aber' and 'Voyager' clamps.

On the left is the 'Aber' clamp. This consists of seven parts. Both the lower bracket and upper strap require the ends rolling in order to form a tube for the 0.4 brass rod to pass through. This is almost as hard as assembling the clamp afterwards. This one clamp took about an hour to make. There is enough tension in the strap for the clamp to close tight in a very satisfactory way.
The 'Voyager' clamp on the right consists of three parts. The bracket and strap have the rods/pins formed onto each part so there is no need for any fiddly rolling. This clamp took ten minutes to make. Unlike the 'Aber' clamp it doesn't clamp shut very well and even with a tool in it is loose.
Having bought both sets i've gone with the 'Voyager' set. For anyone who's interested the 'Voyager' set is a fraction of the price of the other from 'White Ensign Models'. The image on the website is a little misleading as it only shows four clamps. One set gives you more that enough pieces for a Panzer III with some to spare.
In order to fix the looseness of the clamp i found folding the ends of the strap over solved the problem.(see below).

Continuing with the tools i reworked the axe and wire cutters.

The moulded on clamps have been removed and the top of the axehead was filed flat.

The wire cutters had the pommels filed off and pieces of brass tube added to the ends. The brass tube half way down the handles was added by sawing through the rod on the underside and then clipping them over. A 'google' search under "Engineer tool-Encyclopedia Europa" came up with a photo of the real thing!

Before fitting the wire cutters i made a bracket from brass strip.


I've glued the clamp to the tread plate but not glued the clamp shut at this point. Once the tank and tool have been painted i will do this before weathering.

Here are the clamps for the axe and crank?+ the sleeve for the axehead.

And with tools in place.
The clamp for the spade is slightly different as it is raised up from the surface of the tread plate.
Both the 'Aber' and 'Voyager' sets come with small brackets for modelling raised clamps. A small stop end bracket stops the spade from sliding out of its position.(photo-etch sprue once again).





I hope this was of some help and thanks for looking!

[philipat]

Looks great! Thanks for the comparison of the Aber vs the Voyager!

[ska2d2]

Hello all! Just a little more of my build. For anyone who's read my question on fitting gearboxes to the 'Taigen' hull i've managed it. I was hoping that the procedure would be straight forward but as i wanted to add 'bushes' to the axles it turned into a bit of a nightmare.
The first problem was that the bolts holding the hull together prevent the gearboxes from aligning with the fixing points on the metal plate in the hull.

I drilled a hole in the gearbox side and cut out a slot to fix this. Placing a piece of timber between the gearbox sides when drilling avoided any damage to the gears.

Once this was fixed the gearboxes wouldn't sit down on the fixing plate in the hull. On the underside of the gearboxes are two 'pan headed' screws that are supposed to sit in two corresponding holes in the fixing plate. They don't. I removed the plate and drilled out the holes to enlarge them. Second problem solved.
(sorry for the lack of pictures).
Next to fit the bushes. All of the above needed doing in order to mark out where the holes for fixing the bushes could be drilled. Once this had been done the gearboxes could be removed and the holes drilled. The problem with this is that there is so much 'play' in the axles that positioning the bushes is almost impossible.
What i also found problematic is that you are supplied with nuts and bolts to fix the bushes with and this requires the removal of the gearboxes to get to them. At this point i went to bed!
Woke up, (always a good sign), with a solution. I can't say that this would work on a plastic hull but as there is a metal lining in the upgraded hull, 'self tapping screws' seemed to be a solution. A trip to the local model shop turned up just the thing. 75p for ten. Drilled the holes with the gearboxes in position , cut the screws to length and fixed the bushes! A plus point to this being that replacing them doesn't involve removing the gearboxes.

[philipat]

Great work! I like the work-arounds that you figured out. I shied away from the axle bushings or bearings because I couldn't figure out how to get the bolts and nuts to work without creating cut-outs in the metal hull. Your solution works great.

Are those gearboxes steel gears?