222 Build

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1/16 Sdkfz 222 Build

Over the next few weeks I will be building the Andrew Design  1/16 Sdkfz 222 supplied by YT International, this will be an out of the box build where I will disclose the pros and cons of the kit, latter I may add some detail.

First impressions
Box art and presentation are very good and equal Tamiya open the box inside there is a bag with two plastic frets another bag with decals, etch fret, cloth tyre cover, rubber tyres, zip tie, brass width markers a colour poster, three boxes one larger than the other containing metal and resin chassis parts and the motor the other two boxes one containing the metal lower hull and the other containing the resin upper hull, colour poster of the 222 and 223, the instructions where well laid out very clear and easy to follow.
To get either vehicle moving you will require a 7.2v battery transmitter, receiver and speed controller, the kit doesn’t have turret rotation or gun elevation/depression this I will look at latter.

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Closer look at the parts
This kit will no doubt be compared to a Tamiya kit but lets not forget that Tamiya has a larger tea budget than Andrew Design /YT International has for the whole company but take on the giant they have and personally I think they have done a very good job for there first armoured vehicle just look at the rush job Tamiya have done with the long awaited Panther, lets look at the two plastic frets which where virtually flash free sink marks where mostly on the inside of parts bar the registration plates detail was almost as good as Tamiya but not on par one down side is that one of the MG34’s was removed from one fret, metal parts have some flashings which need to be removed but nothing to drastic there’s a metal gun barrel and flash reducer the barrel is not turned but Tamiya have only recently started adding these to there kits and should be fairly easy to sort, all drive shafts come pre assembled with gears and bearings which is a
nice touch as is the parts break down all the metal parts are the same size as the instructions nice and handy if you are a beginner, resin parts come in three bags along with the upper hull the advantages of resin is that a higher level of detail can be achieved and production cost’s are much lower than the dies required for injection moulding the down side is that they tend to have large pour plugs that require careful removal the castings can sometimes suffer from air bubbles that require filling I found a few small bubbles that will be easy to sort out I have had far worse with Verlinden and the Pro Models Pak40 that I built the latter suffered from warped parts I didn’t find any in the 222 kit.
There are three decal options all Whernacht would have been nice to have an SS division but with SS runes on the reg plates and European hysteria this is a no no.

Parts count all the parts where present absolutely nothing missing.

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The Build
This starts on the metal lower hull first job clean up the metal parts this I did with a Dermal and hand file 40 minutes later the job’s done then it’s on to building the gear box then the axels a lot of the screws on this build are self tapping which to be honest is not the best idea so I decided to replace these with BA screw sizes are 6BA = 2.6mm 8BA = 2.mm, I bought two sets of BA taps for this job from “Proops Brothersâ€

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(1,2) Start on the gearbox this is all metal construction with plastic gears, the gear shafts come pre assembled just make sure that the bearings are a snug fit the casings and that shaft GA1 doesn’t have to much back and forth play as this is the out put shaft I added grease to the gears, when you have attached the drive shaft cups MA4 make sure the grub screw doesn’t catch the motor when you rotate the shaft I had to file mine a little

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(3,4) next came the axles again the gear shafts come pre assembled I marked each axle set so I knew which parts came from where this will help matching parts, I paid specific attention to the gear shafts GA3 and axle half’s MA6 and MA6 first make sure the shaft bearings are a snug fit in the axle half’s you may need to move the bearings a little but don’t move them to much this will cause the bearings to run tight and where premature you will know they are tight if you can feel a rumbling when you rotate the shaft now check the gears make sure that the crown gear on GA3 meshes properly with GA4 I had to move the large crown gear in a little

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now check that MA7 and MA8 move freely in the axle ends if they don’t then file them a little until they move  and freely once this is done remove MA7 and MA8 add MA10 a bearing and one of the wheels tighten the screw in the wheel spin the wheel and make sure it turns freely if it doesn’t strip the assembly down  and you will need to remove some bur from inside MA7 I did this with a 10mm countersink bit by hand and removed a small amount of metal rebuilt the assembly and checked again you don’t want to take to much metal away as you wont be able to put it back latter

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now assemble everything with grease on the gears and drive shaft ends next is MA11 this is a ring which should turn freely on the axle if not with a small half moon file, file the inside of the ring and re check until this part turns freely repeat all that you have just done on the other axle, next step is bolting the axles to the lower chassis for this I’m going to save you some time in the build this I found latter when testing the chassis, MA13 a half moon bracket I added a piece of 1mm plasticard to the inside

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this is to lift the axle a little to stop the drive shaft’s from rubbing on the inside of the chassis assemble everything else as per instructions.
(5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14) the only problem you may come across hear is with MA17 and MA22  these are the steering arms when joined together I found mine hade some play this will affect the steering the solution is to glue a piece of 1mm plasticard inside the chassis then insert the steering parts again

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If they are tight use a file or sand paper to remove some plastic making the hole slightly larger remember take you time and constantly check the fit of the parts you don’t want these parts to tight or to slack now with that little problem solved assemble all the parts in 5,6,7 as per instructions  I drilled and taped the chassis to hold P44,45 in place so they don’t fall off, before you fit the motor and gearbox are you going to add turret rotation? if so and you are going to use my method grind the top of the gearbox flat like this

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Again this will save you time latter if you change your mind this mod wont cause any problems now fit the motor and drive shafts this is a fiddly job and a pair of tweezers will help locate the drive shafts assemble 8-17 as per instructions for the speed controller I used “M Troniksâ€