Warlord/Italeri 1/56 Panzer IV Ausf F/G/H - March 2021

The Panzer IV was a staple for the German's in WWII with over 8,500 built in various configurations, and one of the best tanks produced. This build would even out my Bolt Action armor with three allied and three German pieces.

But why am I posting another Bolt Action build???  Each time I put on my modeler pants I find something new or a technique I want to explore.  This "Puppy" is not different, besides I was looking forward to building a plastic kit once more as my two previous builds posted in this Blog were solid resin without much assembly required.  Click on either of the following two links to view the resin builds. (Lulubelle)(M7 Priest).  In terms of building a model kit I was not disappointed.

Three Sprue Trees of parts - great!  The instructions; however, were wordless schematics that require a bit of trial and error dry fitting before adding any glue.  At least the cover sheet makes this clear and recommends a lot of dry fitting.  This approach is also necessary due to the number of options involved in selection of the P IV version you want to end up with.

And Awaaay We GO!  After attaching the drive and idler wheel halves I tried a rough black application to make the solid bogie wheels look duel.  As you will see later, this process could have been eliminated - I tried!

Two piece treads were easily applied to the wheel assemblies and they then attached to the two piece hull, but there was a minor fit issue....

Notice the gap on the left.  The two ends were glued with thin cement and then Cyano gel applied and held for a couple of minutes to lock down the warped center.  

All of the armor plates, spare wheels, jerry cans, etc. etc. along with the two piece turret and double brake gun have been put together, but the reason for this photo and the next is the first decision point.  A closed hatch.................

...........or Open?  As you will see, open was my choice.

Now for choice number two - I added the extra turret armor which, along with the double spare wheel rack shown above and the position of rear antenna designates this version as Ausf G or mid- H.  Recall the wartime photo at the start of this post?

I don't like the scale thickness or the bulky attachments for the Schurzen armor plates so despite the 10 extra points in Bolt Action I opted for the Ausf G (I can always tack them on in the future😁).

Here is fit issue number two.  The turret armor is attached in accordance with instruction and as the parts go together, but there is not supposed to be a gap at the back end.  I used my Loctite gel (took three applications) to fill the gap and sand it down.  The result is shown later.  Again notice the antenna rear left - rather thick in scale?  Well, I took care of that in a rather inadvertent way as I thought would happen........

.........I snapped it off during the trip to the spray booth - AHHHH!  Do I resort to my oft used thin gauge wire or something else.  Brother Bob commented that he had seen folks use plastic broom bristles which gave me an idea.

Our trusty potato scrubbing brush. I snipped off the remnant antenna, pinned drilled the lug, snipped off a brush bristle and glued it in - right length and right diameter - Whoo Hoo!  Best of all - Flexible - no breaking or bending and straightening!

See?  And the armor seam is closed too as noted above.  Now let's get it weathered and camouflaged.

First up, my trusty flat black and thinner wash. the thinned black flows nicely in panel lines and depressions using a fine tipped brush.

Then the eyeliner makeup sponges - yep - the Mrs. ordered them and they come in multiple colors.  I opted for Blue - very manly!  But they are great when using Tamiya Weathering Master or paint.  I like a more free form (the crew applied in the field look) camo.

As I proceeded I would add more color here and there, but first I wanted to get some decals in place.  When assessing the decals included with the kit I found that they were a bit too large - usable - but not the look I wanted so I scrounged in my reserves and pulled out the sheet from my Marder III (click this link to see that build😁 - Marder ).  There were plenty to choose from.  There were two sizes of Balken crosses and enough numbers to do what I had seen in historical photos and this is what resulted.

The Marder sheet included Afrika Corp designation.(Brother Bob, so notified me).  I just thought they looked nice so I used them even though I was not necessarily interested in Afrika Corp. units.  Although since I have Lulubelle (M3 Lee) they can face off in the Sahara (see the Lulubelle link at the start of this post)!  

I also carefully modified one of the these by nipping off the palms in order that I could try placing it on the pocket of the commander, like an Iron cross pocket ribbon.  Speaking of the Commander...

I drilled and added a wire to the bust for ease of handling while painting.  I first primed him white.  I then  mixed gray with blue for the jacket and hat, but added simple gray as shadowing.  The other colors are obvious (except for the eyes, which are blue),  but I believe you can make out the Afrika Corp decal I put on the pocket.

Not too bad I think.  With the wire in place I also thought it would be nice to have a more "dynamic" figure, so I drilled the inside of the hatch,.........

.........snipped off the wire leaving enough to insert and.........

a rotating commander

Ok, here are my current forces lined up!

DIY 28mm Tabletop scenery, accelerated

One of my favorite parts of tabletop gaming is creating a good looking table. There are many ways to achieve that, but I have focused almost exclusively on do-it-yourself approaches, both to cut costs and to feed my creating/modeling habit.

A few months ago I built a movie scene building,  the corner cafe, from the final sequence of Saving Private Ryan. While happy with the result (see here) it was a long process to research, design, obtain textures for, and build the building. I wanted a faster way to fill out a partially ruined set of buildings. I found online an outfit called www.davesgames.net that provided reasonably detailed PDF files for a set of print-your-own buildings, designed to be printed on cardstock and assembled. While not interested in that "2 1/2 D" end product, I thought I could use them as the basis for some foam core buildings, as the overall design and textures were already there, for just a few dollars. 

I started simply printing out the various pages on plain white paper, and cutting them out with an exacto and straightedge. The "outside" wall pieces were then glued to a piece of foamcore:

in as economical a pattern as possible. The floors and roof would be printed, cut out, folded in half up to a light so the edges matched, glued over a piece of cardstock, and when dry, cut out as a single piece.

The "inside" walls were cut out and glued to their corresponding outer wall sections. 

I trimmed the pieces, then beveled the inside corners and assembled the walls.

If I were doing this over, I'd trim the "destroyed edges" before any assembly, but this was a lesson I had to learn (we'll cover that later).

The floors and roof would be supported by some appropriately damaged framing, made from balsa strips, and darkened with a mix of black and brown acrylic washes.

Yes, they should be running the other direction...

Here, in a separate build of another of Dave's buildings, I made a full ceiling, in reverse order, attaching lath (strips of dark brown cardstock) to the plaster ceiling, laying joists on that, and the floor on tip for a "sandwich ", installed as a unit;

I also used the wash on any white cut edges showing. Repeat for all floors and roof.

Now to address those chunky cut edges of the walls. First cut the edges back, rounding off the sharp angles, straight lines,  and any bits of white paper showing, leaving an irregular but somewhat beveled surface/edge.

Next, paint the edges with Flex Paste or equivalent, to fill the pores, smooth the surface, hide the foam, and make it enamel resistant. 

Next i mixed some acrylic paints, white, orange, and a dash of brown,  to replicate the printed brick color. This was painted on the edges, covering all white showing.

When dry, I used a razor saw to score the  edge at every mortar joint.

I followed up with some light grey enamel on each of those joints to blend with the printed sides.

Overall, I  think it gives a much more realistic look than either a narrow carboard wall, or a monochromatic painted edge, at a very small addition in time and effort.  Now I have two more to build....

As opposed to a scratchbuilt ruin, taking weeks, this was completed in less than two days.

Keep modeling!

Bolt Action - BlitzKrieg Models - 1/56 scale M3 Lee: March 3 - March 14, 2021

 

 I have loved the iconic M3 Lee ever since seeing the 1943 production of "Sahara" staring Humphrey Bogart.  Brother Bob came through for me again enticing me with a website for "Company B" models which advertised a tank commander bust and Lulubelle decal combo.  The commander bares a striking resemblance to "Bogie" (as much as possible to do in 1/56 scale pewter).  So my journey started on February 13 when the M3 was purchased.  However; the company located in Louisiana shipped on Feb. 13 just as the big winter storm hit that area and totally shut down the USPS.  By the end of the month the tracking info had not moved off of Feb. 13.  Communication with Tina at Blitzkrieg was exceptional and she did everything she could to track down the little M3, with no luck, so she shipped a second one special D on March 1st.  On March third the M3s arrived - you notice I said M3ssss!  You guessed it, both shipments arrived the same day (Murphy, you DOG).  I sent the second one back (return to sender) which Tina appreciated and I got to work.

I knew that the Blitzkrieg models were resin and I was not intimidated by that since I had already completed a Warlord M7 Priest.  Here is what arrived..........

........six pieces total.

The underside was a bit rough, but being a single cast it was pretty detailed and I did not spend much time on filing.  All I did was smooth out the edges of the tracks.  I did not bother with the casting mold connections.

The first thing I did was bore out the sponson and the turret for all three guns - The 75MM, 37MM and 30Cal.  Oh, and I had to drill out pewter bores for both the 75 and the 37.  Pewter and resin both are soft enough that starting a hole and drilling is fairly easy.  A few drops of Loctite gel and the guns are secured.

To the spray booth.  I used my light sand and dark sand and olive, in that order.  With each succeeding coat I moved further away so that the dark sand was a lighter coat than the light sand, and the olive was an even lighter coat over the dark sand.  I was trying to effect a look for the Africa campaign.  Sahara was a B&W film but Lulubelle did not look very dark against the sand.  FYI, I did brush olive on the 75MM and 37MM.  The 30Cal got gun metal.

Here it is out of the sunlight where it looks darker, but later you will see better exposures that show a look that I am satisfied with.  The hatch I simply handed painted olive, although also a light coat so that some of the metal shows.

Now I break out the flat black wash and steel paint and work it into the tracks.  Silver is also used on all of the view ports.  Flat black is stippled into and behind the VVSS.  Then I applied Tamiya Weathering Master (soot and rust pallets),  which are my "go to" weathering colors for armor and ship models.

Detailing/weathering of the rear deck is a black wash for the grating and some steel.  It also shows the incorrect position of the hatch - Oooops - had to break it off and re-attach.  Which I did in the correct position, and then, later on forgot to remove the turret when turning the model over.  The turret remains separate from the hull and sets in the hull nicely so it can rotate.  What one must remember is that it not fixed so don't turn the tank over such that the turret drops out, hits the work bench and breaks off the hatch cover that you had JUST RE-ATTACHED!!  Oh, wait, I was talking about you being careful - please learn from my experience😂.  My build experiences are always fraught with lessons.  I just have to hope I remember them.🙏 

 

Woo Hoo, my Company B stuff has arrived!

I used the yellow instead of white, as Bob advised, for the Africa campaign.  The decals went on easily, but I always apply a little Solvaset first before putting the decals down, in order that they are movable at first and later set for good!

The "still" I took from the film showed me three things, (the open position of the turret hatch - "re-attached" as noted above) a track repair "box" on the front of the hull and the pennant (which I found later to be attached to the hull just below the turret).

Here is the "plain" front of the model.  What to do?  I rummaged through old sprue looking for something I could salvage.  I found some bits I thought I might be able to cobble into a reasonable facsimile of the track repair box..  From my 1/350 scale Buckley Class Destroyer Escort I found left over wall pieces with depth charge launchers.  I thought that it may look track-like if I cut it down with the nippers.  I combined that with a couple of support frame pieces from the 40mm Bofors kit and came up with a four piece construct as follows:

The size is correct, so it became a matter of painting and weathering.

Olive and black to start with, followed by some silver highlighting/dry brushing.

This picture is a bit premature but it does show that the "track box" turned out reasonably well.  the other thing to notice is the position of the turret hatch and the fact that I added a couple of "snips" of 26 gauge wire to make hatch (pull) lugs!  Now to the pennant.

The sprue has a lot of round nubs protruding from the sprue frame.  They protruded far enough to get my pin vise drill to make a hole through the side, which I then snipped off and trimmed.

This is now the pennant mounting lug that I attached to the hull below the turret............

............SEE!

  Now I cut off a length of my 26 gauge and glued to the end of it a left over flag decal from the M7 Priest I previously completed.

The "wire" pennant mast is inserted in the hole in the lug and stops  against the hull.  This works to hold the mast in place plus making it removable for storage. Win-Win!  You will notice later on that I painted the lug and the pennant mast.

Last, but not least, is the Commander (Bogie with a Stogie).  The painting of figures is always a scary task for me.  I mixed up a facial color of tan, beige and white, a dark tan for the helmet, black for the ear phones and straps (facial features) and a tan/green mix for the jacket.  The goggles I naturally left alone.  I painted the "lit" cigar as best I could and here is the result:

The Before...........

...........and the After.  A couple of additional completion photos and as Bob says "Ready For Tunisia"

Thanks for the viewing of my efforts.