Jagdturret

[urumomo]

A few quick pics -- show what's happening with the hatches -


I considered several different hatch configurations .

The only arrangement that allowed the hatch to operate unrestricted even with the main gun fully depressed directly over it was this longitudinally split set-up .





I sliced the hinges off and then trimmed and Siamese'd them for the lengthened placement :






I'm making them operable - so it's slowing this down ,, but once these center-line hinges are complete things will speed up ...




-- so hopefully this time tomorrow , it will start looking better than a messy idea --


I went to bore out the driver and radioman's periscope blisters with a Forstner bit ,
as you can see - the drivers popped right off when I crippled the mechanical interlock of the Milliput

Shocking . Not :

 

[urumomo]

All right ,

I completed the hollowing-out of the periscope blisters , and after finalizing the position of the periscope , decided more armor was in order ...




For the drivers side especially , due to the volume of the rotating assembly -- but I might as well add to both .
I have a 100 mm minimum 8)



Roughed- in :




The driver's side now scales to 100 mm thickness at top , in front , increasing to 160 mm at the base where it connects to the glacis plate the flanks are a bit thicker .


I'm assembling the hatches in situ -- so I'm hopping back over to the 222 until morning ,
since I'm real good at sticking my fingers into the uncured Milliput while handling the work

 

[urumomo]

The suspension is in place , now to build the wheel hubs .


I cut the upper swing-arms away from their mounts to allow for their re-positioning ,
and tweaked the axles at the CV joints and frame to follow :







I need to clean up a tiny amount of styrene " fuzz " and maybe adjust the coils slightly , to even them a bit ...


Good Grief - - photobucket is slow . might as well be on Dial-Up

All those ring magnets on the underside of the Panther's roof reminded me yesterday of the old lovely rotary dial telephones ...
;D
. .. I used to know my old phone # from when I was in elementary school - - but I can't remember it anymore .

 

[urumomo]

There are shock absorbers in there ; made out of aluminum and brass tube -

 

[urumomo]

The chassis and radiator are ready for primer :






The drive belts are super thick ,
So I intended to just thin out the styrene , but I was careless and broke the first one -- so I decided to just remove the pulleys and use tape for the belts








. . . except for the radiator fan drive ,
I just thinned it out with a file and blade ( same part from 223 kit for comparison )






This Hobby Beast ;D kit has a lot of fit issues . But at least I know what to expect on the next one ..

 

[urumomo]

 

[urumomo]

We might as well take a gander at all this now - most of it will be hidden in the end ,, actually it will disappear in the next 924 hours .. :






I made a set of spark-plug wires for it ; .35 mm steel wire :







Working on the wheel hubs :

First , remove the " wheel rim " from the interior portion of the hub :





Then the inboard face is reduced to a 1 mm rim and the center is drilled to create key-ways for the Milliput :





Then the cured Milliput is snaded to the final shape ,




I'm using these .8 mm threaded rod to make the studs for the wheel lugs :






... . and winging the look for the center of the thing -- I can't find a photo of one where I can make anything out ...
So - just an annular rim and the hex nut for the axle .

I'm fitting her with brake cables all the way to the wheels .
The kit just dead-ends them at the springs .



Probably only going to have 2 engine hatches open -- which two IDK .. . :

 

[urumomo]

Continuing with the wheel hubs ,

I removed the center sections from the wheel fronts - to duplicate the only pics I could find with any detail .





Primer'd :





I have some .5 mm threaded rod on order for the studs , that .8 mm is way too big ...


On to the interior :






They give you all those ( eleven in total ) MG ammo belt can racks -- in photo-etch ,


BUT ,
No ammo cans : ??? ,,, so we'll need to make some ..




Interior primed & ready for acrylics :




Started some battle damage :






These holies got too big ,, need to do some adjustments on these doors :

 

[urumomo]

On to the upper hull ,

I'm using the kit's PE for the roof -





It scales out much closer to the real deal than this laser-cut card example -




It's 1 mm thickness scales to 1 & 3/8"

And this is no way near that :




That looks closer to 3/8 - 1/2 " .. .. the PE scales to 5/16" , so close enough ,, I'll just paint the hell out of the underside

I have the same style grate for the Tamiya :




.. of course , you need to remove the styrene there ..

Probably going to kit-bash the Tamiya into some kinda flying car - -- I have ideas 8)



These eyebrows above the view-ports were a bit of a pain .
You're pretty much on your own with some of this kit , as far as the instructions go ;D



Thank electricity for the internet .
really good walk-around photos of the 222 --> http://www.warwheels.net/sdkfz222Freeman1.html
The instructions for the PE are really minimal -- - pretty much " it's this piece off the fret and it goes about here . BEND " lol -- not kidding :


To get rid of the big gaps at the bends ,

I made some little spatulas and used un-thinned Tamiya white putty







They give you 3 choices on the cannon :

INSERT PICTURE HERE

Photo-busket has stopped working , so I post this and try again later ....

 

[urumomo]

They got the chains back on , I guess .


So , anywaze ,

They give you 3 flavors of 20 mm ,





Nice little bit of slide-molding at the muzzle ends -



That's the Tamiya aluminum barrel ,, for the KwK 38 @ center :





Since these guys are an urban , night patrol unit , they have chosen the KwK 30 with the lower cyclic rate and short barrel

It just needs the muzzle-break improved ,




I used a .2 mm bit to open up the smaller , forward ports - and a .4 mm bit and knife point and needle file on the primary ports ;






I need to fine tune it in a couple of spots , the molding is a little off , but it's fully bored out :

 

[urumomo]

Quick update --

I got rid of the orange-peel in that coat of primer :




Still having some issues with it -- my favorite Rust-Oleum sandable primer ,,, :-\ :-\ :


Finally got the gun mount assembled and primed --- pain in the ass build . still needs some attention before paint ...

It took a lot of clean-up and file and knife work to get it to this -- the fit is awful and the flash is strong .




I'll probably scratch-build the foot-plate and pedals for it ....





I need to build the mount for the spare tire , where that little nub is :





Like this one on this 221 ,, they carry the tire oriented the same way on the 222 & 223 :





Then I can finish the primer for the hull and start on the interior paint ..


This kit has a lot of design fails ,,

Here's a good example :





The sprue being terminated there without any support has caused it to curl in and bend the MG .
... survivable , but poor planning

 

[Quaralane]

Looks to be coming along

 

[urumomo]

Hey Q ,

Ironically , I jumped over to this thing because I was tired of all the scratch-building on the Panther ...

Then immediately realized that I needed to modify the suspension , , , then build some wheels .. heh heh
The kit as a whole is not an easy build - - like I was saying prior , you need to stay on top of it . The part fit and instructions are wanting .. .

PLUS , I don't like the styrene ; it doesn't like to glue , at least with the Tamiya Extra Thin


;D I see there is a " NEW " tag next to this thread . . lol ???

 

[urumomo]

Ready for a weekend of painting , weathering and battle damage -


All the sub-assemblies are built and primed :




The anti-grenade screens came out looking fairly decent .
I don't know why they manufactured them with these large gaps in the fold line and meeting lines ??



.. . I soldered the vertical joints and filled the other gaps with Tamiya White Putty .

I also added the interior pieces , the plate to hold it open ( or latched shut ) :



.. along with the stiffening grab-bars :



To make the latch-plates identical :







I'm going to add the apertured head-lamps that come with the Tamiya kit ,,, atop a bar in between the standard lamps -





-- - but all 4 will be shot-up , so I need to hollow them out or something to facilitate creating the damage ... and come up with some convincing broken glass ..

I also want to add one 20 L water can and a 20 L petrol can , carried like the ones in the Tamiya kit :




Be using the Tamiya kit parts as a reference to make some racks and use individual jerry-cans :




Trying to decide how best to incorporate these infrared optics ---



Plenty of options - and the 222's gun mount has existing mounting rails for optics ,











Gentleman's Wehrmacht Quarterly March 1947






WHAT ARE THE RUSSIANS Really ALL ABOUT ? Page 27

STEREO SOUND FROM THE FELDFUNKSPRECHER .b ?! Page 44

MUSTARD IN HER POTATO SALAD ? UH-OH Page 57

 

[Quaralane]

Good stuff going on here

 

[urumomo]

Thanks , Q

It's been a kinda frustrating build .
Not a kit I would recommend to a beginner :

This styrene doesn't like to glue - to itself or to metal with CA .
.... it's soft , and loves to " fuzz-out " with sanding and filing .

But -- you get a lot for the money . I don't think there is a better kit detail-wise .
They just make you work for it

The 223 should be a breeze after this thing ; no real mods to do and it doesn't have the 20 mm gun mount that was a nightmare . Major fit issues with that thing , plus too much clean-up and sculpting to restore details

I think I'll save the engine from the 223 for something else since it will be all closed up .
--- even less work !

Looking forward to the paint-work ,, really tired of the tiny PE and ornery plastic !

Ciao

 

[urumomo]

Colorization in Progress :

 

[urumomo]

Some pics real quick ...

I have some metal barrels inbound to use for the coaxial MG 34 .. and need to finish the infrared optics -
But this is how the gun mount is sitting now :

( needs a bit more black filter on the 20 mm .. I'll probably end up swapping out that 2 cm gun or at least the barrel .. it has issues , but it's fine for now and pops right out for any future mods 8) )







Currently working on the interior chipping --- hopefully I can get the hull halves together this evening :






you can see the added mount for the spare tire -- the .5 mm threaded rod for the mounting studs is still on back-order




I discovered that the lower hull was about 2-3 mm too narrow in the center where it meets the upper half of the hull -- so I've been flexing the sides outward repeatedly and have induced enough plastic deformation to bring it back to where it needs to be . ( like I said -- they make you work for it . This ain't Tamiya ! : )


I was thinking of adding some cables to the battery -- even though you really can't see a whole lot of this once the hull is assembled and the gun mount is installed - and realized they need an additional battery for their added spot-lamps and infrared equipment .

So I'm stealing the battery out of the 223 for now :



.. it will go into an angle-iron rack mounted atop the transmission tunnel , just forward of the radiator mesh .

 

[BeebleBrox]

Awesome!

Nice well placed tjipiiin on interior.

 

[urumomo]

Thanks ;D

Still working on the chipping . I like some of it ; some of it needs moderation . It's a back and forth .


After getting the hull bent back to where it needed to be ,

I reinforced the rear " bulkhead " to hold the sides steady -
It was completely useless as cast since it has no top member and the PE screen ain't no help !
( it also needed to be shortened in height and the locating tabs removed so it could be placed properly . Of course . again , not Tamiya here )


I cemented the little pre-drilled styrene blocks to the back and gave it 24 hrs to cure before I messed with it -- cuase Hobby Boss :





Then added the 1 mm , tempered steel wire and shaped the anchorages to clear the slope of the hull :





It had to be thin and stiff , so this was the best material .

The backside of the joint at the hull was reinforced with 5 minute epoxy . Now ready for crash-test .





.. . Never to be seen again ..