Tinkering with... Mobelwagen

 Struggling getting stuff out at the moment, lots of external pressures, very close are the following:

A) Churchill AVRE with SBG

B) LVT waterlined for Indochina

C) Kangaroos and crew

D) LVT4’s and crew 

This one has been sitting around for over a year, so having no painting mo-jo put some hours in to finish up. Both base kits are Rubicon, with the extra detail track set. 

Tinkering with Franken- Wirbelwind

Some quick "almost there" workbench shots... this is a bit of a Frankenstein and has been delayed way too long, in fact so long that two alternatives are available... anyway. JTFM panzer IV hull, Company B Wirbelwind turret, kit bashed company b/ rubicon flak 38 and dremelled bolt action crew! 

Thankfully there is no need to take this route anymore, I’d recommend the Rubicon or Warlord models as a much easier option. The Company B turret is a bit "old school", but had the advantage of being first to market but needs a lot of work to get to acceptable ( for me at least) 

Kitchen Table Update : Tinkering with the Pzr IV

Too cold to go out to the shed last night so i looked for something to do to kill some time without actually painting and getting too much gear out.  My eyes settled on a Panzer IV awaiting a January paint slot.....

The kit is fine as it comes, not too fond of how the track sections are moulded but to be fair if you add the supplied schurzen the point is mute. Most of the mods detailed below negate all Warlords efforts to make a durable and quick build gaming piece, which they have achieved 100%.

Anyway, I waited to tinker, so first up was lowering the turret, I prefer mine to sit lower, so about 1.5mm was taken off the underside of the turret and corresponding turret schurzen plates. Whilst I'm there I also cleared out the recesses between the turret sides and the plates and opened up one side of the crew access doors

The next step was to thin down the track guards and remove the rear and front end pieces. The thinning down makes them a bit more realistic in scale, the bits removed, I feel, make the vehicle look used. I will add the removed rear section back on and depict it raised later in the day.

The major work was in replacing the lower hull schurzen plates. For this I recreated the plates and rails in plasticard and utilised the rail hangars as supplied. I was inclined to replace the hangars as well but it was getting late.

 

Wellington wasn't much help, and seemed singularly unimpressed.....

Looking at the IV now there is not really too much more that can be done, I replaced the turret crew hatch holds with wire and added some wheel hangers on the rear. I was going to drill out the rear stowage box, but as I said it was getting late. So thats about it prior to prep'ing for painting. I might be able to play around with the crew figures but that really depends on what the customer wants.
 

12 SS Panzer IV - 1/56th -

First pictures up out of a large split commission depicting AFVs of the 12SS, specifically for Normandy onwards. This is a JTFM Panzer IV, with a Warlord TC head and various stowage, stock and green stuff.

12SS Panzer IV - Mod'd Warlord

 

Panthers and IV's are definitely the most common vehicles I've done over the years and its a challenge keeping each one in some way different from the previous. In this case i decided to modify the recent Warlord Pzr IV. 

It is a really good kit, but like all 1/56th offerings it has room for improvement, so hopefully I've added some value, well for my tastes anyway.

First to go was the schurzen, nice robust moldings designed for gaming and handling. However,  i wanted to bash mine around a bit so utilised spare JTFM plates and made up some rudimentary rails. The attachment points aren't strictly accurate but then I'm not doing a scale model after all. The next item for change was the turret. I felt it sits high so the underside was shaved to create a lower profile and some of the schurzen opened up.

After that, all was fairly standard, spare tracks (JTFM), attachment points and stowage. Some great points about the Warlord IV is the opening hatches and the zimmerit. I decided to try something different this time and instead of having it opened up with 1/2 figure crew hanging out, i wanted to model a more realistic "in-action" composition with the hatches opened up but with just the crews heads showing. In this case the commander is a Warlord head and the crew are Westwind, the commander has some miliput shoulders but the crew didn't need them. I quite like the hull gunner "shouting" pose, maybe he's spotted something the others hadn't?

The rest is just painting and weathering :o). Decals in this case are Archer dry rub transfers and Dom's decals for the 12SS insignia.

I've included a before and after picture to show the changes. As always loads more pictures in my Flickr gallery, and double click these for "full fat" pictures.

Neil

Kitchen Table Update - WIP #2

Time for another update, combining most of my 28mm builds at the moment. I tinker in the evenings on the kitchen table. Currently the shots show,

• BAM Pzr IV , Schwimwagen and Sdkfz 9,
• JTFM Pzr IV, Puma and 234 8-Rads, 251/D's
• Army Group North , Stug III's
• Company B - Adler

All have mods some more than others. Following some comments, i will add that these additions and alterations are not always necesary and not a true reflection on the basic kit. I position my work at showcase standard and continually try and improve, hence all the mods and extras.

• Panzer IVs, not much more done to these, fiddled around with some more stowage and completed the schurzen on the JTFM one. Am toying with some camo nets but cant get it just right.
• Schwimwagen, i love this kit! although theres not to much you can do with a four seater. Added generic stowage, zeltbahn cover ( use of lead foil from posh wine, thanks Julia! ( who still looks at me funny when i ask for it!) and rope drop rope for the motor.
• SDkfz 9, this will be a SCW version so had to disguise some of the late war stowage, hopefully effectively with a "green stuff" discarded jacket.
• 8- RADs - I love these as well. These are just me playing, will be very late war schemes i thing. Metal foil fule can straps added and helmets and their straps
• 251/D - quite a bit of work here and very much WIP. The JTFM is the best 251 available and has lovely interior details. Downside is the assembling, i should really do a two part paint for these but that would double the time and increase the price accordingly. You will see green modellers putty on the body joints, still working on these. Have added internal rod bars for kit stowage and started to add green stuff kit etc. Nice advantage with these is that the rear doors can be cut open with a little bit of work.
• The Stugs are almost there. Interesting point with these, and my work in general, is where do you stop. I could do more, noticably the tools dont have any securing points which is bugging me but will stop on these now.
• Adler, not much added at the moment, added a BAM schwim/kubel driver. This will probably move right with a Horch which has just arrived.
  

Finishing: you'll notice several different finishes, from grey primer, to balck undercoat, to white metal and resin. With modern resins it is important to clean and prime correctly. I use an enamel plastic primer ( hence the grey) and then a black primer undercoat. Some have this already as they were "around" when spraying. These will all receive another primer grey and black undercoat. This will then be touched up with enamel ( Humbrol).

I havent posted pics of all the mods talked about here, however there is now a WIP folder up on my flickr gallery, which has more.

More JTFM Panthers and Panzer IVs

Ok guys and girls, I'm beginning to loose count of the numbers of each of these little beauties I've done, I'm sure Jeff T can build a nice extension to his log cabin with the sales just of these two. Anyway, thought I'd try a little different camo on each than normal. Am particularly pleased with the Panthers, they look Kursk-ish ( yes i know they're late war!). In this case i have used Archer rub down transfers which are simply superb, fiddly but superb. Of note whereas the VVV crosses ( and all waterslide decals) work better on a gloss finish, the Archer work better on a Matt finish, so a little more planning and prep is needed. The 251 is Bolt Action/Warlord and part of a separate commission. Having issues with lighting again, there are two different styles here, let me know which people prefer on the web and i'll know next time.

Getting my skates on now for Salute, some 11hr painting with Six Company B IJA Type 89's winging there way over the Atlantic for my Salute demo, also some advance Bolt Action/Warlord Shermans for Chris Thompsons demo, two vignettes for Outpost, alongside 6ft of Nomonhan Terrain to finish!

As an appetizer i also have some lovely 1/48 kits just in, now these are gonna be special, but under wraps for now!

As always full sizes pictures in my flickr galleries.

- early evening update, I now have six Japanese imports! Type 89's courtesy of Brent and Bruce at Company B (and Jeff at JTFM), currently scrubbing the resin prior to primeing tomorrow, will keep you posted......