Dragon Dicker Max 10.5cm K.Pz.Sfl.IVa (2007)

[Bill Plunk]

Work today focused on paintwork for the exterior. First order of business was prepping the hull by masking off the interior using masking tape and the handle of a paint brush to make sure everything was well protected. All of the road wheels, sprockets, and idlers were mounted on toothpicks with blue tack and the return rollers stuck into an improvised holder since they are post mounted. All of these were then stuck into the trusty styrofoam bait box and only one step was left...prepping the rubber tire rims for the road wheels. There are 34 needed and some extras are included in the kit in case of mishaps along the way, but each one needed to have the centerline seam sanded down. Some had a more prominent seam than others and each one only took a minute or two, but that adds up to over an hour of work in the end. Each rim fits very snugly onto the hub and so care has to be taken to keep this area free of paint. I took the photo before I had mounted the rims, but they were all placed as needed to each hub prior to painting. I also filled in the hole on the idler mount arms on both sides since these are supposed to be solid, easily taken care of with a little putty stuffed in and sanded down.



The AB got quite a work out today and I got the chance to enjoy the very nice weather outside in the garage. A base coat of Italian Dark Brown was laid down as a primer coat followed by gradual mist coats of Panzer Schwarzgrau to establish the desired base color.



I mixed up some 80/20 Panzer Schwarzgrau/Light Gray and sprayed that very lightly in different places to add some variety to the overall dark gray finish. Photos show that Panzer Gray is a very dark gray, almost black in appearance, but when dirty/dusty it takes on a more faded appearance, so that's what this is aimed at as a foundation. The psi on the AB was dropped to around 15 psi and the paint applied by just barely depressing the trigger to get the paint to flow.



The follow-up step since the Light Gray mix can appear too stark at first glance was to apply a mist coat of a Panzer Gray wash made by mixing 90/10 Thinner/Paint and spraying at a distance of about 12 inches or so in rapid single passes until things were tied together and muted the way I wanted them. Additional weathering later on will blend this in further.



With that taken care of, the wheels were next up. The rubber rims were sprayed with Flat Black while on the hubs and allowed to dry. The same was done on the return rollers with the exception that they are one-piece and don't have detachable rims. The return rollers had their hubs sprayed using a circle template with the necessary diameter masked off and the psi dropped to 15 psi once again to avoid "flooding" paint into the small area. Returning to the road wheels, the rubber rims were carefully slid off and the hubs painted again with the circle template with care taken to avoid any paint getting onto the mating surfaces for the rims. Once dry, the rims were put back in place and, with only one exception, didn't require any glue to stay in place.

Once back inside, the road wheel hubs were dry brushed with the 80/20 gray mix used earlier as a pre-cursor to later weathering. The sprockets, idlers, and hull undersides were dry brushed with Steel, Burnt Umber, 80/20 gray mix, then straight Panzer Gray for their prep weathering. For now all the wheels are dry fit and the return rollers haven't been installed, but that will be the next step.

[Bill Plunk]

Had some time today due to a holiday in Mexico so more progress to report. My attention turned to the fenders and the on board tools as well as the odds and ends that needed detailing before the weathering begins. One of the first areas I dealt with were the spare track links that mount on the front fenders, there are 4 and the instructions call for them to be drawn from the "magic" track supply, so I took two from the left hand side and two from the right just to keep things even. Since the links have the outer pins molded on for an attached link, I decided to add the missing pins that would be exposed on the individual links using some 0.5mm diameter styrene rod. I laid out a strip of masking tape and secured a length of rod, making sure it was straight, then put the spare link up against it and using a sharp #11, cut the rod to the necessary lengths to fill the empty spaces then glued them in place with liquid glue.



All of the pioneer tools were removed and cleaned up. Some come from the K sprue and others from the H sprue and there's an error in Step 21 that incorrectly ID's the shovel as part K11 when it's really H11. The tools were all detail painted by hand as needed, the wood handles were done with my own home-brew mix of "wood" color and the bakelite handles on the wire cutters was done with Italian Dark Brown. The wood handles were also dusted with some Burnt Umber artist pastels to tone down their color and provide some wear/variation tones. I wasn't happy with the look of the shovel blade provided, so I sanded it down to a more scale representation using a sanding twig. The detail on the shovel head where it meets the handle is non-existent, so I tried to simulate this as best as possible with a bit of paint illusion.



Partially visible are the gas mask canisters on the interior. These were assembled from the beautifully molded equipment set included, the canisters are slide molded with end cap pieces for the top and bottom and are very detailed. The same is true for the canteens, these are 2 parts each with the same level of fine detail. I ran into a small self-induced problem with the PE brackets for the canteens...there are 2 of them per canteen and the odd shape of the canteens makes it difficult to shape the brackets around them. My solution to this was to anneal them...but the kitchen burner was to intense for them and I wasn't paying close enough attention with the first one and it incinerated...so the canteens don't have brackets while the gas mask canisters do.

I also detailed the jack block and installed it on the right side. Care has to be taken with this as there's only one locater pin used to position it and as a result it can slide out of alignment when settling it against the fender. The muffler/exhaust was given a base coat of Metalizer Gunmetal followed by a wash of Rust and dry-brushed with Burnt Umber. Last but not least, I picked out the periscopes and painted the travel lock chain with metalizer Gunmetal and dry-brushed it with some Steel.



Tomorrow will focus on the tracks and getting them installed. The return rollers and road wheels have been glued into place in anticipation of this but I've not yet secured the idler wheel mount arms so they can be used to help tension the track runs if needed.

[Bill Plunk]

Today's efforts dealt with the tracks primarily. The "magic" tracks provided are handed, with the darker gray set going on the right and the lighter gray on the left. The links required some cleanup, each had a little nib on the guide horn that needed removal and two faint pin marks were present on either side of the guide horns that also needed to be dealt with. Not sure if it was just the batch I ended up with in this kit, but the lighter gray left side links required more cleanup than their darker brethren. Their sink marks tended to be more pronounced, with more also being sunk rather than raised, and in several cases the "nib" was actually a small gouge/hole where the original sprue connector may not have been molded solid all the way through. Nothing life threatening and only one link was unusable...just meant a little bit more work for that side vs. the other.

Once all the links were cleaned up, I started in with the left side first. The links were assembled in sets of 5 and then each set of 5 was added to the next in a daisy-chain fashion until I had one long run of 100 links. I test fit this around the suspension (the idler and sprocket were removable from previous steps to facilitate this) and needed a couple more links to get everything together, so the total came to 102 links for the left side after adjusting the idler arm position slightly for the amount of sag I wanted. The long run was removed and painted with Non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal, dry-brushed with Steel, then given a wash of Rust followed by a wash of Burnt Umber. Then the whole track was put back on and secured in place and toothpicks with the points removed on one end used to introduce sag and keep the track in place on the return rollers. Depending on the in action photos you look at, some times there's a lot of sag, sometimes virtually none at all...so I went with a moderate look for my own personal tastes and allowing gravity to work a bit as well.



The right side went a little smoother than the left, but instead of 102 it needed 103 links. same process as with the left for painting and installation.



One other thing I attempted to do today was add the tow cables to the right hull side. The kit provides some very nicely detailed cable heads that are slide molded and some braided steel wire. The instructions don't say how long the wire ought to be cut to produce the 2 tow cables shown in the diagram, so I cut the wire in half at the mid point and attached the cable heads with some CA gel. I quickly discovered two things when I went to install them...1) the wire is very "springy" and as such it's difficult to wrap around the hooks into the needed shape without it leaning out away from the hull and 2) the styrene hooks aren't strong enough to fight this tension and stay attached. I lost both the styrene parts in the process...then replaced them with brass rod after deepening the small hole originally present with the tip of a #11 blade to try and reinforce it little better (can't go too deep or it will poke through to the interior) and gluing with CA...and even that wasn't good enough, I lost one of them as well...and replaced it with another brass item. After checking the factory vs. the in action photos, only the factory shots show them installed, so I decided to leave them off altogether and just painted the brass hooks in place. If you do decide to install tow cables, I recommend using something other than the kit-provided wire to avoid complications.

I'll apply a Future coat tomorrow and start in on the markings as a preliminary for the final weathering, so almost to the finish line with this one.

[Bill Plunk]

First order of business today was to get a coat of Future down via the AB and allow it to sit for a couple of hours before applying the markings. The kit-supplied decals aren't the Cartograf type we've become used to but instead are a Dragon "in house" decal sheet. The markings provided are for three different options and since I'd mounted the early style road wheels, I went with the 1941 markings scheme. They went on easy enough with just a touch of Solvaset to each one to get them to snug down against the Future, coming back as the case required with a little more here and there to avoid any bubbles. These were allowed to dry for about an hour or so and then another coat of Future applied to seal everything in.







After sitting for another couple of hours, I started in with the weathering process. I used the "dot method" to apply some general filters/variation starting first with Raw Umber, then Raw Sienna, and finally my 80/20 panzer gray/light gray mix from earlier. Then a pin wash of Burnt Umber was applied to various features and areas. I'm going to let this sit for a couple days so I can get some distance from it, then come back to it and see what needs to be adjusted/tweaked. Other than that, the only thing left is to weather up the tracks and suspension with some pigments.

[Bill Plunk]

The final weathering steps were completed today with the addition of a mix of Mig pigments (Russian Earth, Rubble Dust, European Dust, African Earth) applied wet using ordinary water as the carrier and allowed to air dry. A heavier mix was applied first to the running gear and lower hull and the excess removed with a stiff bristled brush and then fine tuned using both wet and dry q-tips in various locations.



Once I was satisfied with the lower hull, I diluted out the remaining mix of pigments to a very thin mix and then applied this over the rest of the exterior surfaces as a dust coat, working it again with the same stiff bristled brush and q-tip treatment. The final step came in the form of lightly dry brushing some Steel on the track faces and sprocket teeth and then applying some black pastel to tone everything back down.