Trumpeter Panzerjagerwagen Vol. 1 (2007)

[Bill Plunk]

Build log for Trumpeter's kit # 00368 German Panzerjagerwagen Vol. 1

[Bill Plunk]

Since this project deals with a rail car mounted Pzkpfw IV-H turret, it makes sense that the build would begin with the car chassis itself as the first sub-assembly. Step 1 has three sub-steps to complete the construction of the undercarriage.

The first sub-assembly is the spring and hub mounts for the wheel trucks. The springs are nicely represented but have prominent mold seams on the spring tops that have to be dealt with. The springs mount directly to the hub base via a post mount and the hub faces are made of three separate parts with some very nicely molded cast in lettering detail.

The axles have hex-keyed ends that match up to the hub ends and trap the wheels between the hubs and the axles and small insert, A13, that is a spacer to insure the wheels are placed at the correct distance from the hubs. The fit on the hex-key end is tight enough that no glue was necessary and I likewise didn't glue the A13 inserts or the wheels, which allows the wheels to rotate freely, something that will be handy later on for painting.



The second sub-assembly deals with the wheel wells. There are four of these, labeled D8-D11 and I'd recommend you mark these somehow with a Sharpie to keep them apart. I didn't do this and it caused a little head-scratching as I built them up because they look very similar to each other but aren't quite exactly the same. More on that in just a bit. Each well receives 4 parts, 2 mounts for the springs and 2 pistons for the brake arms. The brake arms are mounted directly to the back panel of the well and then matched up to the pistons. The directions here have an error, they have an arrow showing the brake arm attaching to the spring mount, something that's not physically possible if you try it. As you can see in the photo below, there are large ejector marks present on the interior of the wells, but these won't be visible unless someone flips the whole car upside down, so I didn't spend time on filling and sanding them.



The third sub-assembly is to get the axles/wheels into their respective wells. This is a little tricky as the only installation points are the springs themselves, so a nice level surface is necessary to get them to glue to both wells and be straight for installation.



Step 2 directs for these to be installed into the hull of the car. There are molded in points for them to mate up to and this is where it's important to remember which of the earlier D8-D11 is which. When the axles are installed into the wells, they pair up, but it's possible to get them switched around if not paying close attention. When this happens, you will know right away as the slope angles where they meet front vs. rear are slightly different. When mismatched, they look like this:



And when properly installed fore and aft, it looks like this:



Once placed in the proper spots, the well tops sit below the rim which is how they should to allow proper fit for the upper deck plate. I dry-fit this just to be sure and everything is in good order for the next steps.

[Bill Plunk]

Lots of progress today on multiple fronts. Picking up from yesterday, I continued on with Step 2 and added the debris plow to the front of the car. This is a two-piece arrangement with each piece using 2 small tabs to attach to the lower hull on the rail car. I mounted the left side blade first using liquid glue to get it into the right position and then mounted the right side blade. The point where they meet, or rather are supposed to meet, at the front to form the angle of the wedge didn't line up perfectly but since the blades are a bit flexible, it was possible using regular glue and finger pressure to get them to match up. Once the regular glue had set, I came back with some liquid glue to fill the seam and then sand it down to finish the join.



The remaining part of Step 2 is the creation of the linkage gear for the front of the car and this is a complex assembly of 7 different parts. In the review I'd stated that these can be left workable with some care but after test fitting them together, the fit is sloppier than the linkage arrangement on the BR52 I'd built, which I'd assumed was the same on this kit. This combined with the complexity of the arrangement meant I held off until the front plate of the car was mounted before gluing and attaching.

Step 3 deals with the attachment of the front car plate and the necessary details. I attached the front plate first to the car hull to avoid damage to any details and the fit was generally ok, with some use of liquid glue and finger pressure at the edges necessary to get a good fit. Care is needed to make sure the plate stays flush with the top of the car sides as the deck plate will sit flush against this when it is installed. I was happy to discover that the bumpers do indeed have locater holes inside for the head-lamp bases, they look like ejector marks at first glance but are the exact diameter for the posts, so a few twists of the appropriate drill bit and they were opened up. These were attached without incident and the whole bumpers mounted to the plate. The linkage gear was assembled and installed, aligning it with the plow blades so it didn't snag. Last but not least, the side steps were installed. These are a delicate arrangement and the posts are smaller than the holes in the plate, so not only did they need bracing to get them to set in the right position while drying, they also required some putty to fill the gaps as well.



Step 4 is a simple step, it calls for the construction of the rear bumpers and the installation of the rear plate. The rear plate had the same issues as the front plate but otherwise installed cleanly.



Step 5 is a major step, it deals with the installation of the deck plate and the addition of the large wooden box to the deck rear. Test fits with the deck plate in previous steps prepared me for some slight gaps front and back and I'd deliberately not glued the sides to the wheel wells to insure it had some flexibility for this step. I used regular glue front and back and at the corners and several large rubber bands along with liquid glue along the sides.



While drying, I assembled the wooden box, creating the square out of the sides and sloped front and back first to get them aligned and then added the top. The molding has very nice wood grain and alternates the boards so that the pattern isn't the same over the different planks.



The rubber bands then came off the car. The sets set up well but the front and back plates needed more attention. I used additional liquid glue and finger pressure in select spots to get them closed up. Only a couple small spots needed some putty help.



That completed the car construction, so the next step started in on the turret interior. First up was construction of the two-piece gun and breech. I used regular glue here and then sanded down the seam with a sanding twig.



The coaxial turret MG34 was also constructed out of its three parts and the muzzle drilled out with a pin vise.



The gun mount and recoil guards were constructed and attached. The recoil shield has a very large ejector mark on the surface facing the breech, so if the right side turret hatches are left open, it will be very visible. Since I'm not going to have the interior displayed, I didn't fill this or any of the other many sink marks present. The left side of the gun mount includes a gear that keys to the elevation teeth on the recoil guard, which means that the gun will not elevate easily once installed, so before installing into the turret it would be a good idea to make sure it's set at the angle you want.



Next up came the construction of the exterior armored cover for the recoil housing. This is a four part assembly and the two square parts of the housing, B33 and B32, fit together really well. The same was not true of part B34, the gun barrel sleeve. This didn't align at all and I was able to get the top to align but all the other three surfaces required putty and sanding to get them to match properly. This was slid down over the barrel and glued into place and another problem revealed itself, the diameter of the sleeve is too large relative to the diameter of the barrel. Whether the gun barrel is too small or the sleeve too large is up for debate, but there's clearly too much room there for one reason or another. Last but not least, I assembled the two-part muzzle brake and cleaned up the exterior seam with a sanding twig but couldn't get at the interior surfaces very well for the obvious reasons. The opening on the front of the brake also wasn't molded circular between the two halves, requiring some attention with a round needle file to correct.





Next up will come the turret details and interior.

[Bill Plunk]

More progress today, I decided to take a stab at correcting the barrel sleeve gap issue as it bothered me too much to leave it alone. I cut a strip of 0.3 mm Plastruct sheet styrene and using some liquid glue, carefully inserted it as a "spacer" around the inside of the sleeve. Once the glue had set, I came back with a sharp #11 blade and carefully trimmed back the excess, then sanded it down flush around the perimeter.



Then it was on to the turret. I combined steps 7 and 8 since they are essentially the same thing, adding details to the turret exterior. The rain guards, parts B63, required their mount posts to be removed in order for them to sit flush against the turret as the mount holes aren't deep enough. I removed the posts with sprue cutters, leaving just a small nub to help insure the alignment and to cover the holes. The lifting hooks, parts B22, also needed some help. These have square mount pegs that don't match up to the holes on the turret and have the added bonus of being super thick, about twice what they ought to be. I removed their pegs and gently sanded them down with a 600 grit sanding board and a pair of tweezers.

The hatches themselves have very large and deep ejector marks and the vision port has the added bonus of a sink mark on the inside. If leaving the hatches open, these will have to be dealt with. Since I'm closing it up, I left them alone but show them to you here so you can get an idea of what to expect.




The hatch bump stops also have slots in the turret (Trumpeter went all-in on this design approach) that are too big, once the posts were installed, some putty was needed to fill the remaining gaps. The hatch hinge mounts were installed on both sides, these are a very tight fit due to the dimensions of the cut-out openings, but don't fit flush against the sides of the exterior on one end, requiring more putty work.



After the putty had dried, I went back over it with a sanding twig and carefully trimmed down the excess with the point of my knife blade and secured the hatches in place on both sides.

[Bill Plunk]

Step 9 deals with all the interior details on the turret and focuses primarily on details from the turret ring and below. There aren't any details or add-ons to the interior of the upper turret areas with the exception of the exhaust fan installed in Step 8.

The first details added were the turret traverse mechanisms and while the instructions tell you to assemble the mechanism from its 7 parts first and then install it to the turret base, I did it in the opposite order. Part B8 has two pins that locate to the turret base and getting this secured and solid made it much easier to assemble all of the other parts. The auxiliary traverse on the loaders side was also installed along with two storage boxes next to the commander's chair. The auxiliary traverse and one of the storage boxes had a sink mark that would require putty to fill and correct if showing the interior. There are also numerous large ejector marks, some partially raised, others sunk, that would need to be dealt with as well.



I skipped around within this step a bit, instead of building the gunner and loader's seats and installing the floor plate mounts, I assembled the floor plate details first. These are pretty straightforward items, not a whole lot of detail to them and they all, for once, fit well into their designed tabs. Regular glue was needed for these though as the tread plate pattern doesn't provide a lot of surface area for just liquid glue to create a bond.



The commander's chair, a two piece assembly, was constructed and installed and the floor plate mounts put into place and aligned with the floor plate. The plate mates up with the arms using some slender pins, so I left it on a level surface to set up for a while to insure everything was solid. Then the gunner and loader seats were installed. These have tabs that fit into notches on the support arms and the fit wasn't all that great on the gunner's seat. Combined with the fact that it's bulky and front-heavy, it was necessary to hold it in place for a few minutes until the glue had set up enough for it to stand on its own. It also has a very large, one of the largest in the kit in fact, ejector mark dead center on the seat. In the first photo, one of the front support arms had lifted up slightly, I corrected that after taking this shot with a bit of liquid glue and and some finger pressure.

It's worth noting at this point that virtually every piece of the interior had some flash, even if minor, that needed to be removed with a knife blade. Since they all share the same sprue, it's possible that it was just a bad run, but it's something I had to be constantly on the watch for as it would show up in different places on the parts and test-fitting everything was essential.





Moving on to Step 10, I constructed the base of the cupola with all of the armored glass vision blocks. There are five and each one has a perfectly centered ejector mark on the surface viewable from the interior, so if you decide to have the hatch open, these will either need to be dealt with or you'll have to stuff a figure in there to keep them from view. These assemble easily enough, with a small tab holding them in place and fit flush against the interior of the cupola.



Assembling the cupola itself consists of matching up the bottom half with the top. The bottom has a pentagonal shape that needs to match up exactly with the top, so be careful when doing this to have the right alignment. Even so, the fit is very tight, essentially a snap fit, and required some pressure to get it sit down correctly with just a little liquid glue run around the edge to make sure it doesn't come apart later on. The top of the cupola is also a separate piece and again a tight fit. The underside on mine had ejector marks that had created little dimples on the outer edge, so these needed to be filled with putty so they didn't show around the base once the cupola was installed.



Then it was time to take the big plunge with the remainder of the step and install first the gun and mantlet into the turret face. Due to the spent shell basket, it's necessary to do this first before fitting the turret base, so I only glued the top in flush with the turret to allow some flexibility fitting the base. The base was then installed, carefully going around the perimeter with liquid glue and finger pressure to get a good join. The fit here was very good with just a slight overhang at the cheek plates on both sides that needed to be sanded down. The cupola was also installed, this has a notched tab that aligns it properly to the front and is also a tight snap fit over the molded in mount points on the turret roof. Last but not least, the Rommelkiste was assembled out of its two parts and then mounted to the back of the turret.



And just to be sure that the turret basket and interior fit well, I test fit the turret on the rail car base.



All that's left now are the schurzen!

[Bill Plunk]

Today's efforts, focusing on the schurzen, meant going slow and being very, very patient. I decided to build up the PE version of the schurzen to see how it would compare to the styrene parts. The PE provided is "handed" with one sheet designated for the Left side and the other for the Right, so it's very important not to get these mixed up. I started on the Left side first and set the other PE fret out of the way to avoid any confusion.

Steps 12 and 13 deal with the PE option and the first things to do are to construct the mount arms for the front plate and the curved rear plate. The parts for these come with etched bend lines and grooves to take the different angle braces depending on the parts in question, which is a nice touch and makes the assembly job much easier. I used the styrene kit parts as a guide for the bend angles, testing them against the turret to insure they had the right fit, and assembled the arms for the front plate first. As you can see below, the styrene parts are substantially thicker vs. the PE parts and it's also worth noting that the tabs don't fit all that well either if you decide to go that route.



Next step, using my trusty Extra Hands and Radio Shack special 20 watt soldering iron,



I soldered the support arms in place, using just a spot of CA gel and an alligator clip to tack it in place to make the job easier. Considering the challenge of fitting these to the turret, I opted for the durability and strength of solder on all the support arms.




The back curved piece was next, the straight plate was annealed using my kitchen stove gas burner and the styrene piece as a former to get the curve needed and it's bracket was also soldered in place.




The middle piece, the hinge doors for the turret hatches, is a tricky assembly. The two plates butt together and have a straight piece that overlaps them both and getting this together and keeping it that way proved a challenge. I used some CA gel to get them to stay together temporarily and, with the Extra Hands, was able to get it all soldered together eventually. The little hinge plates were then attached and the bolt heads put on the front plate. These parts are tiny and no extras are provided (although there are lots of bolt heads on the frets, they are of two different sizes), so great care was needed. I used a toothpick moistened with spit (yes it's true!) to pick them up and place them instead of tweezers. The hatch plate was then glued carefully to the rear curved plate using the little hinge overlaps, I had to use CA gel here because there just isn't enough contact surface for soldering to keep it together (although that didn't stop me from trying for a while!).




The next challenge came in the form of getting the curved sections Left and Right together and joined up properly at the rear of the turret. On the styrene option, they have a tab join design to aid with this but no such option is possible with the PE. There should be an overlap plate here to help with this but the PE frets do not include it. Fortunately there's quite a bit of brass on the frets that are the right width, so I selected a strip and removed it with side cutters, then trimmed it fit the height and soldered it in place.




The hinge plate was then constructed on the right side and attached same as the left, and all the Schurzen are done. I ran out of time, so wasn't able to mount them, but test fits show a good fit and alignment so far. The open slots on the turret will have to be dealt with first though before they can be mounted and secured. I deliberately left the front plates free from the rest due to the fact that they have a sharp angled join to the hinge plates and trying to gauge that by eyeball proved too risky, so I'll wait until they are on the turret proper before completing their join.

[Bill Plunk]

One of the tasks still needing to be dealt with before the schurzen could be mounted was filling the gaping holes on the turret where the styrene tabs are supposed to mount to. Initially I had thought to use the stubs on the styrene pieces as filler but these don't fill the gaps either, so I decided to just use Squadron White putty to fill the holes and then sand it down.



I played around with the schurzen quite a bit trying to decide the best way to mount them when I discovered that my earlier approach of securing the hatch access doors to the curved plate was a mistake and that they should really be attached to the front plates instead. They were removed and the curved plates mounted separately to the rear turret hull. There's a bit of spring in the assembly, so I had to use finger pressure and CA gel to get them to sit properly and stay in place, but nothing major.



The hatch access plates and the front plates were then installed and connected up to the curved plates on both sides. It's worth noting here that the PE mounts are slightly longer than the styrene parts but this is a good thing as it provides a little bit more surface area with which to glue them down to the turret. I can't say which, if either, is an accurate representation, but they are different.



I test fitted the turret to the rail car to make sure that the schurzen had the right clearance all around and everything was in good shape. The turret can rotate freely without any problems.



All that's left is to construct the rail bed and then start in on the painting and finishing process.

[Bill Plunk]

More effort put in today toward constructing the rail bed and display base. The instructions for this are on a separate sheet and the first thing that is necessary is to select one of the Section A and perform some surgery. Thankfully, this is made easier by the fact that Trumpeter molded the section with the surgery lines clearly defined, so it was just a matter of using sprue cutters to remove the required extra and then trim it down with a #11 knife.



The sections of the rail bed clip together but the fit is not equal from one part to the next in some cases. You also have to be very careful in how you link the Section C up with the end cap Section A to avoid a too-large gap in the middle for the rail ties, so be sure to test the arrangement first before gluing. There was a lot of flash on some of my sections in the rail tie cut-outs that needed to be trimmed down and I had to carefully inspect all the edges to make sure I got it all as some of it wasn't very obvious at first glance. Once all of the sections were clipped together and glued down, I went back over the join seams and used a combination of putty and sanding to smooth them out. This took quite a bit of patience and work, using the old "finger test" to see if I'd really gotten smooth or not and relying on sense of touch to gage if more sanding was necessary. The areas of the road bed itself where the sections joined didn't always match up in terms of how the gravel was molded, so some were trimmed down and/or flooded with liquid cement to help even them out. The fully assembled base measures 20" in length, plenty of room and more to mount the car to it.



Next up were the rails, these come in a long and short section for each side and all of the sections had mold lines on the top and bottom that needed to be dealt with. The bottom ones in particular were more pronounced and it's critical that these be smooth to allow for fit into the rail ties. The rail ties have three "claw" type holders that the rails slide through and if the seam isn't removed, one side sits higher than the other resulting in the rails not being level and/or causing strain on one side of the "claws" when inserting them. All of the rail sections have one side where there are multiple ejector marks present, some raised and others deep, that I still need to deal with before they can be painted and installed. While the marks can be positioned on the inner rail surface, the length of the rails insures that they will still be visible front and rear, so they can't be just left as is.



More progress to come with tomorrow's efforts.

[Bill Plunk]

Work on the rail bed continued with more attention given to the rails themselves. As pointed out previously, there are many ejector marks to deal with and I opted to fill them with putty and used a needle file to sand them smooth. Most of the marks were quite deep with only a few raised, so it was slow going to get them all taken care of. Another dilemma will also have to be dealt with and that is that the ends on both the long and short rails have open holes in order to connect them up with other sets. Since I'm not doing that, these will have to be filled and sanded on the exposed ends so they don't look funny. The kit does supply enough connector plates to tie these in to another set, so that's a plus for those looking to use this in connection with other railway elements.



Coming back to the bed itself, I decided to use some putty and rough up a bit the join seams to make them look more consistent with the rest of the surfaces. I spread some putty with a toothpick, not taking too much care with it since I wanted to be rough and came back after it had hardened and removed the unwanted excess. The instructions at this point direct for the ties to be installed into the bed and the shorter section requires two ties to be removed. Be careful that you remove them from the right end as the long and short sections have male/female connector pins that won't match if you trim the wrong ones.





Next up, I sprayed a pre-shade/finish coat of Flat Black via the airbrush to the entire bed. Since the base proper is smooth, I decided Flat Black would be ideal for it and will gloss coat it later on for its finish. I used about 3/4 of a normal Model Master size bottle due to all the surface area on the ballast.



The frame of the base was then masked off with masking tape and the ballast sprayed with several mist coats of Flat Earth. The edges were touched up as needed by hand with a detail brush.



I applied a base coat of Italian Dark Brown to the rail ties. The great thing IMHO about the Trumpeter design is that the rail ties are completely separate from the base, allowing them to be painted and detailed before installation. The underside of the base has a series of clips that secure the tie runs in place as a snap fit, making it possible to work on them separately. Once the ties were painted, I detailed the rail clamps with non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal and then weathered the ties using soft black artist pastel applied with a brush and blended in.



I test fit one of the rails and some of the rocks may need to be trimmed down a bit to allow for a smooth fit, so didn't quite get the rails completely installed just yet.

[Bill Plunk]

Continuing on from last week, I prepped the rails and determined which sides were going where and filled in the holes on the exposed ends of both the long and short rails with putty and sanded it down. Since the rails "butt" to each other and are clamped together with brace plates on either sides, it's necessary to thread the rails into position first and then join them together. The longer rails require a little more care to thread them into place and not stress the clamps in the process. Originally I thought I'd have to trim some of the rocks down but that ultimately didn't prove necessary. The clamps are specifically designed to fit on only one side due to the cut-outs being wide enough for either 1 rail spike or 2 depending on the outer or inner sides. Fortunately the Trumpeter design aids with this as one of the clamps has pins that go all the way through both rails and, just like the bolts on the real thing, serve as the contact point for the mating clamp on the other side. I used some liquid glue to secure these without any major issues, just a little pressure with some tweezers to get them to go together is all that's necessary.





The rails were then brush-painted with non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal.



The rail surfaces were dry-brushed with Steel to simulate metal-on-metal contact wear.



Then a wash of Rust was applied gently to all the rail surfaces and once dry, the rails were dry-brushed with Burnt Umber to complete their look.





Attention turned now back to the rail car and it's paint/finish. I started by applying a primer/pre-shade coat of Italian Dark Brown to both the car and turret.



Next came the base coat which was really two coats...the first pass being 90/10 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray and the follow-up 80/20 Dunkelgelb/Light Gray.



The camo pattern was next. I used the included color plate as a guide only and applied the pattern free-hand. The red-brown is a 50-50 mix of Leather/Military Brown and was laid down first. Then the olivegrun (70/30 Russian Armor Green/Panzerschwarzgrau) stripes were applied. I did some light touch-up of the over spray with the 80/20 Dunkel mix from the previous step and then, holding the AB at a distance of about 12 inches or so, sprayed a light misting coat of the same 80/20 Dunkel over the whole pattern to tie it all together. Since this is a rail-based vehicle, the weathering will tend to be darker than normal, so I wanted to have the "pre-fade" effect in place first before I got to that stage.



And just to see how it all looks together at this point...



Next up will be finishing the details on the car, the Future coats, the simple markings, and the weathering can begin.