Hobby Boss Sdkfz 222 Leichter Panzwerspahwagen 2cm (2015)

[Bill Plunk]

Finished up the work on the figures today. Sitting Guy needed a seat and since I'm planning to add 2 jerry water cans in a rack on the right front fender, I scrounged 3 cans from my spares bin courtesy of past Dragon builds. Panzer gray base coat by airbrush followed by Light Gray for the water can cross markings. I dry brushed some Steel and then stippled and dry-brushed panzer gray for some chipping and wear since these buys would've been taken in and out of the racks on a daily basis for use by the crew.



Speaking of the crew, the Break-dance Trio were treated to a sealing coat of Future and I let that cure up overnight. Then an overall wash of thinned enamel Raw Umber was applied to their uniforms and clothing and adjusted/removed as needed with a 10/0 pointed brush and clean thinner. I also lightly dry-brushed some of the original uniform color, Armor Sand, in various spots to pick out some highlights or blend in the shadows a little bit.

I also did a little work on the exposed flesh areas. I added a very light wash of enamel Light Brown to give them more of a tanned look and tone down the slightly pinkish feel of the earlier Light Tan base color. Sitting Guy got his canteen and cup added and Standing Guy also got his morning coffee plus a cigarette. Last but not least, I sprayed some Testors Lusterless Flat to tie everything back together and remove the Future gloss. Small drops of Future were added to Sitting Guy's goggles to restore their lens look since the Flat knocked that back too much for my taste.





All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how these guys turned out...now I just need to keep them off to the side until the base is ready to take them.

[Bill Plunk]

oday's effort was all about the base...yes, I know...couldn't resist.

I used some Woodland Scenics Mold-A-Scene Plaster to create the base on the wood platform. I'd stained the wood platform previously but didn't take a pic of it because it's largely going to disappear except for the edges, but for the stain I used Rustoleum American Chestnut because it was about $5 for a small can and dries in an hour...perfect for a quick little job like this one. Anyhow, I mixed about one and a half cups of the plaster with enough water to make it workable but not too soupy. It's only got a work time of about 30 minutes so you have to be quick before it starts to firm up. I chose the rocks I wanted for the scene and embedded them in the plaster and shaped the plaster with some water and my finger tips to get it to blend together.



Blue painter's tape protects the edges and prevents any staining/overlap from the plaster. It's going to take 24 hours for it to fully set up and be rock hard, but it will mate perfectly with the wood base in the process. Once it fully dries it will be a white color and will get some additional attention and additions to get it where it needs to be for a desert terrain.



Quick check with the vehicle shows everything playing nice together as intended so far!

[Bill Plunk]

After letting the base set overnight, I checked it this morning and discovered a small disaster had struck as the plaster cured. When I first stained the base, I had used a small screw to create a handle and that hole apparently allowed the residual water in the plaster to soak through the wood overnight and caused it to warp. I hadn't used a very wet mixture, but as it settled and cured I guess it was enough with the aid of the hole. Regardless, it also resulted in the plaster suffering some earthquake-like cracking and it split almost neatly in two right down the middle as well as some smaller cracks towards the front edge where the heavier rock pieces were. On the bright side, the plaster was rock hard and fully set, so it wasn't going to be hard to rejoin them.

I also had more than one piece of the craft wood on hand, so a quick round of staining had a dry and non-warped base v2 ready after about an hour for the stain to dry.



I used CA gel and some strategic placement of regular CA glue and some dry plaster powder to patch up the cracks and rejoin the halves. I also took the opportunity to airbrush the now unified base with some Testors Model Master Afrika Dunkelgrau over the white plaster. Once that had dried, I needed to secure it to the new wood base, so I picked up some JB Weld 2-part clear epoxy at Lowe's to do the job.





Patient is now in recovery while the epoxy fully sets up over the next 24 hours. The paint foundation is just that, there will be more ground work done on the base to add some sand/dirt to tie it all together and make it look more sandy vs. rocky.

[Bill Plunk]

So one of the challenges of creating a desert environment is getting it to look 'right' and in scale. Fortunately my LHS stocks a good supply of stuff for model railroaders and I picked up a nice big bottle of dirt under the Scenic Express label. Sounds crazy I know...but it works perfectly for my purposes as it's pre-screened and graded for scale use. I used the standard Woodland Scenics brushable/sprayable scenic cement that dries flat matte and clear to add it to the base.



I let that dry up overnight and here's what the end result looked like.



Obviously this is too dark and a little too coarse for the desert look I'm after, so I took a small amount of local sand/dirt from my yard and used a small piece of vinyl screen from an ancient Tamiya kit to sift the dirt and get it down to a really fine level of sand grains. The container started out full before putting it through the screen twice to remove all the rocks, twigs, debris, etc. that is just a normal part of 'dirt'.



Using more of the scenic cement, I added a thin layer of the sand to the base and built it up slowly to avoid clumping. While it was still damp with the cement I used one of the vehicle wheels and a pair of boots to create wheel tracks and foot prints in the 'sand' from where the crew would've walked around the parked vehicle.



Here's where the base stands now that the glue has mostly dried. It might lighten up a bit more overnight but not a whole lot more I think. I've got the texture I wanted but now need to get the color to a more tan/buff tone for sand vs. just the reddish/brown dirt look it has at the moment. To do that, I'm going to use a combination of thinned paint through the airbrush like I did for the base sides earlier and some airbrushed pigment over that so that the vehicle and base will eventually match up down the road.



Getting closer to the 'desert' look one step at a time!

[Bill Plunk]

After letting the base set up overnight, here's where things stood.



It did lighten up just a bit but there's still the red-brown tone to deal with, so I loaded up the airbrush with some thinned Testors MM enamel Afrika Dunkelgrau and re-masked the wood base.



Getting closer to the end result I'm after. I'll let that dry/set and then dose it with some MIG Gulf War Sand pigments. The photos show it a little darker than it really is but now that the red-brown tint is gone, I can work on getting the lighter tan/buff look over this easier than I could with the previous colors. I'm also pretty happy to see the tire tracks and footprints are holding and coming out nicely as a visible effect/element. Making progress!

[Bill Plunk]

Did some more work on the base today and think I've pretty much got it where I want it to be. I airbrushed some MIG Gulf War Sand pigment over the whole base using ordinary tap water with a tiny amount of liquid dish-washing soap added to it to break its surface tension and allow the pigment to spray. The trick here is to spray in light passes, let the water evaporate to view the result, then spray again. I made 3-4 passes in total depending on the areas that needed it as some required more help than others to get the tone shift on.



Since the water also acts as a carrier to 'fix' the pigments, I let it sit for a couple of hours to make sure everything was final before removing the masking on the wood base. There were a couple of small spots that needed some touch up with the stain, so those were taken care of and now the base is ready for its occupants.



It's been a fun exercise getting this one to come together and overall I'm pretty happy that the combination of materials and techniques worked out without any major incidents. Now it's back to finishing the 222 that will sit on it.

[Bill Plunk]

As promised, attention returned to completing the 222 and getting it fully assembled. First order of business was to go to Step 10 and work on the turret and armament. I cleaned up the top and bottom halves of the turret but kept them separate for now as the 2 attachment points for the gun mount are split with the front one on the turret bottom and the rear one on the turret top. I want to be sure everything's going to play nice in that department first before committing to joining them and painting it. I also deliberately left off the commander's seat and the PE radio frame box. HB doesn't provide a radio, only the mount frame, so I'll have to see if I have something in the spares bin that might do to fill that empty spot. I did attach the antenna base but clipped off the top portion and drilled it out with a #76 finger drill to take a Lion Marc brass 2m antenna later on. Turret top got the side and rear vision flaps to round things out.



One nice thing about the HB kit is it does provide you with three different choices for the 2.0cm gun...you can do a KwK 30, a KwK 38, or a Flak 38. I decided to go with a KwK 38 but replaced the barrel with an Armorscale turned brass and aluminum barrel as the plastic barrels have hollow muzzle ends but solid necks and flash suppressors. The kit barrel on the KwK 38 (I didn't bother checking the others) also scaled out a bit too long, so the replacement barrel is both more detailed and an accurate length. I had to be extremely careful with drilling out the base of the gun as the Armorscale barrel's mount pin is fairly large. I also opted for a JB Models brass MG34 barrel to improve the detail on the coaxial MG since it has a separate perforated cooling jacket sleeve that is better than the kit's molded dimples. Careful removal of the kit barrel's sight and a touch of CA transferred that key detail over as well.



Next up will be working on the pedestal mount itself in Steps 11 and 12.

[Bill Plunk]

Step 11 is a major step in the assembly process as it brings the gun pedestal mount together in a series of sub-assembly steps that are very tricky and delicate and also impact several other areas on the build. The total parts count (not counting the seats) is 26 and some of them have very little tolerance for error in terms of getting it all together properly. It doesn't help that the mount tabs for some of the parts aren't a perfect match for their respective location points, so lots of careful dry-fitting and attention is needed to get it all together in the end. I had to make a small modification to the recoil tray's elevation gear teeth in terms of sanding them down slightly so they would line up and mesh at the right height with the bottom gear wheel.

Unlike the suggested order in the instruction sheet, I waited until after I had the whole mount together before adding the two seat support posts as those have to sit just right as well to avoid interference with any interior details. It's also important to note that the elevation piston arm, part D33, has to sit at a slight angle and attaches to the bottom of the hooded portion of D44 and not the top as the instruction diagrams indicate. Assembled any other way and it will not clear the hump in the floor of the fighting compartment. Last but not least, the gun mount is not designed to be movable so take special care in selecting the gun elevation angle as that will also influence whether you can position the grenade screens in the open or closed position! See what I mean about this being a tricky/critical step?



The assembly of the mount took about 3 hours and I let it set up nice and solid before testing the fit of the 2.0cm main gun. The mount points at the front of the recoil tray weren't quite wide enough to take the gun so some careful sanding with a needle file there as well as on the side points of the gun got it reduced to the point where it would fit as a tight friction fit. The gun will be painted separately and installed later and the small splinter shield added as well, but I needed to be sure it would go in with a minimum of pain as it can only be added after the mount has been joined with the turret.



I also did a test fit with the turret and the hull to make sure everything was going to play nice with each other. I'll need to open up the barrel opening in the turret just a little bit as there's a slight amount of interference with the replacement barrel. I can't be sure that's something I didn't introduce with the barrel swap-out but some very careful sanding should do the trick in that area to eliminate the very small issue it represents.



Next up will be adding the rest of the mount (another 8 parts) called for in Step 12 that includes the mount parts for the MG34 and the gunner's sight. Then it will be time to sling some more paint!

[Bill Plunk]

Made more progress on the gun mount with the additional parts called for in Step 12. This is where things start to get a little complicated as all the parts have to line up exactly in relation to the turret slot openings for the MG34 and the gunner's sight as well as the recoil guard and the rear turret mount point. I dealt with the MG34 side of things first and added the mount support first with the spent ammo chute first, then added the gun mount itself after to ensure I had a solid platform. Test dry-fits with the 2.0cm gun and MG34 showed everything fit properly together and lined up as needed with the turret openings.



On the other side we have the gunner's sight and this is a four part affair that involves a little tricky dance to get the mount in the proper place. The sight tube is molded solid on both ends, so I drilled out both with a small drill bit to add some detail before installing it. The instructions would have you add the small s-shaped support, D51, to the sight barrel first and then try to install that to the gun mount but there aren't any location aids for it on the barrel, so I placed it on the gun mount first and then adjusted it as needed once I'd installed the full sight with the front part of its mount.



The last parts I added were the recoil backstop and it's matching clamp-like attachment point to the turret frame. This is a very important and fragile part as it, along with the notched angled support at the front of the mount, is the only thing that attaches the whole mount to the turret. These are small points that have to keep everything lined up correctly and the weight of the gun barrels was making it very hard to get them to do that with test fits so the barrels came off and I did it using just the mount and turret. I also went ahead and glued the two halves of the turret together at this point to make life easier for this exercise. As you can see below, there's very little leeway or tolerance for all of this to work properly including the pedestal occupying the right spot relative to the interior floor.



After some very patient back and forth, I got it all lined up the way it should be and will let it all firm up. The mount has not been permanently attached to the turret as there's a lot of paint work and detail painting that needs to happen before I can do that. It is possible to maneuver the mount in and out of the turret but only just, so it's a delicate balancing act from here on out until I get them both together.

[Bill Plunk]

More progress in the turret department. First order of business involved test fitting the PE mesh screen for the compartment roof as this is essential to support the rear of the turret and complete the turret ring. This will get airbrushed and installed in a following step since it needs to be painted on both sides, always a tricky thing with PE parts. I also checked the barrel placement one more time to make sure everything is continuing to play nice in the alignment arena.



The kit includes two different styles of PE mesh screens for the turret top. One style includes cut-outs for the curved elevation mechanism at the rear of the gun mount while the other is all one-piece on both sides. All my photo references of vehicles in N. Africa show the one-piece type so I opted for that style for consistency sake. The grip rails that mount on the sides were left off for now and will be added after the screens have been airbrushed to avoid the potential of paint collecting and potentially clogging those screen areas. I haven't yet decided if I want to pose the screens open or closed for my little vignette purposes, will make that call after I get them painted and see how the details look with them open vs. closed.



Just about ready to sling some more paint on the turret and mount areas!