BP Models

Build Log for kit #6357 done OOB.

The "Dicker Max" is one of those rare vehicles, only 2 prototypes produced, that qualify as one of the "weird/strange" experiments done by the German designers in WW2. Essentially it attempted to marry up a K18 10.5cm cannon to a Pzkpw IV-A chassis to produce a heavy tank destroyer. The "Dicker Max" ended up serving on the Russian front in 1942 for a brief period where 1 was destroyed and the other withdrawn from service. I'm building this one straight OOB since it's a brand new kit and, so far as I know, there aren't any AM parts yet available for this one anyhow. It's got a lot in common with the previously released Pzkpw IV "Super Kits", borrowing quite a few parts from them along the way. I actually started work on this last Saturday but only just managed to complete the first real step tonight, an indication of how intricate some of the assemblies are on this one.

Step 1 directs you to assemble 3 spare ammunition rounds so that's been skipped until later when we get to the interior.

Step 2 is a very busy step with several sub assemblies dealing with the running gear and suspension. The first sub-assembly deals with the drive sprockets and is a 3-part assembly for each one. The two sprocket halves have a notched fit to insure proper tooth alignment and the third part consists of an insert on the hull-facing side. There is an error in the instruction sheet here, the insert is labeled as part A31 in the instructions but is really part A40, so beware of that.



The second sub-assembly deals with the construction of the bump-stops for each suspension bogey. This is a two part affair that needs to be done 10 times to produce the necessary sets of stops and the parts need to be carefully removed from the sprue to preserve their details. It's essential to be sparing with the glue as the contact points for the stops to the mounts isn't very large, but easily taken care of with liquid glue.



Next sub-assembly deals with the return rollers. These are molded with their rubber rims in place and it's a simple matter to glue the two wheel halves together to produce the 8 rollers needed. They have a fine seam on their rubber tire portions which needs to be sanded away unless you want to depict a "factory new" set of tires and leave the seams present.



The idler wheel assemblies come next, with two options available...either use the standard two-halves on the sprues or go with the one-piece alternatives and use the PE inserts. I opted for the one-piece with PE and had not problems with it. The PE fits just right where they need to with only a bit of CA gel needed on the hub points to secure it in place. As you can see in the shots below, there are fine mold seams on the inner brace arm surfaces that need to be removed carefully with a sharp knife point but is a fair trade-off for the added detail they have IMHO.



One of the more confusing and complicated steps gets its turn in the form of assembling the actual bogeys themselves. While the instructions don't mention this, it's possible to assemble the bogeys so that they are fully workable from a suspension standpoint. Parts A3 and A6 are designed to trap the end of the leaf spring on part A8 but the diagrams don't show this very well. The joined A3/A6 can then slide up and down the leaf spring and when placed in A11 and secured with the disk A10, both sides of the suspension can rock freely. This will come in handy later on to insure a level set to the road wheels as well as those that want to place the vehicle in a diorama setting. There are prominent pin marks on their front of the leaf springs as well as a mold seam on the top and bottom, but once the wheels are fitted the sink mark is hidden and the mold seam isn't visible, so these were left as is on purpose. The step also calls for attaching parts A25 to the base of the mounts A11, but since these attach directly to the hull later on in step 6, I'm going to hold off to make sure I get a nice square line up there before gluing.



The final task on this step is the assembly of the road wheel pairs. There are 8 pairs per side and each wheel has 2 sprue attachment points on the delicate rim portion, so removal has to be done carefully to avoid damaging them. The kit includes both the early simple single bolt hub caps and the later 7 bolt caps and the instructions correctly direct to use the earlies since this is an Ausf A chassis. Strangely though, the spare wheel that mounts to the back calls for the later style cap, so the option is there if you want to "mix and match" a little. I chose to stay consistent and use all of the early caps including the spare. The separate rubber rims were also supposed to be installed in this step but were deliberately left off for easier painting down the road.

Step 3 is a fairly simple step, it calls for the construction of the front tow pintles as a 4 part assembly. One of the pintle arms, part D9, has a sink mark that needed to be puttied and filled and the instructions point out that the left and right pintles need to be assembled as mirrors to each other. What they don't tell you is that the base, part D7, has a "D" shaped locater pin that can only orient one direction to attach to the hull. If not careful, the entire mount can be assembled upside down. Fortunately, I built them one at a time so when I had this happen to me, it was a simple matter to just switch to the other side and take extra care with the second one. I installed the front hull glacis plate first and then installed the pintles, this made it easier to get a good join on the hull sides first and then attach the mounts.



The step also directs the rear hull bottom plate to be installed and is a simple enough assembly. The bump stops are installed on each hull side and these have to be aligned carefully to keep them straight. As you can see in the pic below, they can "wander" a bit if not careful in handling. Fortunately the glue hadn't set all the way up when I took this shot and it was easy to readjust the one that had shifted a bit. The step also calls for the installation of the return rollers but I skipped that for now.



Step 4 deals with the installation of the sprocket plates, housings, and armored covers. The instructions have the plate part numbers reversed as to which side goes where, part K9 actually belongs on the right side, not the left as indicated. A special "heavy duty" axle arm is provided to fit the inserts on the sprockets installed in Step 2 and these fit over the standard arm perfectly.

The armored housing covers are also attached in this step and I admit I came to some grief in attempting this. The armored cover is made up of 3 parts, two of which fit around the housing and a third which goes on top of the other two. I misinterpreted the instructions on how the third should go and instead of installing it overlapping the two base covers, I installed it directly on the top piece, B13, as that's what the instructions seemed to indicate. I discovered the error after the glue had already partially set, so in removing it and putting it in the correct location, some of the bolt heads on the upper cover were lost. I was able to salvage it fortunately, but I lost 2 bolt heads and had to do some parts clean-up to get it back to presentable condition.





Step 5 deals with the rear hull plate and has parts installed on both the interior and exterior surfaces. The interior addition consists of two angled plates that attach below molded on bolt frames without any problems.



The exterior additions deal with the crew hatch doors, the assembly and installation of a small stowage compartment, the spare wheel holder mount and wheel (the wheel is only dry-fit to insure proper clearance for the wheel later on), and 2 small plates for the rear tow hooks.



Step 6 is another one of those busy multi-part steps with several sub-assemblies and even a sub-sub-assembly to complete. The first part I tackled was the installation of the suspension mounts and their armored covers. DML fixed the previous fit problem from the IV-E in this area, all of the covers fit correctly without any issues. The mount bases, parts A25/A26, were a very tight snap fit into the lower hull and required just a touch of liquid glue to insure they stayed in place. All of the suspension bogeys were then installed with care taken to not get glue on the backs of the mount pins to allow them to remain workable. The instruction diagrams do a "time warp" in this step, as all of the parts installed in Step 4 on the right side are magically gone and on the left side they are present, but without the added-on armor cover...strange and a little disconcerting if you aren't paying too close attention!



The next item to deal with was a sub-sub-assembly for the idler mounts and is a legacy from the "Super Kit" approach to providing detail. This consists of 4 tiny pieces that are stacked on top of each other like the pyramid-ring kid's toy in a doctor's office. I used tweezers and a fine brush to assemble the bottom pair first, then the top pair, then the two pairs together to get the stack complete. You can see the set of 4 parts as they come on the left and assembled on the right to get an idea of the size involved.



Once that sub-sub is done, it is then used to complete the idler mount itself. This mount has a "keyed" insert that allows the idler arm to be positioned at various stops for track tensioning without rotating truly free, a nice little feature I think. I only dry-fit the arm for now to make sure the tolerances were correct and will secure it much later on when the idler is actually mounted.



The final assembly of the step was to install the rear plate along with the rear tow hooks, rear hull base tow plate and pintle, and the idler mounts. All of this went together smoothly without incident.

One of the good things about belonging to online communities is the ability to get input and corrective advice from fellow modelers who spot something out of order, especially in the construction phase when it's still possible to do something about it. This is one of those cases.

The DML instructions in Step 2 as I mentioned provide clear diagrams for how the Left and Right tow pintles are to be constructed. My error is that I interpreted them as I was looking at the hull, in other words I used "my" Left and Right instead of the vehicle's Left and Right to determine how they should be constructed and thus installed them leaning outward instead of inward.



On top of this, I should've known better having built Pz III's and IV's where this type of inward leaning pintle is standard equipment...I can only chalk it up to being so engrossed in the build and not stopping to think and/or check/verify with references that I really was doing this correctly. I can't blame the instructions for this one, it rests solely on my own shoulders. Fortunately, I was able to use a little bit of liquid glue to loosen them up and remove them and switch them around to the right place. It meant shaving off the "D" shaped pin on the back and removing and re-inserting the pins, one of which had its handle break off and get re-attached in the process, but otherwise the switch went smoothly.

Made a little more progress today with Steps 7 and 8.

Step 7 directs you to install the fighting compartment interior sides, parts K6 and K7 to the tub insert, K3. It also has you install the PE bolt strips, 2 to each side, which I did first with a little bit of CA gel. Since all that Step 8 involves is installing the same assembly into the hull directly, I decided to do some test fits with the panels loose first to see how they would go before actually gluing since this is an important step to get properly aligned.

The first difficulty I encountered involved the pins from the earlier installation of the suspension bogey mounts. The locater pins protrude into the interior by about 1-2mm depending and ordinarily wouldn't be a problem except that on this vehicle they interfere with the interior inserts. This was easily corrected with the sprue cutters and a little sanding to make sure they were flush to the sides. The other pins don't matter but you could give them the same treatment if you desired to since all 4 on both sides protrude. If an AM interior comes available in the future, these no doubt will then have to be removed.



The location of the tub insert is constrained by a large post and molded in retaining ring on the hull floor. This limits the ability of the insert to be adjusted and is a deliberate design near as I can tell to insure the insert base is in the right position for the gun mount and superstructure installation later on. Ordinarily this wouldn't warrant mentioning except that when the insert is properly located with this post, another problem arises. I placed the insert in the correct position and then slipped the interior wall panels into place to see how they would fit. The fit is tight against the hull walls as it should be and the ends that mate up with the rear hull plate are stepped to allow them to sit flush there along with the angled plates installed in Step 5. The problem is that the panels are just a touch too short to do this and still sit flush against the forward tub insert surfaces like they should. You end up choosing where you want your gap...and if installed as directed in Step 7, the natural inclination would've been to install them flush to the forward side...which would produce a gap at the rear plate. Another small gap also appears where the tub insert should meet with the rear plate and this one at first might seem correctable with a little finger pressure, it's not possible to "force" it into place without creating a bow in the rear plate itself...which in turn will cause a problem when trying to fit the superstructure later I think.



My solution to this was two-fold. I used liquid glue to get each side panel into proper position relative to the hull sides so it would sit level and also mate up with the rear plate. Then I used liquid glue to glue the bottoms of the panel to the tub insert, leaving the gap at the forward space since it will be the least visible in the end when all the interior is constructed. I may come back and use some putty there, but not committed to that just yet until I see how visible that area will be. I also used putty to fill the rear hull plate gap and sanded that down.



Earlier I'd commented that DML provided a full set of the "later" style of hub caps for the wheel and at the time I wasn't sure why. Now I know why...there are pics available online that show one of the knocked out DM's with all later style hubcaps...so having the two full sets available means the modeler has the choice to do an "earlier" or "later" DM depending on which photos you are working from. I also discovered that the spare wheel on the rear should be the later style, so popped off the hub cap and replaced it. I noticed a slightly odd problem when I took the photo below...if you look closely at the center bolt, it's not molded quite dead center like it ought to be...only a very minor thing, but something to bear in mind if choosing this style of hubcap.

Today's efforts focused on lower hull details and began with Step 9, which involves the construction of the fenders. These are provided as one-piece items with tread plate molded on both surfaces and only require the installation of the rear hinged portions along with their coil springs. The left side also calls for a PE reflector to be added, all very straightforward.



After exchanging some thoughts with Lawrence Quah and his build over on Planet Armor, I stepped outside the order of the steps on the instruction sheet and skipped Step 10 which calls for the installation of the fenders and tracks and went straight to Step 11.

This step deals with the glacis plate and has a sub-assembly step that involves the construction of the driver's hood. This is a multi-part affair with a clear styrene piece provided for the armored glass that will require masking to protect during the painting stage, but provides a nice added detail to the overall look. The visor can be installed in the open or closed position and since I put the glass in, the visor was installed in the open position.



The step also calls for the installation of the dummy driver's area/storage box which is a one-piece affair with a dummy visor added. I also installed the brake and transmission access hatches and these went in easily as well.

I did some test fitting on the glacis without the real driver's hood installed to see how it would align with the tub insert and the hull front and sides.







At first glance the gaps seem formidable but the key is to align the front part properly with the front hull and insure a good solid join there. The fit at the back doesn't need to square up with the tub insert necessarily but it does need to align properly with the rectangular cut-out that will take the driver's hood. I also installed the driver's hood at this time to make sure everything lined up like it needed to and discovered that it has a gap of its own.

To get everything going, I used regular glue at the front and let that set up fairly good and then worked my way back using liquid glue and finger pressure along the way to get a good join. Once that had dried, the areas were sanded smooth and the fenders test fit to be sure that there weren't any odd corners getting in the way. Test fits with the fenders showed that it covers up most of the areas in question anyhow so the real point is to make sure that the fenders fit properly in relation to the hull and superstructure that it will support later on.





I decided not to fill in the gaps present on both sides from where the hoods fit to the upper hull after test fitting the superstructure and front plate along with the fenders. The fenders need the slightest bit of an edge to join them to the hull and keep them aligned but still with a bit of flex to them to allow for a good join to the superstructure. If I'd pushed down on the driver hoods to try and close the gap, the front plate doesn't fit properly...and if the gap is filled over with styrene or putty, the fenders don't have a place to rest there...so it's possible that the gaps are intentional in the kit design but I'm not really able to say for sure or not on that score. The right side fender had a "cleaner" fit vs. the left side, but both were able to mate up to the rear areas and hull sides with sufficient clearance for the sprockets and tracks and remain level front and back.







With that all taken care of, the next item of business in Step 12 were to install the details and equipment on the left fender. This one has the busiest set with quite a few locater holes for various items although not everything has a hole...so a secondary diagram is provided to help keep everything in the proper position. At this time I only installed the fire extinguisher, fender support bracket, headlamp, siren, and rear blackout light since all the other items will be added post-paint. DML chose to mold the entire headlamp in clear styrene with a PE face plate added to it and the wiring conduit has an ejector pin on the end so you have to be very careful when trimming that to keep the length right to match up to the hull. I cut one side just a little to short and had to put in a small little piece of plastic rod to close the resulting gap and was more careful with the second one. I masked off the glass center with some blue-tack and also chose, for a little variety, to have the rear blackout light with the plate flipped up instead of down so that the red and orange standard lights are shown vs. the 4 blackout convoy lights on top.



Step 13 deals with the few details that go on the right fender. The rear brake light is installed as is the jack although I skipped the jack block and spare links for now. The jack is the typical multi-part affair but requires you to use PE for the mounting brackets as the only option available. This is the only piece of equipment that does that, all the others are molded on brackets. Not sure why exactly, but that's what's in the kit at any rate.



Tomorrow will see work start on the gun details and mount, so lots of little tiny parts in store for me there.

A lot of progress was made today and I apologize in advance for the number of photos, but the work on the interior involved many sub-assemblies and so the photos reflect that.

Step 14 is an extremely busy step with 4 different sub-assemblies, one of which has 3 sub-sub assemblies for it to be completed. The first one. labeled F1 in the instructions, deals with the base of the gun mount that will attach into the hull tub. The instructions direct you to glue part F4 to F44 and secure it in place, however I didn't do this for two reasons: 1) if left unglued, the mount can traverse left to right a few degrees and remains detachable for final fit/adjustment and 2) in later steps the seats are secured here and if left free, can be detailed (which turned out to have an added advantage as well in later steps for a bonus 3rd reason which I'll add to further down).



The next sub-assembly, labeled F2, had the 3 sub-subs dealing with many of the details for the gun sight assembly. Two of the three are pretty simple, assembling the elevation hand wheel and the sight vane, both of which deal with 2 parts only. The third on the other hand is very detailed, with 7 small and detailed parts, that come together to produce the main body of the gun sight.



The actual assembly of the sub-F2 takes some strategic thinking in the exact order due to the very small nature of some of the parts and their delicate attachment points. A "mystery" part makes its appearance labeled as F27 (F27 was already used in the sub-sub step) and doesn't actually exist on the sprues in any shape or form, so beware of that. I used a pin vise to drill out the lens face of the periscope part F28 since it was molded solid.



The other 2 sub-subs are pretty straight forward, the one labeled F3 deals with the seats for the crew, one of which is upright and the other laid flat. The upright seat has a very delicate attachment point between the seat back and the seat itself while the laid flat seat has a much sturdier attachment. They attach to the mount bar via 2 pins and these don't have a lot of surface area to hold to, so they were set off to the side to dry a good long while before handling again.



The final sub-sub is the rather ordinary right side of the gun mount.



Step 15 combines the sub-assemblies F1 and F2 from Step 14 to produce the full left side of the gun mount and sight arrangement. This is a very dense assembly, almost a kit in itself, and produces a very nice detailed arrangement for the sight.



Moving on to Step 16, this deals with the assembly of the gun breech and recoil housings. A decision needs to be made on whether or not to use the aluminum barrel or the styrene barrel since there's a molded on step that needs to be removed for the aluminum barrel to fit properly.



There's an amusing error in the instructions on this step. Part F48, the recoil housing, is mis-labeled as F549...it only seems like there's that many parts in the kit at times! The rest of the breech assembly proceeds smoothly with the usual seam lines on the breech itself needing attention. The breech block is a separate two-piece assembly and the locking arm is keyed to be in the "closed" position and requires modification if you want to show the breech open. I opted for the closed but didn't glue the block in place so it could be removed later for easier painting.



Step 17 deals with the assembly of the gun muzzle brake and the attachment of the mantlet to the breech along with the superstructure front plate. Two muzzle brake options are provided and I went with the "field" version combo of parts F49-F3-F58. The cap of the brake fits snugly and just a touch of liquid glue was needed to get it to sit properly and then sanded smooth to produce a one-piece brake. I glued it with CA gel to the aluminum barrel first since the end of the barrel has a "D" shaped mating pin, meaning the brake can only mount in one position. I glued the mantlet first to the gun breech to make sure it was lined up properly and then glued the base of the barrel with CA gel as the final step.



Then, just to make sure everything was still playing nice, I test fit the gun and front plate with the superstructure to see how it would all work out. The weight of the aluminum barrel means that either the gun will have to be fixed in a set position or else the travel lock used in the upright position to keep the barrel in position. Something to keep in mind for those who opt for the aluminum over the styrene.



Step 18 is where I started to color outside the lines since it starts in on the various details for the interior. It directs the installation of the right side periscope and since this is a clear piece, I left it off for later. It also directs the installation of the radio and junction box, both of which I assembled but set off to the side. There is a large pin hole in the roof that I also filled with some putty and sanded down. Not highly visible but there nonetheless and easily dealt with at this point. I also skipped ahead a bit and assembled and installed the side vents. After much back and forth, I decided this was the best approach to attaching them vs. to the hull tub in terms of facilitating painting the interior.





From Step 19, the interior details of the various boxes for the front area were installed. Part E29 needs to be positioned very carefully since it needs to have sufficient clearance for the superstructure front plate to sit properly. I also realized at this point the bonus #3 advantage to not gluing part F44 earlier, the seats need to be able to clear the exhaust vents to fit properly so this allowed for an easy adjustment when securing them to the base of the gun mount. A very tricky installation as they kept wanting to "roll" and droop down, but eventually they stayed put.



Step 20 deals with the installation of the ammo lockers for the right and left sides. I assembled both sets closed as they have several large pin marks on the interior and no real details on interiors of the doors or the lockers themselves beyond just the bare trays and holders, so that was easily taken care of. It's worth noting if you elect to pose them open that the smaller lockers have an interesting hinge arrangement where the top folds upward and pulls the front part with it and is secured with pins attached to the superstructure wall vs. the usual folding outward or downward type of arrangement. I again tested the arrangement of the lockers with the superstructure to make sure everything lined up properly before gluing on both sides.



As a little side note, I found my "missing" rear door hatch handles...they are on Sprue D and are parts D72 and D73. The instructions have these listed as "Not for Use" and while they may not be specifically designed for the DM, they fit perfectly into the molded in holes on the triangular latches, so they have been added as well.



For Step 22, I assembled the base and mount for the "rabbit ears" periscope and installed it on the right side. I left off the periscope itself deliberately to allow for better detailing since Lawrence Quah provided me with some nice interior photos that show the periscope wired up to the little junction box on the right side ventilator shaft and I want to do the base paint first before tackling that one. The retaining clips, E9 and E10, were added to the walls and these should go on the left side as well although the instructions never tell you to do it they magically appear in place in Step 23 and can be easily overlooked if not careful.



As the final step for the interior before painting will begin, I installed the rear plate C4 to the superstructure and added the grab handles and details which appear to be a small box of some type and a small oil can? The little can's position is a bit of a head scratcher since in the main diagram the arrows show it going in the middle of the plate but in the sub-diagram showing all the details in place, it's right next to the small box, part E23. The latter made more sense to me, so that's the one I went with.



Last but not least, a final check to make sure the gun mount and everything else fits properly. It does raise one question to me out of curiosity more than anything else...the driver's compartment seems to be open to the fighting compartment on the interior...there's no plate or blanked off area there, just a black rectangular hole. Maybe part of the original vehicle design?

A correction to some of the information I posted yesterday:



Based on the adjustments made by James Tainton (jet) and confirmed by Lawrence Quah with their builds over on Planet Armor, the DML instruction diagrams on the construction of the armored driver's hood are misleading in that they show the front plate flush with the hood behind it. I followed this in my construction process and all of the diagrams in subsequent steps that feature the hood show it square/flush to all the plates, however the front plate should have a slight "step" to it to eliminate the gap that results with the lower hull area. Since no weld seam was included on this area like the sides, I assumed it should be flush and assembled, glued, and sanded accordingly, however it's not correct.

I'm hesitant at this point to pull it out and reconstruct it since all of the interior elements were placed on the assumption that the hood, the superstructure front plate, sides, etc. would fit the way it is now and I may be too far along to fix this on mine. Have to think about that some before taking the plunge or leaving it as is and chalking it up to a combination of vague instructions/user error and accept that the build won't be a "perfect" assembly.

Some more progress today in the interior department. First up was a move/adjustment of the radio junction box. The diagrams in Step 18 have you place this directly under the radio and immediately above the right corner of the storage box on the right side of the fighting compartment. After looking at the photos of the interior that have the box installed but not the radio, the box lid needs some space to be able to be opened, so to accommodate this, I relocated the junction box as far over I as could next to the intake duct to at least approximately simulate their position relative to each other.



Then it was time to break everything down for painting on the interior. I've kept things in 4 sub-assemblies consisting of the gun and mantlet, the superstructure, the lower hull and interior, and the gun mount and crew seats.



First step was to give everything a primer coat of Italian Dark Brown to make sure I got to all the nooks and crannies before laying down the Panzer Gray. I also decided to go ahead and install the commander's periscope and the "rabbit ears" artillery spotting scopes to make things easier in terms of consistency of painting. The spotting scope was carefully installed and can swivel out of the way, a handy little feature for that area for painting and also for later on when the canteen and gas mask canister need to be installed in these areas.





Next up was to work on the details of the interior. The gun got most of the time, with the elevation/traverse wheels getting a coat of Non-buffing Metalizer Gunmetal and dry brushed with Steel. The details of the breech were also painted, with the interior of the breech and round chamber painted Steel and the breech lock handle moved to the correct "closed" position since I'd accidentally installed it in reverse earlier and didn't catch it until now. The gun sight was painted Aircraft Interior Black and then a light pin wash of Burnt Umber used (very carefully since the paint is uncured and unsealed with Future) to help highlight some of the details. I painted the seats with Leather and then gave them a light wash of thinned Gunmetal to help accentuate the molded in texture/wear areas.



Last but not least, I ended the day by working on the grenade holder racks and other items on the rear hull plate that had been left off in earlier steps. The racks are molded with a lot of nice detail for the grenades and I did my best to pick that out with the frames of the clip holders, the handles, etc. They show a bit glossy here in the photos but will get some Dullcoat treatment before I join the superstructure to the lower hull. I also gave the wood handles some pastel treatment with Burnt Umber rubbed on and this will show up clearer with the dullcoat as well.



More work slated tomorrow on the interior, I still need to assemble and paint the canteens and gas mask containers and wire up the spotter scope to the junction box on the right duct. I'm still on the fence about wiring up the radio but may go ahead and do that too while I'm at it.

Picking up from where I left off yesterday, work continued on the interior. I weathered the interior trying to keep in mind what areas would get more wear than others with the operations of the crew. The area immediately behind the breech (no spent shell basket means lots of dings and scratches I think) and the floors received more weathering attention than the other areas. I lightly dry brushed some Steel followed by Burnt Umber to simulate scratches and nicks then followed that up with some 80/20 Panzer Gray and Light Gray dry brushed to fade the paint a bit from exposure, then blended it all together with some dry brushed straight Panzer Gray. Similar treatment, although lighter, was given to the ammo lockers, ventilator shafts, and superstructure side walls.





Next challenge was the radio. I decided to go ahead and do some basic wiring for it to represent the power and antenna connections. I used some 1mm solder and painted it using Aircraft Interior Black and glued in place with CA gel.



My real dilemma was how to wire up a headset for the commander. I had some 0.5mm solder that I'd been hoarding and used up the last of it this time to create the split wire. I braided a length of it together and attached it to the head phones which were assembled from a spare figure set (PE head band, styrene ear pieces). A few test fits to the radio and the fact that the radio was part of one sub-assembly and the chair I wanted to hang them on was another meant I had to get a little creative...so instead of the headset being connected to the radio, it's on the seat back with it's connection cable neatly coiled on the seat waiting for its owner to return at any moment.



All of the sub assemblies for the interior were then given a coat of Dullcoat to seal them up and remove any unwanted shine or glossy look from the previous painting and the real task of assembling everything began. I decided, due to the fact that the gun and front superstructure plate were the most challenging to fit into place, to glue the front plate to the superstructure first and then glue everything down to the hull. It required some quick work and adjustments to get it all into place, but it fit snugly and only a little bit of liquid glue required in a couple of places to get it to mate up. I didn't glue the base to the fenders, only secured the front plate portions to the front lower hull.

The fenders required some additional work. When I first attached them, they had "drooped" slightly downward at the edges and this produced a slight gap with the superstructure bottom. I used liquid glue run alongside the under sides where they mated up with the hull originally to loosen them up a bit and then again used liquid glue and finger pressure to close up the gap with the superstructure. It was a slow and gradual process, but worked out as intended. This was done with both sides and then the rear plates glued down and everything secured. A small amount of putty was needed at the very front points but this is due to my own minor construction error in not getting the fenders quite lined up square at this portion in earlier steps. I ultimately did not rebuild my driver's hood either and it would seem that's not essential to get a good fit either, only to prevent the slight gap noted in the previous steps.





At the rear, the plates of the superstructure and rear hull lined up perfectly but DML designed this to have a "shelf" and looking at reference photos, this should be smooth. The fit on the inside is perfect, so it's not a gap I introduced. This was filled in with some putty and sanded down. I also noticed from the same photos that the weld seams around the front plate should be raised, not sunk, as the kit has them molded, but I didn't correct this mostly due to the fact that I've not yet perfected my "weld making" technique and didn't want to practice on this one just yet.



Next up were to take care of all the odds and ends on the exterior that I'd left off in previous steps until the superstructure was attached. I added back the jack and fender bracket to the right side that I'd removed to facilitate the fender adjustment (I recommend that you leave anything on the fenders off until after the superstructure is fitted to avoid this problem). Other things to add included the PE step ladder from Step 19, which has to be placed very carefully...that step has you do this, if you follow the diagrams, before fitting the superstructure and I highly recommend against doing that. The tolerances for it to go where it needs to are very small, and the wrench on the fender needs to sit properly as well without interference, so I dry fit that and then placed the ladder. I also added part MA3 to the underside of the gun barrel as directed, something I probably should have done before as it was a bit of a contortion act to get it in place.

The tow cable holders and antenna mount from Step 23 were also installed. I cut off the small post on part RB5 and drilled out a small hole with a pin vise which I will use to mount a brass rod antenna in later on. Some photos show the DM with an antenna and others without, so the choice is ultimately yours however no antenna is provided in the kit.

Step 23 also calls for the installation of the muffler and exhaust on the right side. The brackets for the muffler are PE and no styrene option is provided, so the PE parts were removed and heated over the gas burner on the kitchen stove to anneal them for shaping into the rounded/curved form required. The "feet" of the brackets are narrow but so is the space on the fender, so it was a tight fit to get it all in place. Separate bolt heads for the feet are provided also in PE and although 4 are called for, I only installed the two on the outer sides since they are the only ones visible and I wanted the other 2 as spares in case they were needed.

The rear stowage rack, part K12, was installed from Step 24 to the rear of the superstructure but the cleaning rods left off for now.

For Step 25, the Notek light was assembled and installed on the front hull along with the travel lock in the upright position. The travel lock has separate "feet" that mount to the glacis and I glued this to the lock first then to the hull and positioned the gun barrel into the desired position, adjusting slightly as I went along. The "closed" portion of the lock was glued in place once everything was settled without any problems. I also assembled in this step the fighting compartment tarp rack/holder. This is a very tricky assembly as the two handle parts, C10 and C11, need to sit angled out slightly and downward, meaning that they have a very small attachment point to the frame itself. Once complete, this was installed in place on the superstructure roof. Last but not least the hatch cover for the commander's periscope was installed.