Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf.G

Next on the bench after the plane is done is a Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf.G from Tamiya. It's a kit that is set for the African campaign, though I have been concentrating on the Ardennes Forrest region. 

The kit cam from a friend of Eric's and mine.  I picked it up at this years Chattanooga show form his sister. I picked up a lot more from her as well, including some Echelon decals for the Kharkov region. I also was able to pick up some T-Rex tracks for the Panzer III/IV for a winter set. 

After doing some research on the Kharkov and Kursk battles, I opted to not to use this kit, but will most likely use another one of my Panzer IV's for that build. I will do more research on the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte since they were in both the battles of Kharkov and Kursk.

Not sure what it is, but instead of just building and painting a tank, I need to have some sort of historical accuracy to them. More so than any of the auto's I've built. 

But this kit will be modeled after something like this.

I'll do a bit of research and will most likely use the decals that came with it, since there is the DAK Palm Tree decal. Color scheme is a toss up of the Gelbbraun RAL 8000 over the Dunkelgelb RAL 7028 as above or straight Dunkelgelb RAL 7028. Haven't decided yet. 

 

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A6M2 Zero Update Three

 Finally got all but a couple of pieces attached to the plane. I will give props (pun intended) to those that build these on a regular basis. Their more delicate and finicky than armor and auto.

 Got the plane repainted and you can still see the seamline across the top of the hull. I'm not worried, this isn't going to any show. And if I start stripping and sanding again, I'll give up. Got the metallic blue laid down as well, which I don't understand that color. 

 

 I'm leaving the cowel as is. From what I read, they're black with a tiny of blue in some cases. I'll see what I can do in the weathering department with it.

Got the prop built and attached. I am missing two pieces that don't look like they're were molded to the sprue. One is the speedometer tube on the wing and the other looks like a mini stargate that goes behind the seat in front of the antennae.  I'll have to see what I can fashion so there isn't a big empty hole in the deck. 

 

One hole for the antennae, one for my missing piece. 

 

Stopped into HL last evening to pick up some ink. Going to try and make a panel wash with the ink, water and dish soap.  Watched a few videos on panel washing planes. Some were like OMG WTF dude to damn that's interesting. 

I have oils and the Tamiya Panel Liner, but might as well as try a new process. I need to clear coat it, add the decals, then add the final clear coat before weathering and washing. Going to try to get this done today. 

 

 There are visible mistakes on this. But i'm not going to worry about it. This is my first plane, so it has been a big learning curve. I need to get better at filling and sanding small areas too. The two lights on the end of the wing for example, the plastic lights are to small to fit properly. Technically, somehow, the area should have been filled and sanded before i put them in. 

I could barely hang on to those pieces. Much less worry about filling and sanding. I do feel Ive done a great job for this being a first. I have a few more plane kits I would like to try, but next on the bench after this is a Tamiya Panzer IV Asuf G.

 The kit, which came from a friend of Eric's and mine has some Echelon decals for Kursk. The figures that come with the tank are dressed for Africa. I really want to do a Kursk tank in German Grey, because I already have three tanks dressed out in colors for Africa. However, I'll save the decals for another time and build an African tank. I have a few things I want to try anyways. 

 

 

 

 

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A6M2 Zero Update

 It's been awhile since I worked on this. Went to Eric's this past weekend for a build day. I already had it primed and I laid down the JN Grey the night before. That's when I noticed the seamlines I thought I had gotten rid of. 

I am going to have to stop using black primer. It always comes down to, I don't see it without primer, can't see it with primer to holly batballs would ya look at that, when the base color goes down.

So I spent the day, sanding out the seamlines on the top and bottom of the hull. I also grabbed the engine and got that painted and panel washed. Got the cockpit painted, panel lined and dry brushed.

Sanding the belly of the beast

 

 

Last evening, i finished sanding and got the primer and base coat back on. Today,   had a few minutes, I took some fine steel wool and gently went over the plane to smooth out the bumps. Was afraid i would scratch the paint, but it doesn't seem it.  

In the meantime, I destroyed a good pullover and pair of jeans due to an old injury acting up and spilling Tamiya Flat Black paint all over myself.   

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Challenger R/T Custom - Finished

I really wasn't going to write anything on this, but as the week went on, I thought I needed to. This kit was a bear. I did all the test fitting before any primer was laid down and things seem to be good. I found the areas I needed to fix, areas that I could build upon, etc. 

But I should have known what would become of an very old kit that was re-popped and never retooled.  

I was able to finish off the engine bay. It was a monster, well out of my wheel house. But I had to do it to say I've done it. There's got to be better way to accomplish what I did without all the mess, and if I attempt it again, I'll find those ways.

 I really need to find a better way to apply CA glue because the toothpick method doesn't really work for all aspects. Regardless, this is the third kit I've done plug wires on and the first for cables and hose replacement. I remember prefitting the radiator hose, drilling out the holes in the block for it to fit. after paint and assembly, the hose was a tad to long. Go figure.

What has always got me and I never really understood was body to chassis fitment issues. You can do all the prefittment you want, with the interior tub, chassis, the whole nine. But once you add paint, forget it. The body doesn't want to sit flush anymore. 

These old AMT kits kill me with their dashboards. The interior tub is too wide where it's supposed to sit, and the dashboards never look flush when the entire thing is together. It always looks tilted. 

 

 

 The paint really pissed me off this time around. The process didn't change. Sand the plastic, wash the plastic to get residue off, prime, dry, paint, dry. And yet this go around with the Createx paint, even with 8 coats of color and 6 coats of their clear, paint rubbed off like oil on water. So most of the very highest ridges the paint and primer rubbed off. Few spots on the roll pans rubbed off. 

Even the Micro Set/Sol had a reaction to the paint in a few places that it's never done before. Not sure if Createx hanged formulas or what. 

The kit didn't come with the tail lights. I bought this kit last October with intent to build it for the '26 model show. Glad it didn't get that far to be honest. However, I don't have the receipt, so it will cost me eight bucks for two tiny lights.  Honestly, not worrying about it. 

Technically, I could fill in the pre-drilled holes in the bumper, worry about sanding the chrome off when the putty is dry then just paint in the lights with the Testors tail light paint. But it's not worth it at this time. 

 

 

 Then I have always questioned the need for these companies to mold things like bumpers into multiple pieces to piss us off. This also includes roll pans. Usually in order to get the body onto the frame, you have to leave such pieces off the kit. Then add them after the body fitment. Which in turn sometimes leads to accidents no matter how careful you try to be. 

I was able to fix the rear on this on to where glue wasn't everywhere, but it wasn't easy.  Then trying to attach it to the kit with nothing more than a few spots as thin as paper to use glue, looking back, I probably should have used some bluetac.

In the end, the kit is done. I was well outside my wheel house with all the extra. I'm not going to get started on PE, and I only added a little bit. I did what I set out to do and that was to build this kit with all of the extra engine bay add ons, the extra PE and in a custom color.

 

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One Robot, One Car, One Headache

 So through this frigid weekend, I got some work done. Now I just need to finish up two builds. The first being the RX-78-2 Gundam. There are A LOT of mistakes in the painting on this. But at this point, it was a learning exercise. I'd say for the most part, it turned out well. I just need to finish up the weathering.

 

 The entire thing went together like a Snap Tite. No glue needed. Someone mentioned something about the joints, but I can't recall. A few are a little tight and I believe it has t do with the fact they're painted. As much as I wanted the morning star weapon, I think I am going to switch to the rifle. All in all, if I do another, more planning will go into it.

But I think I can hide a good chunk of my mistakes on this with a weathering, so we'll see. 

 

The Challenger. A true AMT/Round2 repop. Everything fit great during the fitting phase. But as I got closer to putting it all together, same AMT old molds. The window for example. First it had a massive, very thick nub connecting to the bottom of it. I cut well away from the window so I could slowly trim up to it. No go. Once it got to the last bit to cut so I could sand the rest of the nub off, crack! Thankfully with it in place, you really can't see it. 

Secondly with the window, it's too damn narrow to fit properly between the pillars. If it touches even the slightest of one side, it won't touch the other.  If it touches either the upper cross bar where the sun visors are, it won't touch the bottom and vice versa. So gluing this in place took some reworking, but regardless it's too small and there are gaps that won't close. 

 Seems all of the AMT kits i bought with the exception of maybe one or two have had window issues where they weren't molded correctly. 

 

 The dash, though I complained about it in the last post, really pissed me off. Either legless drivers are driving this, or their tooling sucks. I spent about an hour trying to set it where it should be. And where it should be, has the wheel digging deep into the seat. Any tilting of it and it looks like your driving a chopper.

I verified the dash sits flush with the interior tub, but it still looks like hell. Last car I had this issue with was a Chevelle from, you guessed it, AMT. 

The paint job turned out okay. After about 8 coats of the ULVS Clear Coat and letting it dry, it followed that up with Meguiars Scratch X and Meguiars spray wax. It's still no where as "shiny" as the cars at the show. But it works. I was going to do a few coats of Testors Extreme "Wet" lacquer. But with all the issues, and the fact it wont be a show car, I said nah.

And I've tested it in the past, the Createx makes a wonderful seal for the Extreme Lacquer. And the shine is quite nice.  Besides, part of the issues yesterday were fitment issues that weren't there during early stages. Once the it was altogether, the body sat up off the frame. I actually had to glue the frame to the body along the seam. 

 I'm kinda hesitant of using the PE on this. I would like to use it on a kit worthy of it. However, it was originally going to be a show car, and I bought it for that. There's still more work to do under the hood, which also has a massive gap now on either side that was never there before. I still need to do the decals as well. 

I'll wait and see. 

 

 

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70' Chalenger R/T - Update

 After getting colors laid down on the Gundam this morning, I decided to break out the Challenger. There's too much wrong with it I missed during prep that it won't make a show model. But it will look really damn nice in my display case. 

I mixed up the Createx Pearlized Plum with a 20% mixture of Createx's Candy Blood Red. I think I should have gone about 25%, but I still love the color I got.

 I put down 4-5 coats initially and let it sit. The one thing I like about Createx is it's quite forgiving and it dries to the touch relatively fast. This has allowed me to do a bit more here and there. 

 I thought at first, that i off sprayed it. Parts look thicker than others as seen above. However, when if a flat light, the color is even. The lights above are coming from the spray booth.

After about 2 hrs, I went ahead and added 4 more coats. I wanted to make sure it was thick enough because after the first round, a few areas rubbed off when it shouldn't have.

 After Letting these dry for about an hour, my curiosity got the better of me. I had to do a test fit. So i gently put the interior tub in and put the body over the frame. The engine wires made it tricky, because I haven't cut them yet. 

The interior really has me grumpy. There's two injection marks on the back arm rests. Despite sanding the hell out of them and using a tad bit of putty, you can't feel them, catch them with a blade, but you can see them. 

Another thing that pisses me off about some of these older kits is the ill fitting dash into the tub. According to them, the steering wheel should be flat on the driver seat. Anything else and it off sets. I have it tilted literally a hair upward, so you can see the dash and in looks too high. 

 In the original Challenger, the dash was wood grain. Or at least an option. The decals for this are solid black with minimal gauge details. I want the wood grain. So there are no gauges.

I still need to redo the air cleaner. The Testors Gloss Orange, despite thinning it seven ways from Sunday, just would flow right so it looks a mess.  

 

Currently, I have just laid down 4 coats of Createx  UVLS Gloss Clear. I will let it sit over night and in the morning I will wet sand it and do about 4 to 5 more coats. I did a few coats on the convertible top, but I think it's too shiny. We'll see in the morning. If it is, then I will brush on some Vallejo Satin Clear.

 

Once the clear has been polished, I need to start on the PE which I am scared of. it comes down to very shaky hands and trying to keep glue from getting everywhere.  

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RX-78-2

 I had some issues with the initial painting. I picked up some Mr.Hobby Aqueous Gundam Colors from Hobby Lobby. Never used them before so there's always a learning curve. After a few days of letting them set, I went back over all the colors with about 4-5 more coats to get a deeper and shinier color. The white was almost a pinkish white. 

The AK Chipping Fluid seems to be real active under these paints. Just a slight brush and some of the original paint rubbed off before i got the remaining coats on. I will have to be careful when snipping and assembly, but there will be a lot of touch ups. Let's just hope this paint brushes well.

 Yellow, like always was a pain. I believe I have around 8 coats of yellow to get to where it's at now. The red was the second color with fade issues. I only put 4 more cots on those parts and they look good. 

I'll let them sit for a day or two before I do anything further.  

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