Trumpys Sd.Kfz 8 DB10 Gepanzert (back on track)

[losboz]

    

For the princely sum of £30 and a mega efficient (ordered at 3pm and on my doorstep at 10am next day) delivery from Affinity models UK along with some other tasty treats this is one I had to tuck right into. Its a very rare beast and modeled on the recovered and now fully restored DB10 in Poland

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA4sSIm4yEw



What is interesting is that this little-known variant of the Sd.Kfz 8 vehicle was all-but-forgotten until an example was fished out of a Polish river and restored to operational condition . This variant featured a full-hull around the chassis and drive train and was likely a prototype of an armored artillery tractor that was lost during combat evaluations.









Although 4000 odd Sd.Kfz8's were manufactured this particular model is thought to be extremely rare indeed and quite likely one of only a few prototypes made. Archive photos are almost non existent but I managed to find a couple of original war time pics and there appears to be two versions !

A 2 rear door model



And a four rear door version



Trumpeter has been producing several tow vehicles to support the impressive range of heavy artillery in their kit line-up and this is an obscure 2011 released version of the standard German Sd.Kfz.8 that was based upon the vehicle recovered (see above).

Moulded in desert tan styrene, the kit is presented on 13 parts trees and two main hull halves, plus 10 trees of individual track links in brown color, and a fret of photo-etched parts. The kit provides some very intricate detailing throughout the model, from a complete engine compartment to the fully appointed interior. It was clear that the Trumpeter team had full access to this unique vehicle during their research. It was also great that the vehicle was in such good condition that it could be restored to the fidelity that made the kit possible. If the decal is consistent with the license plate recovered from the full-scale vehicle, this rare example served in Luftwaffe service likely towing 8.8cm FlaK guns around the battlefield





The first thing I noticed upon opening the box was that the instructions are mad busy on one page yet a whole page devoted to one individual item on another.  Very strange and a couple of part number omissions but its not quite dragon instruction territory

There are a couple of issues to deal with, the first is there should be pairs of bolt heads around the inner sprocket rims to hold the track pads sections in position and given the size of the sprockets their absence is quite conspicuous. These can easily be added from available hex bolt sets or from chopped up sprue, again the size of the sprockets makes this job a little easier.

The second is the drive teeth (rollers) are not offset as they should be. The rollers on all German half-tracks were offset towards the front (left and right sides) of the flat track pad section of the sprocket to allow the roller to intermesh with the tracks correctly.  This is a very easy to fix by just cutting off the locating tabs on the inside of the separate tooth rings (parts B22) and fit with the rollers aligned correctly for the right and left side sprockets. For full details see www.perthmilitarymodelling.com/reviews/vehicles/trumpeter/tr01584.html

The ONLY aftermarket upgrade I could find was for some wheel masks and front wheels but the supplier doesn't show stock anymore so I have no idea what the wheels look like !
cs.finescale.com/fsm/modeling_subjects/f/3/t/145170.aspx

This particular build has defo not used the Trumpy ones



OK, onto the build

First up is the engine which fits together nicely with very little additional work. There is no radiator but this would be difficult to see through any of the hatches should you wish to display them open.




And the real thing




Next up for me was the chassis and in familiar Trumpy style its in multiple parts. Both chassis legs were luckily warp free and it all fitted together satisfyingly well.



There are injector marks on the inside of the chassis legs and the chassis ladder rung mouldings (I just made that up as I have no idea what they are really called ) are made up of two pieces which are difficult to present as one solid piece. Both will be well hidden upon final assembly



The gearbox is a simple affair but again will not be visible once fully assembled

The kit offers two types of rubber tyres of which neither are branded



The running gear assembled



The only downside was that the idler wheel was a mega loose fit to the suspension arm on my kit and I will need to knock up a sleeve for it to align well

Running gear dry fitted to chassis



Adios till next time I get some bench time

[wbill76]

Cool project on a rare beast indeed! Looking forward to more on this one.

[Deleted]

I'm surprised that the recovered vehicle survived as well as it did after being submerged in mud and water for that period of time .
Your build looks quite clean and well done .

[Leon]

Off to a very good start Los.Looking forward to your next update.

[ironhand6]

Wow!! I really am enjoying this build, I saw this online and was really interested I it. i cant wait to see more!!

[losboz]

Thanks for looking in fellas



The restoration must have been a real labour of love. It did look in remarkable condition considering how long it had been sat in mud and water but still must have required a huge amount of work. I suspect what was left of the original Maybach HL 85 TUKRM engine was scrap and a suitable engine sourced as the one in the pic above doesn't look like the kit one.

Will any plans or drawings have survived of the DB10 ?  If not how did they go about authentically restoring it ?







Anyways back to the kit

The sprocket roller issue fixed. The pic below is the right hand sprocket. Not sure what to do about adding the track pad rivets yet so will sleep on that one for now



As the twin exhaust is in multiple parts care is needed to mount correctly and its defo advisable to add the exhaust to manifold parts to ensure a good fit as there is very little room to mount up after the engine is set in place. I dry fitted the engine then attached these parts and let the glue set.

The pic below also shows the track rod ends and track rod fitted. This is quite fiddly to get right as the track rod end parts locate in to a very shallow hole in the upper back of each wheel hub and have to align with the hub direction and sit at 45 degrees to the axle. Its not helped by the wobbly loose fitting of the hub to the front axle (another 'snap on fit') I tried assembling the track rod ends to each hub first and even though I left to dry overnight still found one detached when the 'snap on' track rod was attached   So my solution was to mount the track rod to each track rod end first, let it set correctly in a little jig then attach the whole assembly to the hubs.



The lower hull fits snugly on to the chassis with the aid of some tabs at the front and mounting guides along the rear so with a good fit ensured I started assembling the interior. First up is the bulkhead and the steering shaft has to fit through this before attaching to the chassis. I did find myself clamping the lower hull sides slightly to get the bulkhead to fit correctly and its also advisable to dry fit the separate cab floor part also at this stage so as there are no fitment issues once the bulkhead is secured. Everything else is pretty straight forward. The wooden benches will be attached later to aid painting





At this stage with the engine dry fitted I noticed the air filter backing plates don't actualy engage with the bulkhead. Oh feck !......Have I srewed up the bulkhead fitment ?     The cab floor butted up nice to it on the other side so whats going on ?  I had the crappy feeling I had made a big error somewhere ?

The engine 'sits' on the chassis legs at the front but at the back it sits in two locating holes. The locating holes sit in a kind of box section which are made up of parts C6 & B15 in step 3. Together they attach to two locating holes on the inner side of each chassis leg.  There are in fact three locating holes and its not really clear which holes the box section locates into as the 3rd hole rear of the other two is for a chassis to drive axle strengthening rib in a later step.  I was mightily relieved to find all my attachments were correct so after checking and double checking I cant explain this anomaly !  Its not a biggy but I have consumed far too many irreplaceable and valuable brain cells in the process

So chassis is complete and track fenders attached to lower hull.  Time for some etch

[deafpanzer]

Enjoying this thread... great deal of historical info and pics! Keep it coming...

[wbill76]

Sometimes the mystery of the kit design never fully reveals itself! It could be worse...it can always be worse! Nice build progress and update on the beast.

[losboz]

Oct 17, 2013 16:05:41 GMT -5 deafpanzer said:

Enjoying this thread... great deal of historical info and pics! Keep it coming...

What you see is pretty much all there is to find on this one so paint scheme is pretty much anything goes I guess

[losboz]

Oct 17, 2013 20:03:30 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Sometimes the mystery of the kit design never fully reveals itself! It could be worse...it can always be worse! Nice build progress and update on the beast.

Tis a mystery indeed but luckily no one will notice if I shut the engine hatches

[Deleted]

great subject and interesting kit been looking out for one of these myself

[losboz]

Flying along now

Got the cab PE, track guard brackets on (6 per side) and the storage bins fitted (inside and outside)





And made a start on the tracks



Little jig for the guide horns with lolly pop sticks and apart from the odd one or two the pads clicked into the track reassuringly well with very little need for glue.....which was nice



And dry fitted. Track sag looking good



I decided I would fit the rear panel to the lower hull first. The edges of both are chamfered for a snug fitment with minimum filing required. What you do have to watch out for is the lockers in the interior even though correctly located in the floor still protrude slightly rearwards and this bows out the rear panel slightly in the middle. I did (honest !) dry fit the panel when assembling the stowage bins but not well enough it seems .......so a bit of jiggery pokery with some sanding sticks shaved enough off to make it acteptable



Plan is to get some primer on this weekend

Los

[Deleted]

Those tracks and running gear look familiar .
Your on a role now Los .

[tonylee]

Frame Rails and Torsion bar housing cross members.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Gooooooood Day
Tony lee

[noll]

Looks very nice! The restoration of the one in the ref. pics looks to have been interesting, to say the least .

[ironhand6]

clean build Los. I really like how this is coming together.

[possum]

That's a really great build,& l like the research you have done

[wbill76]

Moving right along there Los! Nice progress.

[losboz]

Oct 19, 2013 15:39:27 GMT -5 tonylee said:

Frame Rails and Torsion bar housing cross members.

Now you know the rest of the story.

Gooooooood Day
Tony lee

I doff my hat Tony

A thank you

[AndyArgent]

Nice one Los cracking job and blog so far

[elco]

Nice one, what a great kit. I like the fact that is a rare version.. Must remember this one when i am done with al those Panthers versions Following along!

[losboz]

After a mad few weeks including a poorly Mother (back on the mend )

and an engine rebuild in 1/1 scale





I have finally got some quality time at the bench. Much inspiration has come from Carl's superb blog of his recent Trumpy Selbstfahrlafette w/flak 18 build and seeing as my hands were still oily from the real thing I figured first up for paint was the Maybach HL85

First it was given a coat of trusty Halford's rattle can primer then a light overall spray coat of Vallejo 'steel' followed by a second coat of Vallejo 'oily steel'. The whole engine was then given a very diluted wash of a mixture of both oily steel and black. All rubber components were then hand painted Vallejo 'dark rubber.  I am now laying out the various pipework and working out attachment locations etc

Once I am happy with all the pipework it will painted and attached to the engine.  As there is no radiator present I am toying with the idea of acquiring one from another Sd.Kfz 8 I have yet to build but that will depend on exactly how much is visible through the top access hatches and that wont be possible until I have completed priming and base coating the interior



Carburetor and air filter section left off to aid forthcoming pipework connections







Once all painted pipework is attached she will be treated to an oil session 'a la Carl stylee' although I'm not intending to 'dirty' it up as much as the prototypes are unlikely to have covered too many kilometers. Once that stage is dry next up will be some pinky mottled manifolds and some oil drybrushing

Los

[deafpanzer]

Great work on the engines... both real and fake little one!

[Deleted]

nice to see you back at this, glad your mum is on the mend

[Deleted]

Hey Los engine and Engine look superb !
On the 1/1 did you rebuild for better performance ?
Good to see you back on this like Pete said .

[wbill76]

Looking good! Nice progress on the engine.

[losboz]

Nov 26, 2013 18:51:18 GMT -5 @shellback said:

Hey Los engine and Engine look superb !
On the 1/1 did you rebuild for better performance ?
Good to see you back on this like Pete said .


Cheers guys

Carl, Oh I wish it was that simple 330 BHP 2.5 flat 4 turbo engined Subaru Forester (Jap import). Up to now always been lucky with used vehicle purchases but this one's been a PITA    Engine out in March for head gasket replacement and then 2 weeks ago bottom end bearings let go. Into the workshop for a complete bottom end rebuild including new crankshaft etc. Just running it in now just in time for our winter (whatever that decides to be this year !)

Primer is on the SD.Kfz 8 interior, chassis and running gear. Now to decide on a color scheme ?

[Deleted]

Very nice work!

[losboz]

While I wait for oils to dry on the engine the rest received a Halfords rattle can primer grey coat and was allowed to dry for 48hrs

Then I added a Tamiya red oxide mix to all bare metal surfaces and again left to dry overnight. Next came two light coats of hairspray (Tresemme fine mist) but curiously for the first time this left a rather fetching weathered patina on the red oxide.

As I had already decided I was going to use Tamiya paints on this project I used a Dunkelgelb, white, Deck Tan mix in an approx 40/40/20 ratio. I intended to lightly chip the base coat so its essential that this coat is not too thick so modulating the paint was a no no. I would have to use oils and filters to accomplish this effect. I gave all parts two light coats of this mix which left the red oxide slightly visible in places (German armour often had very thin coats of Dunkelgelb applied)

As soon as this was dry (30mins does the trick) I set about agitating the hairspray with warm water and lightly chipping the base coat around strategic places that would attract scratches and scuffs

Some pics not showing actual colour due to a numptie operator using a 'cool effect' in error







The wheels received the same treatment



The sprocket roller bearings got a scrubbing also. Vallejo steel will be applied to the rollers in the next stage



As none of the details on the top of the chassis will be visible I didn't go overboard here



Once I was happy with results I gave all parts a gloss varnish/Light Dunkelgelb 90/10 mix (Important for me as its difficult to see the coverage applied with just clear varnish)

Next step is filters and pin wash

Los

[Deleted]

Great attention to detail old chap love the effects thus imparted