Shot up Pz.Kpfw.IID - First to fight 1:72

[petros]

To accompany my soviet Renault FT 17 in my planned diorama, I picked up the Pz.IID kit from First to fight. The kit left me some mixed feelings. On the positive side, fit, upper hull, and turret are well detailed, well produced and fit very well. On the negative, the tracks are one piece with the wheels, so not much detail on tracks themselves, and the wheels are single fat ones, instead of fine double ones. Also, the hull walls behind the track have no details. 

I glued the turret upper and lower parts together, and also added the front plate and upper plates to the hull, rest is just holding together so far (including the rear part and exhaust). As I damaged the plastic barrel while drilling it out (both 20mm and 7.92 are cast with the mantlet together), I just turned new barrels for me with my usual technique with a Proxxon in a drill stander and wooden back support, using different files. MG-34 barrel, made of a 1mm out/0.5mm inside tubing, was textured by a rough file to get a convincing MG look, while the main barrel is multipart - its body is made of a solid brass rod, with the flash suppressor turned from 1.5mm brass tube and attached on a pin left on the body part.

Some small parts like lights, tools or antenna "groove" are not yet attached.

Some vision slits are not very well defined, but were engraved a bit better. Also, fenders were thinned alot, mainly getting some taper to get a sharp outer edge.

The tank will be quite dirty to match the dirt on FT-17, and would be knocked out with 3 37mm hits. At first, it was immobilized by a shot through its right side upper rear. It started turning a turret to the right, but was then hit on the turret side by another shell, penetrating near the vision slit. Then, another shell was put to the right side, through the driver's compartment. There were no survivors, so the hatches stay closed. That is only planned damage, and still needs to be inflicted

[Leon]

WOW! Nice work on the turned barrels Petr.

[TRM]

Another fine min-creation Petr!! Excellent work on the barrels and the F2F kit as a whole!!

[petros]

Dec 28, 2014 9:15:01 GMT -5 Leon said:

WOW! Nice work on the turned barrels Petr.

Thanks! Its however very easy to do and everyone can do it. Takes some time, but can get great results. Works for ship masts, gun barrels, etc.

Tools needed: 
Proxxon/Dremel/something similar, fitted with a usual collet or chuck
Something to hold it - either a vice for horizontal mounting, or a drill/machining stand for vertical mount.
Another vice - either usual desk mounted one, same as above, or a machine vice attached to the milling stand.
Piece of scrap wood/plywood.
Set of files, metal or diamond covered. 
Callipers.
Small saw for brass (I use CMK razor saw, very fine).
Color markers which write on brass
Brass or aluminium rod or tubing, slightly more or equal then the thickest diameter of your piece, and longer on both ends then the thing you want to get, so it can be held.

Use the markers to put the marks on the brass rod, so you know where to leave a stand out ring, and where to take off material.

Take the wood piece, and drill a hole identic or minimally larger then the brass rod you would be processing. Fix this wood piece in your vice so that that hole would be coaxial with the proxxon rotation axis. Span the brass rod to the proxxon. The area of the rod where you would be filing off the metal should be at least 2 mm out of the collet, so you would not damage your motor tool while sanding.
You need to align the machine tool so, that the other end of the brass rod would enter the hole in the wood piece - this hole would hold the other end of the brass piece and prevent its bending or breakage. 

Use low speed, and carefully file the turning rod with your files, put no pressure!. Be careful not to get your fingers into the turning parts! Wear goggles - the part can shear! From time to time, stop the machine, and measure the profile with the callipers. In 10-20 minutes you get a nice looking barrel or mast. 

[wbill76]

Nice work on the barrel replacements Petr, looking good!

[petros]

Pz.II is still in detailing, shot damage is modeled, I am replacing visors with scratch build ones, and detailing the antenna. I also opened one of the engine hatches a bit which is just above the shot hole - blown out by explosion or by bent metal parts... Would probably start painting on the weekend.
My base for the diorama arrived today, so I did a test placement. The Add on parts base is nicely detailed, plaster base is gorgeous and needs no work at all, but the resin needs some sanding and some bubble filling. Also, the train platform and the ladder are tapering in their lower part, probably due to resin shrinking, so would need some filler to blend them to the base. By now, only minimal sanding has been done, and tape was holding the parts.

[TRM]

Great looking scene Petr! Factory walls adds a lot. The painting fun should start soon!!

[deafpanzer]

Great start on the base!!!

[petros]

Worked a bit more on the Pz.II.
First, I scratched the vision slits and visor covers. Then, I added ventilation grilles to the sides. For the fine mesh I abused the 1:350 scale floater net stowage bins set from Gold Medal models. Then, I scratched the rack for stowage, and testwise placed some items there. Barrel is Add-On Parts, while jerry cans, bedrolls and can are CMK/Planet models. More items would be there in disorder around the blown-open hatch, and more scattered near the vehicle, plus there would be additional ropes holding the barrels.

[wbill76]

Nice work dressing up the Pz II there Petr, looking good!

[petros]

Just a few seconds ago, I primed the tank with AK interactive primer, and then added the preshading with vallejo black grey.
Finally I can spray vallejos - my old airbrush clogged with it after a few milliseconds!

In a few minutes, I will start with the painting itself

[deafpanzer]

Looking good... pre-shading trick is just great! Looking forward to the update...

[petros]

Added the decals. A real mix and match of rests from around a dozen vehicles, and even some german planes
Its a staff company vehicle of 3rd PzDiv now. Speculative, as nearly all Pz.IID were pulled away by the time (June-July 41), except very few undocumented ones.

[TRM]

Catching up on this one...looking great Petr!! Nice to see the color on the little Panzer!!

[Leon]

Looking really good Petr.

[petros]

While my pigments and washes from Mig are still in the post, I decided to assemble the base. It went together well after some sanding (roof needed to be sanded thinner, the parts are wafer-cast.) One little problem appeared when I placed the house on the base - it was not flat. Either a gap under the front part (between the loading platform and base), or along the lower part of the side section. Sanding flat was not an option, as some essential details on the metal framing would get lost near the join of the front and side parts. I opted to fill a wedge like gap on the less visible side. I did that without any problems using the wood filler from Clou. I also closed the house's back side with a sheet of cardboard, as on the backside there were bubbles, filler runs and nothing else

So it looks right now, ready to paint:

[Leon]

Nice work on the base Petr! A lot of nice detail on the building.

[petros]

Started the spray works, at first freehand for general areas. Not yet ready, as my daughter woke up from her afternoon sleep, would continue in the evening.

[Leon]

Nice start on the painting Petr!

[DeafStuG]

Looks good.

[petros]

Did some basic detail painting, using a variety of colors. Sprayed rails and gutters with rusted steel, and painted the cabling, structural elements and similar in several grays. Would start highlighting the individual bricks now, then give them a light gray wash to similate the cement between the bricks, to achieve something like this:




The base looks like this now:

[S e r z h]

Looks very believable!

[petros]

Painted 5 different brick shades so far, 2-3 more to come. My daughter woke up, so would continue in the evening.

[madairbrush]

I love that base. Looks really awesome.

[petros]

So, light grey wash is done. I used AK Interactive grey primer diluted with water for it, applying it with a wide flat brush while the surface was horizontal. Brick colors are much less pronounced now, and look weather beaten, exactly the effect I wanted.

[Leon]

Nice work on the bricks Petr! They look fantastic.

[petros]

Painted and weathered the roof, cared about the rails, rusted metal parts on the house, and started cleaning up the street. Would handle the cobblestones similar to bricks soon.

[TRM]

Some brilliant work there Petr!! The painting of the bricks looks fantastic! This one is coming together quite nicely!!

[petros]

Individual cobblestone highlights. Base was tamiya light grey thinly and irregularily sprayed over AK interactive grey primer. Highlights are done with Vallejo green grey, revell hellgrau, blaugrau and steingrau, and tamiya sky grey. I explicitely did not try to paint stones ideally. Heavy washing with drybrush and pigments would tone that down anyways, and where have you seen a regularily colored cobblestone anyways? Not on a street just in front of my window anyways!

[petros]

Put 3 washes on the base. First two with black grey from vallejo diluted with water, while the third one with Mig Black smoke pigment, also in water.