DML Sdkfz 251/22 Ausf D

[TRM]

Mighty fine "fix" for you Bill!! ;D

[danb.]

Looking good Bill i will be looking forwar to the next stage keep up the awesome work buddy.

Dan B

[robbo]

All looks to be going smothley so far, nice colour too

[bullardino]

I'm not very into german HTs, but this build looks gorgeous

[wbill76]

Dan, Ian, Luigi, thanks for the comments!

Dicky, nothing to fear there! My head is exploding already and I'm not looking forward to the next 6 weeks. Going to be rough!

[bigjohn]

Paint looks good Bill, Hang in there for the next 6 weeks, I have faith in ya!~

[bbd468]

Lookin' great man! Bill.....YOU GOT THIS!!!

Gary

[reserve]

Statistics. UGH. GAG. I do not envy you this next quarter, but I have no doubt that you will do fine, based on observation of your work ethic seen here and elsewhere. Good luck and hang tough, brother.

The 251/22 is shaping up nicely also, and of the final result I have no doubt either.

Regards,
Mark

[wbill76]

Thanks BJ and Gary! I just have to find a way to work smarter and not harder with this class...I think I found it but the last couple of days were pure hell.

Mark, thanks for the vote of confidence on the statistics front and in general!

[wouter]

aaaaah, the paint has arrived, nice one Bill ;D ;D ;D

Cheers

[wbill76]

Thanks wouts! I'm looking forward to some more time with this one on the weekend. Detail painting is always a fun stage with these open topped vehicles.

[panzerman75.]

Hey Bill once again great work man gotta love those German Half tracks

Phil

[wbill76]

Thanks panzerman!

[wbill76]

I decided that I would approach the weathering of the hull interior in a "layered" fashion similar to that I would use on the exterior. To that end, I started the process by stippling some enamel Burnt Umber using an old round sable brush. The brush was treated the same as if I were going to dry-brush but I used a random stabbing motion instead. Very hard on the brush but produces a nice effect.



The Burnt Umber is pretty stark, so to blend it in a bit, I used the same stippling approach but with the base color.



With that foundation laid, I turned to the interior details and added the seat back cushion and also detailed the wood seats. The wood effect was created using a thinned wash of MM enamel Leather over the base coat color followed by a dusting of burnt umber artist pastels. The black leather cushion was painted using a base coat of MM enamel Gunmetal followed by dry-brushed patterns of the base coat color, MM enamel Leather, and a light dry-brush of the enamel Gunmetal to tie it back together.

I installed 9 of the single-round Pak 40 ammo containers after a test fit with the upper hull revealed that the 10th round wouldn't fit properly.



Driver's area received some attention as well. I installed the seat, the gas mask holder, and the various gears and levers. Kit-supplied decals along with Solvaset provided the dash board instrument detail.



The entire lower hull received a coat of Future to seal in the paint work and initial weathering as a foundation and was left to cure overnight. Then I applied an overall wash of enamel Raw Umber and followed that up with a 2nd wash of enamel Raw Sienna. A pin wash of enamel Burnt Umber was used to bring out some of the panel detail in the floor as well as other details like the hinges on the ammo bins.





Not wanting the interior to be too dark, I went back over the washes with an additional dry-brush pass of the base coat color and further layered/blended things together until I had the look I was after.



I sealed in all the work with a coat of MM Lusterless Flat to remove lingering gloss from the Future and then joined the upper and lower hull halves together. I used rubber bands as a set of "helping hands" at the three strategic points on the hull that wouldn't result in the compartment sides warping in the process. The hull nose plate was added as well to make sure the alignment worked for the later exterior components.



I noticed in the PT reference photo that I've been using that the cleaning rods were tucked away on the left side using the space between the mount brace and the hull as a convenient way to keep them close by but still out of the way of the crew when working the gun. So I dug around in my spares bin and came up with a set of 4 rods from another DML kit, separated them and cleaned them up, then painted and detailed them and arranged them into position. Once I was happy with the way they sat, I used a small amount of liquid glue to secure them in place.

I decided I wasn't going to deploy the rear-mounted MG42 on its mount so it was installed instead in the seat-back bin along with an ammo can from the spares bin.





That's all for now, next up will be detailing the Pak 40 and working on the remaining exterior details.

[robbo]

Suitably grubby, looking the biz mate

[deafpanzer]

Nice work on the interior! Good thinking about the cleaning rods... all guns got to have those!

[bigjohn]

Great update Bill, It's good to get a weekly fix on your updates.

That's one thing I love about using enamels, I too dry brush over details with the base color. it really helps to blend in the weathering in a subtle way.

[wbill76]

Thanks Ian!

Andy, no question about that...have to have some way to keep that bore clean! Funny thing is that I was thinking about where they might be stored (say, the side bins on the exterior) when I happened to catch a glimpse of the ends of the rods in the PT reference photo and instantly had the "aha!" moment of recognizing what they were. That side of the vehicle looked awfully empty/lonely since there has to be enough room to draw the rounds out of the bin and the cleaning rods help dress it up a bit.

BJ, appreciate the comments...was good to get the building fix as well...especially since I just checked my next set of Stats homework assignments and have 75 problems to work through. Enamels are very versatile and while you don't hear people talk about dry-brushing much anymore, it still has its uses as a technique for blending and layering.

[multicam]

Interior looks well-worn. Nicely done Bill!

[wouter]

Nice to see you have started with the weathering of the interior Bill. Chipping looks good I'd say!

Cheers

[wbill76]

Thanks Nate!

Wouts, appreciate the comments. I had fun with the interior and made sure to budget plenty of time to work with it...weathering always takes longer than you first expect IMHO.

Dicky, that's the beauty of the hobby, things that are "old" become "new" if you play around and experiment with them often enough...can't ever have too many techniques/tools in the ol' arsenal!

I picked up the idea of dry-brushing as a weathering technique (as opposed to just bringing up raised detail) from another builder on another forum some time ago...his results were good so I gave it a whirl! Definitely an approach with a lot of flexibility and easy to "undo" if you don't like the result. Thanks for the validation that I'm also right, now we can be right together!

[panzerman75.]

Outstanding Bill, it's looking good very good ;D

Phil

[wbill76]

Thanks Phil!

[spud]

that Interior is Looking Class Bill.

[wbill76]

Thanks Spud! I tried out some different combinations on this one and was happy with the result.

[bbd468]

Hello Bill,

Your 251 is comeing along nicely man! The interior looks great. The 7.5cm tubes come with the kit, or they aftermarket?

Gary

[wbill76]

Thanks Gary! The kit includes 10 individual PaK 40 ammo tubes as part of the sprues. 6 have separate end caps and 4 with the caps molded on. Sprue has other goodies like spent shell casings, 8 full rounds, and a couple of 3-round ammo crates as well.

[bbd468]

Aug 29, 2012 20:00:05 GMT -5 wbill76 said:

Thanks Gary! The kit includes 10 individual PaK 40 ammo tubes as part of the sprues. 6 have separate end caps and 4 with the caps molded on. Sprue has other goodies like spent shell casings, 8 full rounds, and a couple of 3-round ammo crates as well.

Bill i really like this kit your building. You recommend it over the AFV Club version? I like that it comes with cool extra goodies.

Gary

[406 Silverado]

Been trying to stay away from this build since it reminds me that I have two started HT's on the shelf.
Nice paint/weathering on the interior Bill.

[modelfreak72]

Great looking interior Bill! Used but not abused!