Part 2: The Build

Fiddly. That's how I'd describe this nice but very fiddly Cyber-Hobby offering. I don't mean that necessarily in a bad way, don't get me wrong. There are a lot of parts in this kit, many very small. In fact there are a lot of parts period. Many of these you won't use, so be prepared for your spares box to overflow. I kept thinking, wow, how many more of these do I have to build, referring to the 16 small ammo boxes in the fighting compartment as an example! With that intro, lets get to it starting from the wheels up. Running gear. I already described this somewhat in the first look, but generally these all went together easily, and if assembled carefully, permitted the bogeys to articulate nicely. Based on my references the road wheels, drive sprocket and idler were all correctly detailed. The only caution I would offer with the running gear is that the arm supporting the idler is thin and prone to bend or break. You could beef this up with some styrene to improve its strength. Use caution during handling. Drivers Compartment. Cyber-Hobby gives you all the basic details for the driving compartment. While not as detailed as other 38t-based kits, it's more than enough given how little you actually see through the hatch. Beware when building the transmission and control lever assembly. I found the instructions rather difficult to visualize. Dry fit often. Engine compartment. The instruction sheet is a little weak when it comes to cramming everything into the engine compartment. Again careful dry fitting is highly encouraged This proved to be a tight fit and requires ample dry fitting, I had to end up removing both "male" locating pins from the engine block before I could line everything up. I still had difficulty aligning the exhaust pipe (G25) with the hole in the right side wall that eventually continues into E64. (picture #2) 3 cm Gun and platform. As I mentioned in the first look, the 3cm gun is a gem, but is a fiddly beast to get together. Everything went together well but again careful attention to the directions is necessary to make sure you use the parts associated with whatever elevation you want to give the gun. I modeled mine at zero degree elevation. The only problem I encountered with the gun assembly was that the circular part A63 that permits the traverse of the gun, overran the rear firewall (part Q25) I marked, cut and filed out a slot in the top of part Q25 that would permit the free movement of the disk, no biggie. See picture (#1) to see what I'm talking about. Remember, the gun does not elevate. The elevation of the gun must be decided from the beginning and the appropriate parts used. While the gun sub-assembly was out of the vehicle, I went ahead and painted and gave it some basic weathering. (#4) I used a custom mix of LifeColor paints to produce a lightened version of a German dark yellow…if that makes sense? Interior Fighting Compartment Walls: I build each of the side walls as sub assemblies. (#3) This worked ok, but I'm not sure I'd do it that way again. I ended up with a tight fit when I finally placed the front wall in (Part M17), but it all ended up fine. Both sides were primed in red primer before gluing in place. The fighting compartment is literally crammed full of stuff. Remember those 16 ammo boxes, this is where you get to add them. The location for each is marked with a faint line on the inner walls however, the box that goes above the radio rack should be added last. I didn't do that and ended up not being able to fit the radio rack under the box, it was just to tight a fit. All others were added without problem. Again the side walls are wonderfully thin without the awkward beveling seen on other kits. Exterior Fighting Compartment Walls: I had picked up some German tie-down cleats from Tiger Model designs at the AMPS show in April, and thought this would be a great time to try them out. These are great little (tiny) resin tie-downs that are hollow right off the sprue. I simply shaved off the molded on tie-down , carefully cut the TMD parts from their sprue with a straight edge razor blade and attached with CA glue.(#5) Just below these are attached the PE foliage rings that come with the kit. Again, location points are marked on the kit with a faint indentation in the side walls. Track: As I already mentioned, the kit includes Dragon's signature "Magic-Track". These are beautifully cast and require virtually no clean up, but are non-workable. The left and right track runs consist of 96 links per side and although small are easily handled and glued using Tamiya liquid glue. It's best to assemble these in an upper and a lower run to permit time to get the correct sag in the upper run while the glue is still setting up. Once both sets are cured, you can move to painting and weathering. Speaking of Painting, these were painted with Floquil "Antique Bronze" and weathered with Mig's, "Europe dust", "Old Rust", and their new color, "Track Brown" pigments. This new color, "Track Brown" is a great addition to the line and produced a blackish-brown, almost oily looking effect to the track. A short dusting of Mig's "Pigment Fixer" from my airbrush, permanently fixed the pigments to the track. Buttoning everything up. (#6) With everything primed, it was time to get it all put together for the final painting and weathering process…the fun stuff! I added the various engine access doors to the upper hull, which can be shown open or closed to show all that great engine detail. Since I hadn't gone to town on the engine, I decided to buttoned everything up. I began by cementing the gun platform in place and then attached each side of the fighting compartment to the lower hull, no big problems encountered here, but I had to wait for these to cure before adding the front plate, as this was a little tighter fit than I was expecting. I left off the rear folding door and the exterior exhaust pipe, as well as the fiddly PE Step on the left rear hull, which kept popping off every time I picked the model up! I wrestled the carpet monster more than once to save this tiny part, it still popped off again just before the final pictures were taken, DoH! A brief word about painting. I have learned that with all the weathering I now inflict on my models, that it is essential to start with greatly lightened base colors. These will begin to immediately darken with the first filter you apply, and get progressively darker with each weathering step. Another suggestion is not to lighten your colors with white, for example olive green or Germen Yellow, lighten them with a yellow, or buff color to produce a softer lighter version of the vehicles color. It will look weird but with practice you'll begin to see the fruits of your labor. You may want to consider using an old model as a test bed for this technique. Painting/Weathering. For this project there is only one picture I know of showing this particular Geschutzwagen, so camouflage options were pretty much limited to the box art depiction. Since only a handful of these vehicles were produced late in the war, my concept for the painting was to convey the vehicle had received a hastily applied thin, camouflage scheme. The road wheels, drive sprocket and idler were left off and painted separately. For the base coat of "dark-yellow", I again mixed up a custom-mix of LifeColor paints (#7). Again remember what I mentioned earlier about going lighter than you think when painting…This was applied evenly over the upper hull and a little thinner over the lower hull to create a little depth and color modulation between the upper and lower hull. A quick blast from the hair drier and I was ready to move to the green and red-brown. (#8) For the green , I again mixed up a light green color and thinly sprayed this onto the tank roughly following the box art. This was followed by the red-brown (again a custom mix) to outline the green area. (#9)

The hairdryer moved me along and quickly to the filtering stages. I applied two filters from the Mig line designed for application over tri-color and dark-yellow camouflage schemes. (#10 & 11) This immediately darkened everything up and evened out the colors. Quickly moving to pin washes, I mixed up a color using Mig's "Neutral Wash" and "Brown Wash". (#13) A word about washes. I got a little hurried here and didn't seal everything in with a coat of clear gloss before moving to the pin-washes. I should have. A light clear coat of gloss will eliminate any tide marks when applying the pin washed to the raised details. After the pin was of the neutral-brown mix, I moved to Mig's Dark Wash, to pick out some of the more prominent details that would have seen a little more wear and tear. A light, random application of "Europe Dust", "Standard Rust" and "Track Brown" pigment completed the upper hull weathering.

The running gear was painted and weathered in the same manner. (#12) All but two wheels were painted dark yellow. The other two were left in red primer just to add color and interest to the model. Each wheel was given a filter before getting a dusting of pigments. After fixing the pigments in place, I gave each wheel a pin wash with the same mix of Neutral and Brown Washes used earlier, and let that dry. Once dry, I randomly applied a pin wash using some of Mig's Oil and Grease Effect around the wheels and bolt details to give them a greasy, wet, filthy appearance. Applying this over the pigments really provides a realistic appearance when done with restraint. A little goes a long way, but be prepares to be tempted to do more. With the painting finished, all that was left to do was to add the exterior exhaust pipe to the right side. This proved a bit tricky to snake in through the slats on the right side of the fighting compartment. Although I believe I correctly built the muffler assembly, the alignment points between the muffler and the long exhaust pipe did not line up. As a result I trimmed them off and glued them together with some CA. (#14) Wrap-up. This was a great little kit that is literally overflowing with parts. As I mentioned at the start, some of these parts are fiddly and given this is an open-top it may not be my choice as a person's first attempt at an open-top. The detail is excellent throughout, and someone could really go to town on the inside, or fully trick out the engine and leave the engine access doors open. The sky's the limit. Highly recommended!

Again many thanks to Dragon/Cyber-Hobby for providing the Review sample.