Trumpter 1:35 Entwicklungsfahrzeug E-25 'The Bavarian Devil'

[DieselPower]

I'm building the Trumpter 1:35 Entwicklungsfahrzeug E-25 (Bit of a mouthful)



The boxart is reasonably impressive, showing 2 E-25's advancing with infantry support



The parts counts isn't massive but each part has decent levels of details, considering this AFV never left the drawing board.

Now a brief overview of the E-25 series courtesy of Wikipedia,

The E-25 designs, in the 25-50 tonnes weight class, were to be the replacements of all Panzer III and Panzer IV based designs, with Alkett, Argus and Adler, with involvement of the Porsche firm. This family would include medium reconnaissance vehicles, medium Jagdpanzer and heavy Waffenträger, using five Tiger II style road wheels but larger[citation needed] per side in a similar overlapping layout to the lighter E-10 suspension, also with "slack-track" design and a rear drive sprocket.

I was originally going to build this out of the box but I can see massive potential in this kit, So I'm planning to grab some aftermarket parts for it to improve upon an already impressive kit.

P.S Bonus points to whoever can guess where I got the tanks nickname from

[Nige1940]

Nice kit I do like Trumpys paper panzers.
I'm looking forward to seeing this progress . "Bavarian Devil" wouldn't be from World Of Tanks by any chance would it ?

[razzie43]

Hi ,i hope u have the same fun that i got on this one.
It was a fast build and the paintjob was something i never try before.
A rusty old E-25





Have fun with your project!

[Razorben]

Cool project! Will follow this one!

[DieselPower]

I made a start to the suspension which consists of 10 units which hold the roadwheels in an overlapping configuration.



Even though each unit is a 2-piece affair, they go together quite well.

However they do leave a noticeable gap..



So I applied some Mr.Hobby dissolved putty into the gaps to fill them in, but I didn't both sanding it down because the weathering would mask the fill marks.


Now that the suspension units are complete and attached to the lower hull along with the idler arms and the transmission connecting points for the drive wheels, all that is left are the towing hooks,


However the hooks had ejector pin marks that would be visible when painted, so I sanded down the marks and filled them with dissolved putty and then sanded again.


After the hooks got cleaned up, they got attached to the hull and that is as far as I got with that in this sitting.

[DieselPower]

I made a start on the hull upper by attaching the radio aerial mount, the driver's vision ports and hatch,
The hatch needed some sanding to fit correctly and the vision ports needed some filler to blend it to the hull (only because I snipped off a bit too much material)



I drilled out the aerial mount because I plan to make an aerial out of streched sprue towards the end of the build.



Now at this point the instructions give you 2 choices for hatches, I went for the version with the MG/Autocannon turret because it just looks more awesome.

It fitted in reasonably well but there was a significant gap around the edges, so that was filled in with Mr Hobby dissolved putty all around and Perfect Plastic Putty by the hatch.



After a few applications and left to dry, I sanded down the putties to get a smooth finish.
However I did have issues with the plastic putty because it was crumbling when I was re-engraving around the driver's hatch so in the end I filled it with superglue, sanded it down and rescribed.



After I was happy with the sanding job, I applied some watered down black paint to check the scribing job which I'm happy with.
I also took the opportunity to fit the vision periscopes.



Got the turret built, relatively straight forward. Deviated from the instructions because the lift hooks didn't fit the turret properly so I fitted them the other way round.




Next I fitted the vent plates and the associated PE parts together which went together well. Fitting it to the top hull however... it required a bit of pressure in the right places to get a flush fit.



Finally I fitted the two hull sections together,

It wasn't very straight forward because as well as a bit of sanding along the edges, the 2 pieces are supposed to interlock by 4 plastic pins with 1 located in each corner but the issue was you'd fit 1 pin into it's respective hole another would pop out.

So out came the tape.



Next was fitting the engine cover and PE mudguards,

Once again the cover needed a bit of sanding and pressure to fit but otherwise no trouble. The exhausts and hooks (which I put the wrong way round ) fitted without issue.

The PE mudguards went on after a bit of fiddling but I'm not sold on them..




The drive light fitted.



Next is the bit that goes bang!!

After previous experience with Trumpeter kits, I thought the barrel was going to be a 2-piece affair so I bought an RB model metal barrel to replace it only to find it was 1 piece.. Still going to use the metal barrel though.

After fitting it together it turned out that the elevation and traverse fittings are loose and flimsy as hell and I wouldn't keep the plastic barrel steady let alone a metal one! So I applied super glue in certain positions of the mechanism to fix it in place.

And hey presto! One manlet and gun done.



Now to mate the manlet/gun assembly to the hull,



So fair I'm quite happy with it, just need to fit some handles on the driver's hatch.

However I'm not sold on the PE mudguards and the vinyl tracks are a bit shoddy so I'll be sourcing a potential replacement.

Until next time!

[PaulAyrey]

Looks great so far, look forward to see how this turns out.

[DieselPower]

Well I decided the Vinyl tracks simply aren't good enough for the build, So I picked up Trumpeter's E-25 workable track links.



I actually got these a couple of weeks ago, but only tackled them today because I haven't really been motivated enough to do anything modelling related as of late.



To my surprise, the tracks were easy to clean up and assemble with the included jig. But it still took me a few hours to assemble and test fit.

Here are the completed tracks on the model, which fit very nicely and have a reasonably realistic amount of track sag.
Each side has 74 links per track, with plenty of spare links if you need them for further customising your model.




Next stage will be priming and paining!

[razzie43]

Still no paint?

[DieselPower]

Still no paint?

Afraid not, I've got several other builds on the go and I'm trying to get them to a certain point so I can prime multiple models at once to save time.

But I'm aiming to get the E25 primed along with my other builds within the next couple of weeks

[DieselPower]

I finally got the E25 and it's component parts primed with Badger primer, I have to say it's one of the best primers I've used since my entrance to the hobby.



While I let that cure, I plan to use the B&W technique to really bring out the model using Mig's black and white set

[DieselPower]

After letting the primer cure for a couple of days, I tried out Mig Jiminez's Black & White set on the kit and it does require a bit of trail and error to get right if you've not done this technique before.



After the B&W paint had dried, I started applying thin layers of Mig Dunkelgelb aus '44 to the hull, casemate, turret, roadwheels and drive sprockets.

After the Dunkelgelb had dried I applied the camoflage patches using Mig's Dunkelgrün aus '44 and Rotbruan aus '44, following up with a chipping effect on the applied camo using the Mig Dunkelgelb and Vallejo's Panzer Colour track primer applied with a sponge.

I also painted the fire extinguisher with Citadel's blood red and washed that over with Vallejo's acrylic black wash to tone it down.
I painted the exhuast system with Vallejo's dark rust and sponged on light and yellow rust as well as using Mig's crystal green colour to do the vision ports.



I let that settle for a new days before applying Alclad's Aqua Gloss to seal the paint then proceeded to apply the decals.

After i'd fought with the decals for 30 minutes, I applied some Mig enamel washes to fill the panel lines and streaking grime and rust to further weather the casemate.





I then applied a dusty/dried mud mix to the hull and tracks (Not pictured), using Humbrol and Mig pigments, Mig enamels and Ultimate washes.


(Still drying in this pic, looks a lot lighter now)

After I'd let that dry overnight, I sealed the work in using AK Matt Varnish in several light coats.



All that's left is to fit it together!

[Smiffy]

Wonderful build so far of a very interesting subject. That's one big gun on that tank, I can undertand why it took a while to get motivation to assemble all those individual track links too

Top notch painting too. Being new back into the hobby too, how do you find the Badger Primer? I think I also remember Paul mentioned using this primer too in one of his videos?

[DieselPower]

Wonderful build so far of a very interesting subject. That's one big gun on that tank, I can undertand why it took a while to get motivation to assemble all those individual track links too

Top notch painting too. Being new back into the hobby too, how do you find the Badger Primer? I think I also remember Paul mentioned using this primer too in one of his videos?

The Primer is absolutely fantastic and much better that the Vallejo and AK primers I was using before, however that being said you'll need to use an airbrush with a 0.4 needle or larger to reliably spray this stuff.

[DieselPower]

Finished model is here -> http://www.intscalemodeller.com/viewtop ... 49#p198449