Global Scale Modeller

Hello all With my Stug III in the home stretch and still in the planning stages for my Tiger I Sig entry I decided to pull this kit out of the stash and have a go at it.I don't know much about the history of this kit but at first glance it seems to be a decent one.After looking through the reference I have on this subject the kit seems to be pretty accurate except for having only three return rollers.After scouring the net and my reference books for pictures of a three return roller late Brummbar I have come up empty.As I was browsing sturmpanzer.com I found this little bit on the subject

"Because of what I mentioned above all Series 4 Sturmpanzer would likely have had steel return rolls (all J’s had steel return rollers). Having 3 return rollers is however another matter. The 3 return rollers per side was introduced into PzKpfw IV chassis production in December 1944, since the last shipment of chassis from NiWerk were received in November it seems improbable that any Sturmpanzer had 3 return rollers per side and I am not aware of any photo evidence to the contrary."

There are enough return roller stand-offs in the kit to do four per side but not enough rollers themselves Oh well that's why God passed the law of probability I plan on building a late production (Oct.1944) post-zimmerit,steel road wheel Brummbar from Sturmpanzer Abteilung 217 that saw action in Achen attatched to the 7th army group.Anyway enough waffling,here are the sprue shots.













And the included,pretty well done Panzer Grenadier figures.




As you can see there is nothing ground-breaking here,just your typical Cyber-Hobby no-frills kit.Now it's time to put glue to plastic

Hey Steve,

I look forward to seeing this build. I was also planning on doing a late Brummbar from Sturmpanzer Abteilung 219 in Hungary. The one I'm thinking about doing is tank 222 or 110 shortly before they were disabled or abandoned. 222 is in front and 110 is behind the tree. I also think it would be cool to do a build just like the photo with all the parts stripped off.




I also wondered about the 3 return rollers when the photo clearly shows 4. Also notice the four front road wheels are steel type.

Cheers,
Charlie

That would be awesome to build one knocked out.It would be a lot of work using this kit as a start as none of the hatches can be opened without cutting every one out.As for the road wheels,there were Brummbar's with a mix of steel and rubber road wheels.I am going to use a mix of rubber and steel just for a little variety.

Well I have a little bit more done on this build.The hull and running gear went together pretty easy despite there not being any positive locating pins for the return roller stand-offs.



I added a little damage to the rubber road wheels,but not to every one as this will be a fairly new Brummbar.



Next was the Flammentoter mufflers.They were a little fiddly to build but not too bad.I then used some Mr Surfacer 500 to give them a little texture for further rusting.All and all this kit is going together better better than I thought it would.

Steve,

Looking good so far! Keep the pics coming.

One other thing I noticed about the 222 and 110 tank I talked about it that it had a single exhaust muffler on it protected by an armor plate on top of the muffler. I believe the Panzer IV ausf J. had them.

Cheers,
Charlie

Nice looking kit! I have an early production kit of the same AFV. Looking forward to seeing how it all comes together.

Looks a nice kit. Be watching this one

Great job mate.
This is one build to watch.

John

Thanks for the kind words everyone

Nice kit. Good start - I look forward to more

Looking forward to more updates Steve
Tom

Charliedontsurf wrote:Steve,


One other thing I noticed about the 222 and 110 tank I talked about it that it had a single exhaust muffler on it protected by an armor plate on top of the muffler. I believe the Panzer IV ausf J. had them.

Cheers,
Charlie

Yep...but correct me if i'm wrong but I think the Flammentoter mufflers were a later addition right?

JayCub wrote:Looking forward to more updates Steve
Tom

AchtungPanzer wrote:Nice kit. Good start - I look forward to more

Thanks guys

You keep em coming! Great start

Steve,

"Yep...but correct me if i'm wrong but I think the Flammentoter mufflers were a later addition right?"

Yeah but what about the four return rollers? I'm not an expert maybe they used old chassis to build new ones or possibly they are refurbished Brummbars.

Here is the back pic of 110 with 222 in the background, noticed the old style muffle. Also 110 appears to have 4 return rollers also but one had been lost/blow off. I'm afraid all I have raised is more questions and less answers.



Cheers,
Charlie

As far as the return roller question I found a few lines at sturmpanzer.com that sheds some light on the subject.

From sturmpanzer.com
"The 3 return rollers per side was introduced into PzKpfw IV chassis production in December 1944, since the last shipment of chassis from NiWerk were received in November it seems improbable that any Sturmpanzer had 3 return rollers per side and I am not aware of any photo evidence to the contrary"
Sounds like that question is answered

Hi again everyone.Last night after I got off work I locked myself in my workshop and didn't come out untill about 12:30 am and here is the result.

The build stage except for the Magic Tracks is finished The original plan was to build this as an almost new from the factory machine,then I realized that I haven't tried my hand at battle damage.So I bent the schurzen and mounts up a little and removed a section of schurzen on the left side and added some fender damage.After that I added a couple of shell ricochets using a soldering iron with a pointed tip.Then a few bullet holes were added using a hot stick pin.I still have to do some more tweaking on the mufflers and build the tracks but I'm calling the build phase done.Except for the carpet monster eating two of my lift hooks this has been a pretty fun build








Kinda blurry,camera was being dumb again........




I know the mufflers are crooked,they are just mocked up

Not much to see on this update but it is progress I don't know if I am a little off in the head but I am starting to enjoy building Dragon's Magic Tracks It's kinda becoming a zen-type thing for me,I queue up some tank documentaries on YouTube and before I know it both runs are done (along with about 1 1/2 hours ) Anyway the tracks are done so it's time for some paint

Pay no mind to the road wheel orientation,they are just on for the track building.

Looking good Steve, I never judge a model or worry if anything looks odd, I just appreciate the work and the damage added is awesome this is shaping up to be a great build
Tom

It looks damned awesome Steve, I love brummbars. I love that you textured the exhaust, so few do that anymore.

Lock yourself in more! The damage and work you here without pe looks stunning. What glue do you use for the magic tracks? I used tamiya extra thin but on my latest build the glue melted the tracks... Argh! They didnt melt on my other two builds with magic tracks.

JayCub wrote:Looking good Steve, I never judge a model or worry if anything looks odd, I just appreciate the work and the damage added is awesome this is shaping up to be a great build
Tom

Thanks alot

Coen wrote:It looks damned awesome Steve, I love brummbars. I love that you textured the exhaust, so few do that anymore.

Thanks,I really liked the effect it gave on the Stug I'm finishing so I think it will become a part of every build from now on

gustavlekstal wrote:Lock yourself in more! The damage and work you here without pe looks stunning. What glue do you use for the magic tracks? I used tamiya extra thin but on my latest build the glue melted the tracks... Argh! They didnt melt on my other two builds with magic tracks.

Thanks I used Extra Thin on these tracks without a problem.Why it melted your tracks is kind of a mystery to me,maybe Dragon had a bad batch of plastic?

Ok,I took a break from my Tiger build and made some more progress on this build,or so I thought..... Everything was going well at first,I got everything primed with AK black primer without incident and then the problems started.I base painted using Tamiya XF-60 dark yellow thinned with 91% IPA (that was my first mistake) and it left a grainy,pebbly surface.Turns out the IPA was causing the paint to dry too fast causing the rough texture.So I sanded it down the best I could and without having a proper thinner I made a concoction from a recipe that I found on the net using distilled water,IPA,acrylic retarder and some flow-aid.After a re-spray the finish was ok for a 20ft'er(looks good from 20ft ).My next folly was when I applied the camo scheme.I thinned some Tamiya XF-58 olive green and turned the pressure on my compressor down to about 5-6 lbs.The paint laid down ok but there was too much over spray on the lines for my taste.I think the paint needs to be a little bit thinner next time.Here was the end result of my buffoonery........






After debating if I should just leave it as is and soldier on or fix it I decided it would haunt me if I leave it as is and into the purple pond it went.After sitting in Purple Power de-greaser for a couple of hours here is the result.



So,now it is ready for a re-prime and re-paint.While it was soaking I decided to rust the exhausts and you guessed it...I managed to muck that up also.I was trying another method of adding rust effects....and it didn't work Oh well into the purple pond it went also.



But,I am nothing else if not stubborn so I have learned from my mistakes(I will be getting some Ultimate thinner ASAP) and this kit WILL be finished sooner rather than later.

Hard working day! How did you do the texture on the exhaust? Could be a good way to do tree texture aswell as rust. Good luck on the respray!

Mabey a brummbar was made whithe 3 return rollers but no pictures were takin

gustavlekstal wrote:Hard working day! How did you do the texture on the exhaust? Could be a good way to do tree texture aswell as rust. Good luck on the respray!

I stippled Mr Hobby Mr Surfacer 500 in layers to achieve the texture.When you first put it on it is smooth but after it dries for a few seconds you can use an old brush to make your texture.

brickfan8 wrote:Mabey a brummbar was made whithe 3 return rollers but no pictures were takin

That is the theory,but without photographic evidence to back it up I am a little dubious as to it being true.

Lots of hard work so far, hope to see the repaint soon

Ok,finally got around to re-painting this turd today.Although I am not totally happy with it,it looks better than it was.I thinned the XF-58 down a little more and shot it through my new Paasche Talon with the .25 needle set in it and it helped with the overspray problem.I have never painted camouflage before so for a first time it came out decent.I did learn a lot during the process so I guess it was worth all the headaches.Anyway here is how it looks now.






I still have a lot to learn about AFV camo painting but the learning process sure is fun though Next is painting the tools and start the chipping process.

It's always best to keep it simple. That good work Steve. Once you get the details done up and some decals put on that it will look the part.
Good stuff bud.

Does look good, always worth the effort just for the learning curve. Great job so far!

Coen wrote:It's always best to keep it simple. That good work Steve. Once you get the details done up and some decals put on that it will look the part.
Good stuff bud.

Thanks Mike I do have to say that after watching you do the camo in your Jagdpanzer video series you sure made it look easy....boy was I wrong

PaulAyrey wrote:Does look good, always worth the effort just for the learning curve. Great job so far!

Thanks Being new to military modelling....the curve is kind of steep right now

Nice save Hillbilly!

The new paint job looks great! Look forward to seeing the next updates..

Cheers,

Charlie

Thanks Charlie. I kinda lost my mojo on this build when I screwed up the first paint job,but now I am eager to get this thing done.

Nice clean lines with hardly any overspray. Good job

gustavlekstal wrote: Nice clean lines with hardly any overspray. Good job

Much appreciated.