I had intended to get this up and running today but with a final tidy up of the StuG, a few ‘upgrades’ to two of my previous build (Brummbar & Marder) and fitting my first display shelf I was left with no time to properly start.
I like to start a new build when I have a full day to get cracking with it so I’ve opted to wait until next weekend until I start her. In the meantime I’ve given all the parts a good wash and checked that everything is present and correct. That gives me a full week to appreciate my StuG and to plan in my head how I’m going to build this little Panzer. I also want some time to do some research and try and find some decent photos of this tank too (any help would be greatly appreciated btw).
Onto the new build…
I’ve had a good read of the build guide. It all looks pretty simple and straight forward. I’ve been wanting a few early Panzers so this is a good start. I’m going to try and use the indy link tracks as I am planning to use Fruils on my big Dragon Panther G which I’ll be building after this. If I can get the indy links off the sprues without breaking too many then I should be ok. I’m planning on assembling two bottom runs which will stop halway up the drive and idler wheels and I’ll be doing the same for the top runs too. I’ll use tamiya tape to hold the runs in place and MM liquid glue brushed onto the links-hopefully I’ll have enough links to get some sag going-if it doesn’t work then Fruils it is but I’d like to save my money to expend on the Panther as there is going to be a lot of aftermarket kit used on that.
9 sprues of VERY good slide moulded plastic, one clear sprue with lenses, a few PE bits for the smoke candle chains & muffler cover. 6 options (I think) for markings for different divisions.
The one error that this kit does have is with the rear idlers. They are supposed to be split but these are solid-could be worse I suppose! I’ll sort something out to correct or replace them.
Overall - a very good looking little kit. Can’t wait to get started on her.
As I’ve mentioned before, if anyone has any pictures or info which they think might be of use please send them my way-I’ll be very greatful!
Finally I’ve actually manged to get cracking on this build today! What a super kit; great detail, well moulded with lots of potential!
She’s a really small little thing, some of my 1/48 builds are no smaller! I’ve wanted an early Panzer I or II on my shelf for a while now and this is ideal. It’s a cliche I know but this piece has just built itself today. No fit issues, no missing holes or nasty gaps - Dragon at their best!
I sat down with the build guide and marked a point on it where I wanted to get up to today. Lower & upper hull fitted, idlers fitted and drive wheels fitted along with the engine cover. Tomorrow I’ll get the turret assembled and I’d like to play about with some shades of grey to get a base coat down over the primer coat.
The road wheels will be painted separately and they and the clear lenses will be fitted next week. As for the rear section The muffler and PE cover is partially hidden behind the smoke candle holder so I’m going to spray the rear panel in place without the muffler and smoke candles/chains attached which I’ll paint all by hand and fit separately.
The Fruils have been ordered (I tried to remove a few of the indy links from the sprues purely out of interest andof the three I removed two broke) along with a pair of Aber 7.92 MG barrels - they’ll be here on Thursday or Friday ready for next weekend.
I wasn’t going to go with the figure on this one but having looked at him he is just excellent. There are two Commander figures supplied in different poses. There is a separate PE set with short thin links, I wasn’t sure what these were for as I couldn’t see them anywhere on the tank build guide-eventually I found them on the figures, they are for the radio headsets! Brilliant! I think a figure will be a wise option purely to give a sense of scale plus I’m trying to get in all of the figure painting pratice that I can!
There are a few TINY gaps but I’m going to use some cut slices of this ulta thin Styrene in the gaps and gice it a weld detail using some cement.
All in all a nice easy build that will look VERY nice when finished - just what the Doctor ordered!
Two of the attachment points were strong suckers aswell, I’m VERY glad I tok the Fruil route. I could have gone with the kit tracks but I’d have been lucky to get enough links to do one side-let alone both!
Will be keeping an eye on this. I plan on doing the same kit hopefully early next year. I have decided against Fruils on my Dragon kits as i am spending enough on them for my Tamiya and AFV kits, so i am going to punish myself with the kit tracks.
LionMarc makes replacement idler wheels in resin if you’re so inclined from an accuracy standpoint. DML corrected the idler problem when they released their Panzerbefehlswagen version but the older kit you have wasn’t so lucky. [;)] Sounds like you’re enjoying this one which is always important! [;)]
Looking at your pics I can see a couple of areas where you have some heavy glue build-up around the joins at the hull front and elsewhere, you might want to carefully sand those down prior to painting or they will show up in the finish. The placement of the lifting eye on the left side is also a little off, DML provided a molded-on locator mark for it that also doubles as the small weld seam for it and it looks like you have it off the side and slightly lower than it should be, if you’re careful you can still correct that.
One last thing, not sure if you’re going to come back to it or not, but you should have a reinforcing bar at the rear between the idler mounts and small caps on the ends. Right now both are missing.
What timeframe are you planning for your vehicle out of curiosity? Have you settled on the markings you will use?
Rear idler - it should be in two halves Bish with a split down the centre. As you can see on the kit idlers they are solid. I haven’t glued them into place yet, I’ve just pushed them on incase I manage to source some correct replacements.
Time scale - Apart from the Fruils, Aber MG barrels, tools and figure I’d like to think I’ll have a completed build Panzer I by the end of today. I’ve got to sand down some glue patches (thanks for pointing them out-you honestly just cant see them with your normal eye), add some 5 amp wire to the rear of the lights to act as wire and tidy up a few general areas. I want to fill that little gap that you can see at the base of where the turret goes with super thin Styrene-I’m going to try to make it into a weld seam. Basically I’d like to have her ready for painting next Sunday as I’ll be on Fruil duty next Saturday-after I’ve done the Fruils I should have time to put on the primer coat of NATO Black. It’s a small build but I’m really going to try to go town on this one.
Markings - I like the one on the box art which is 7.PzDiv France, 1940. It’s nice, big and bright red so should really look the part!
Lifting thingies - were a real fiddly pain in the butt. One seems to have ‘slipped’ so I’ll have to relocate that one. Again, thanks for pointing it out.
Support bars - in stage 2 of the build guide a big chunky rod is fitted across the underside of the rear of the hull-I’ve fitted that and you can see it in the last photo? In step 9 there is another, thinner bar that fit’s above the bar I fitted in stage 2. You’ll see it in the photos later.
If you can find the correct idlers over here, let me know. I will have a look and do the same.
Which Aber barrels are you fitting, i didn’t realise they did them for the Pz I. I am going for a Royal Models detail set for mine, but as i said, going to stick to the kit tracks. Like you i have decided on the 7th Pz markings, like the look of them.
The thinner bar was the one I was talking about. The camera knows and sees all and is an unforgiving task master! Whatever it sees will show up after paint though so it’s always a good way to check things that the Mk 1 eyeball will miss. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought something was great until I put it under the unforgiving gaze of the digital eye! [;)]
Since you’re doing this one as a 1940 France vehicle you should be aware from an accuracy standpoint that the markings guide is incorrect when it advises that the paint scheme is overall panzer gray. The correct scheme is 2/3 Dunkelgrau and 1/3 Dunkelbraun since that is what was ordered up until July 1940 when the single Dunkelgrau (panzer gray) scheme was implemented. [B]
Thanks for the heads up on the markings/paint colour. I’ve mixed my blue/gray paint and have no intention of changing it as it looks great so it’s either change markings to suit or forego accuracy-I’ll probably change the markings as this might be on display at a little local chow in a couple of weeks and I want her spot on!
I’ve filled the gaps with Milliput, the turret assembled in about 5 minutes after cleanup so happy that there isn’t a lot more I can do with this until the base coat is on gave her a thin coat of NATO Black as a primer a few hours ago now. I’ll see how she’s looking in a minute.
Before anyone says it I’m not rushing this build whatsoever-I’ve been at it since 8am and spent 7 hours on her yesterday! Mainly cleanup!
As for the barrels, I thought they were Aber but after checking they are definately Armorscale. I get all my Fruils and barrels from a guy in the UK called Lou Stener who runs an on-line company called ‘Armour Models’, he has everything you can think of!
I just can’t believe how small this build is, it’s tiny!!! I can’t wait to get the Fruils on her and start the weathering and get the tools painted and fitted.
The show I’m going to is on the third weekend of April so not loads of time to spare seeing as I only have weekends to build on but once I get the paint down I can really concentrate on all the detail. I’ll be taking my StuG too.
I order from Lou Steiner all the time, he is a great guy to deal with. He has just got me a Cyber Hobby Tiger I that he has had to order in.
As for those barrels, if they are MG 34’s just hold off. The Pz I used different weapons, i believe designated MG 13’s. I didn’t realise myself until somone on here pointed it out recently.
Small world-Lou was telling me about a Cyber Hobby Tiger that he got in for a customer, I wonder if it was you? He’s a cracking guy and a font of knowledge. I just hope that someone buys the company off him to keep it running as I’d hate to see him have to sell the stock off as a job lot. I’d buy and run it myself it I had the money!
I’ve just put down my first layer of base coat and what a lovely shade of grey it is! 3 parts XF-63 to 1 part XF-18 (Medium Blue), it has an almost ‘Iron’ looking tint. Probably not super accurate but it does look lovely and will stand out from the other three builds that I have; all painted in bland old XF-63!
I’m umming and ahhing about the decals now after what Mr Plunk has said! I value your advise Bill VERY much but I’m thinking this build is more eye candy than anything else, the StuG will be entered into the competion (one build only) so I might go with the 1940 decals as they just look really really nice and contrast against the base coat perfectly. They are the one’s shown on the box art btw.
You guys have taught me to be be super accurate but can you let me off? Just this once? [;)]
Anyway, road wheels and running gear are painted and the rubber is on too. She’s shaping up very nicely as it goes and with a proper picture of a Panzer I commander the figure will be my best yet! I’ll give this paint another hour before I take a couple of photos then it fun with Fruils next weekend!
I bought a couple of Cyber Hobby kits off Lou last year. Just before xmas i saw they were releaseing Wittmann’s Tiger I, so i e-mailed him to ask if he was getting it in. So he said he would see what he could do. He mailed me a couple of weeks ago that he had finally got 2, so i am going to order it this week when i get paid. At £75 it will be the most expensive kit i have bought yet, but i am a sucker for tiger’s and even more so for Wittmann.
I hope who ever buys it off him is as commited as he is.
The old Pz I is coming along very nicely indeed. I wasn’t planning to do any painting today but it was such a quick build I thought why not?
A light primer coat of NATO Black and a couple of light coats of my blue/grey mix and she’s looking good. The road wheels were all made up and painted ready to drop on so all good. VERY fiddly trying to get the road wheels on and into the three tiny locator holes but got there in the end!
Just waiting for the Tracks and barrels from Lou now which I’ll be receiving in the post this week. Next Saturday I’ll get the Fruils built up and and the barrels fitted and painted.
Next Sunday I’ll be painting the tools, fitting the muffler and PE muffler cover and doing a general tidy up. Plus I’ll be attempting to hide the lovely fingerprint that my Mother left on the edge of the left fender when she picked it up whilst I was out of the room [:@] God I need my own place!!!
Here she is so far:
Wheels ready for rubber painting…
The very small Panzer I Ausf B…
Here is the strut at the rear that Bill reffered to-I know it looks wonky but it’s fine (the muffler and smoke holder will obviously be here too so the gap will be totally covered)…
Thanks for looking guys, As usual any comments etc are very welcome.
There aren’t any model police running around that I know of at any rate so if you don’t want to adhere 100% to accuracy it’s always your decision of course! [;)] Since you are planning to add some $$ in terms of AM it’s always good to pass on the info regarding various things. Normally if someone’s going to add AM it’s because they are addressing accuracy issues or, like you said, potentially planning it for a show/contest where such thing can count against you depending if left unaddressed. Since you’ve decided just to do this one as eye-candy it’s really your call either way in how you want to finish it. The large numbers are indeed very eye-catching, it’s the exact same set of markings I used when I built this kit myself some time back. Just be sure you’ve got plenty of decal setting solution handy as the turret presents some very complex shapes that they need to conform to. I recall that it took several doses and some hours of patient work with them to get them down but the end result is worth it.
As Bish pointed out, the Pz I used MG13s, not MG34s, so the barrels you are planning to use aren’t accurate for this vehicle. While they both were 7.92mm, the MG13 barrel ends are designed differently in terms of the cooling jackets and flash suppressors and the overall barrels themselves were shorter (the MG13s were staggered in the turret due to the way the ammunition magazines loaded), so you might face some issues if you try to replace them with the Armorscale items. Just a thought.
The gray you’ve mixed looks pretty good and it looks like you solved the gap in the supserstructure nicely. [Y]
When I ordered the Fruils and barrels Lou said that the barrels came as a pair-one shorter than the other. Now, wether they are just MG34 barrels and one is chopped down, I honestly don’t know!
Either way I’ll be using them, I haven’t got a pin vice and the means to drill out the kit barrels (yet) so these will go on. Like I say this build will just be something pretty for the shelf so I’m not too fussed.
Btw no model police Bill? Are you sure? Are you REALLY sure? They are probably watching you now [;)]
