As the title says this is Dragon’s offering of the Panzer IV in 1/35 scale. This will be the first armor kit that I have undertaking so we’ll see how this goes[:|] I don’t know much about armor in general but have done a little research on the IV which has been enjoyable. I will be asking a lot of silly questions I’m sure but hopefully you experts can help me out.
No progress pics as all I’ve done so far is scrap the mold seams off all the road wheels…and I can tell this will take some patience already[:)]
So my first question is how do you guys go about painting the rubber on the road wheels? Do you do it by hand or mask and spray it?
Hey Andy welcome to the ‘dark side’! And good luck with her.
Not sure this would be my first tank kit, the Dragon Imperial Series could be a little rough. I think someone said here that they’re repackaged older kits from other companies. If it’s from a eastern European country from the '90s it could be a lot of work, someone here probably will know.
Still it shouldn’t be too big a deal. Just like anything take your time and you shouldn’t have too big problems with her.
Personally I like to paint the road wheels all dark grey and then use a circle template to paint the centers.
You’re not kidding bish. Doing the seam lines for 32 road wheels was a test of my patience. I enlisted my wifes help, she cut them from the spruce and I scrapped while we watched some tv. That’s quality time right there lol. I asked if she wanted to learn how to scrap seam lines but she wouldn’t bite[:P]
I’ll give the circle template method a go and just take my time. Tojo, if I become an armor guy I’ll have to look into those masks.
No, not Eastern European. Most of the German Imperial Series kits, notably the Pz.III/IV families, including Stug’s and the Panther family kits are based on Gunze Sangyo molds. Many were originally released as multimedia kits (with white metal & PE parts and Modelkasten indi tracks) beginning in the mid-late 80’s. IIRC, they were highly regarded at the time.
After acquiring the molds, Dragon basically just tooled up the white metal parts & indi tracks in plastic for these kits.
Blackdog: I think the Orange Box kits are older kits from Dragon as opposed to these being even older stuff from other companies reboxed by Dragon. Again someone please correct me if I’m off here. I’ve only built one Orange Box kit, the M4A4 Sherman and though I’ve read in reviews there are some accuracy issues the kit went together without any problems.
Well after sorting out the fact that there was three “S” sprues and decoding the instructions, I’ve got the majority of the assembly done on this one. It went together rather painlessly. I wish in some places they had more positive attachment points then the location “outline” that they use but it wasn’t too much trouble. I wasn’t sure which would be easier for me as far as painting tools, so I attached the ones I think I can more easily get to and left other off to be painted seprately.
I’ve started on the tracks and am not looking forward to all the clean up that will have to go into them but I’ll keep at it. I’ve seen a lot of videos online where the tracks have been painted with something like Nato Black and then drybrushed with some silver. How do you guys go about painting your tracks?
I’m also new to armor modeling. I have found quite a few videos on youtube on painting and weathering armor models and am learning a lot from them. You should check them out.
8. If the hole is bigger or smaller, then use the same setup with a larger or smaller screw. 9. Don’t press real hard with what you’re sanding with because you CAN make it pop off. 10. Once you get a few of these made up for different sizes, you’ll actually enjoy sanding those wheels.
