Well, I’ve finished my 2nd car (go and check out my McLaren M16C/D over in “Auto’s” [:I]), and have a third one currently curing and waiting to be finished, but I just can’t wait to get back to Armor, so I’m BAAAAAA-AAAACK!!! [:D]
Here’s the new project–the 1/35 Revell Jagdpanzer Kanone, which was Germany’s last real jagdpanzer. It sportsthe same 90mm gun used in the M48 and M47 series. 370 were built before being phased out in the mid 70’s due to a realization that technology had basically rendered them obsolete. The remaining hulls were converted into TOW missile carries called Jaguars.
Here’s what I’m using: the Revell kit, with the correct hull and tracks from Perfect Scale Modelbau in Germany…
Here’s what’s in the Revell kit:
Here’s the hull parts, cast in gray resin:
…and the tracks: these should be fun…? [sigh]
A close up of the Hull parts.
And you can see here that the hull parts are designed to be “dropped” right in…
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OK, I have a question—what’s the best way to do these resin tracks?! I dread the process! Paint them on the sprue? I’m going to assemble them with superglue of course. But how do you guys do these kind of track lengths? I have my “Plastic indy-link” method down pat, but this is a new frontier for me, and I don’t want to screw 'em up–they weren’t cheap! [:-^]…
Hey doog!! Funny you posting this. Just a couple of days ago I came across this Perfect Scale Modellbau resin conversion on the internet and thought it looked pretty cool, and I didn’t know what a Jagdpanzer Kanone was until now!! I’m keeping an eye on this WIP, I KNOW you’ll do another bang up job on it!
I might have a tip on the resin indies. I read that “Gator Glue” was being successfully used to bond PE to plastic and also for tough-to-glue vinyl tracks. Its some sort of acrylic glue, but I don’t know where to get it. Its advantage over CA is that it has a slower drying time AND has a more robust bond…maybe it will work on your resin tracks??
While I am disappointed in the kit tracks, after seeing what the resin aftermarket offerings look like I thought the effort wouldn’t be worth the gain … especially getting them off that resin sprue! [xx(]
I’ll be watching with great interest and keep us updated on how it goes. You’re the test mule doog! [bow]
Gator Glue can be found here: http://www.gatorsmask.com/gatorglueorder.html it’s pretty good stuff for gluing PE to PE and PE to plastic, not sure how it will handle resin though. Using CA will be a challenge because it bonds near instantaneously with resin because, well, CA itself is a type of resin. [;)]
I saw many careful hours ahead of you removing those links so that they aren’t damaged in the process doog, but the result will be worth it. Are you sure these links aren’t “clickable”? Normally resin links go that route precisely because of the problems with gluing you mention.
It looks like you’ve got your work cut out for you on those tracks… but hopefully they’ll be a significant improvement over the kit parts. For your sake, I hope they are “clickable” that would save you some headache.
I’ve got a question for you, Karl… I wonder why you went ahead and got the upper hull resin kit? Looking at the side by side with the kit hull, I can see that the resin part is molded right off the origianl kit part, with some changes to the hatches and a few other small details. The only part that I can’t get a good look at is the mantlet, but even that looks like the kit with only a few added/changed details.
Now at the risk of sounding like a jerk (not the way I mean it), why would you go and spend the money to buy the resin if all these details can be fairly easily built on your own out of some styrene and a little time? Honestly, I think I could probably update the kit if I had some decent research, and I don’t consider myself a very good scratchbuider by any means.
Regardless, I really look forward to seeing another one of your builds (seems like it’s been a while) and I hope you don’t take my comment as criticism directed towards you, I am merely curious.
I’m sure you could get good results with slow setting CA with these resin parts. At least I’ve never had any problems. But I’m itching to get my hands on some of this Gator Glue for the properties of working with PE that it has.
As for those links, they look to be a major pain. As mentioned, are you certain they cannot simply click together? If not, well, you’ll have a long time worth of fun in removing them from the casting blocks without damaging them, then sanding, then assembling into runs, and then finally painting, lol [:)]
Just don’t try to clip them from the casting block, you’ll definitely snap a few.
I saved the pictures of the resin tracks and re sized them and cannot see anything that will click on these tracks. Normally there is a void or a dimple for the pieces to grab hold of, but they are not there.
If it were me, I would give the tracks the basic metal color, and black treads while on the sprues. Then after you have S.glued them together you can weather them which will also cover any extra glue spots. But then, thats what I would do, you are going to make your own decision.
Good luck with it and I am sure it will turn out like other samples of your work seen in the past.[tup]
Man, I’ve always loved the KaJaPa. I built this kit in 1993 or so (or one that looked very much like it), back when I was building them for my AT platoon. Back then I thought sticking a Verlinden “Modern German Tank Commander” in the hatch constituted superdetail [:-^].
As for the “drop in”, looks like a lot of work. I’m seeing more than its fair share of flash. But the good news is that a good pair of angle-bladed snips will slice those track links clean off the runners without much trouble - as long as you have a steady hand (no coffee).
But it does look pretty freakin’ sweet. Can’t wait to see how you build this beauty up. One of my favorite kits meets one of my favorite modelers.
LOL…since he is now doing models for box-pics, it is “Doog” with a capital D—just kidding…LOL…
You know, I was thinking the same thing about the replacment hull top; I didn’t see a whole lotta difference in them, and anything that promises to be a “drop-in” usually requires a lot of filling and sanding…not that you couldn’t do it of course, just wondering if there is enough of an improvement to justify the extra hours involved…I don’t know a lot about this tank but id does look cool–sorta like the next generation of Jagdpanzer from WW2…In the past if I was really stoked about a particlar release, I would buy up EVERY possible AM item only to realize that most weren’t impreovements at all…but then again, you probably know why the resin replacement is warranted as I know nothing about this vehicle…Anyway, looking forward to the build and once again you seem to be stretching your legs and getting outside your comfort zone as this is a “modern” tank…cool!
Doog??? Who dat??? Oh the ex armor guy who became a car guy, who became an ex car guy, who is an armor guy. Then to top it off he was a WWII gun now an ex WWII guy, now a modern era guy.!!
OK…All I can say is:
Get a dust mask
Get plenty of sharp new #11 blades
Get Gator Glue
Get good sanding sticks
If there are any voids or bubbles, get Mr. Surfacer (and use in the paint booth)
I haven’t actually had that much success with Gator Glue. The adhesion didn’t impress me at all, and the stickiness wasn’t anything beyond what I could get with CA. In a word, I was disappointed in the extreme.
Thanks for all the comments and suggestions. I’ sorry I’ve been busy working on this, and in the meantime I’m also working on planning, scripting, and eventually shooting an Instructional Guitar DVD to be released next year, so I’ve been just busy, busy, busy! I’ve also got to find the time to build a Jagdtiger for a weathering tutorial in person at SYRCON this year! Yikes! A full plate fer shur! [BG]
As far as the “quality” comments, I can only say that the quality of the castings may look similar, but the resin one already has proven its worth, as the hatches detail is seriously lacking on the Revell kit. There’s no way to pose the hatches opened with any accuracy, and you know that I like figures with my builds. I plan on building BOTH parts, and will show you the comparison.
As to why I bothered to purchase this one, well…you know me–always thinking, always stretching my legs. I will be submitting this build story as another article to Finescale, so I had to think of some “angle” to make it stand out and catch the editors’ eyes. It will be worth the tedious tracks, which DO NOT “snap” by the way! [BH]
I don’t think I’ll be using the Gator Glue–I want to use CA glue; thick type, slower-setting. I willl laboriously cut and clean each link, assemble lengths and paint. Never take the easy way out for me! [8-]
This IS a somewhat-novel build for me, being “modern” and I willl also be painting it in the hard-to-duplicate “Yellow-Olive”, mixing it from my own stock here. Plan on weathering techniques of pre-and-post shading, ala’ the E-100 that I did a while back. This will be a one-color scheme. The weathering will also be light. I feel like a virgin on her honeymoon! LOL!
In between all I’ve got going here, I’ll try to get a nice update up by Wednesday at the latest!
doog - look forward to this build! Great looking machine actually… maybe some day I can get myself to SYRCON, in the meantime, APMS East/Danbury CT will be my armor destination, cheers!
Agamemnon - did you contact kenny/gator? maybe you got a bad bottle, stuff really works great and you can 'wipe" the excess with a moist brush. Maybe it got too cold, during storage? Only prob you have to keep the glue at room temp, it will get messed up when very cold.
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