you might want to check these sites out:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/wmburns/Bmisc.html
http://www.missing-lynx.com/rare_world/rw02.htm
you should find some good reference material or tips at these places, I know I did when I learned of these pages ( thanks guys/gals ).
If you are building by candle light . . .
How does your computer work?
Just askin’
I too was lured by the Dark side recently, the very, very dark side.
I got Trumpeter’s M1A1 with mine roller as my introduction to armor.
(Quit laughing at me! It cost a buck, I shoulda seen that coming eh?)
Don
Don,
i meant that i had done some building by candlelight the night before.
i didn’t post until the next day. hadn’t actually had the computer on the night i started the build as the power went off at least 4 times!
actually, the inital post was made from the office, where the power almost NEVER goes out! [}:)]
not familiar w/ the Trumpeter kit, nut i have a Mirage Vickers E (type A, i think) that may be similar. i’ll find out when i start gluing bits, i guess. price was so low, i couldn’t stop myself.
then i looked in the box and decided i would start w/ a Tamiya kit. 
Progress Update:
last night i put the support rollers on the lower hull and added the back panel.
also put the rear fender (?) sections on the upper hull.
took a good look at the road wheels. the rubber part seems very narrow.
still debating masking w/ template (as Frosty suggested) or painting the rubber part by hand.
i think i saw on a different post a while back that Tamiya’s XF-63 is dark for Panzer Grey? any comments?
i have plenty left to glue, so the paint options are still wide open.
time to shut off the computer and get to the work table! [:)]
thanks,
ed.
Don’t forgit that most all of german armor was gas engined, so go out and look at your car tail pipe & muffler (especially if it’s about a year or two old) to get a good idea of the colors your muffler will be. Ground up pastels work good here too. You’ll know the insanity has really hit when you start buying individual track links (sooooo much nicer), PE, and barrels. I bet you do that with aircraft (the pe and resin anyway) and the use of it all on armor is basicly the same. good luck with it.
Hi, wildwill.
I have not logged on for 2 days now and I can see that the deciples of the Dark Side have taken care of you quite well, I would just to welcome you here, then.
Dwight,
they are an insidious group!
i see how they draw in the innocent and then the corruption starts! [:)]
notice how the kind glweeks subtley mentions individual linked tracks, PE & resin? [;)] and insinuates that i would do the same for a plane? in fact i am mostly an OOB builder w/ an occasional (ill-advised) scratch built detail or two. i’m more the kind of guy who gets a PE set for best friend’s kit and tells him to let me know how it comes out.
my first armor model will be straight OOB. then i will look at it and say (like a poor imitation of a more skilled tread-head) 'these tracks don’t drape properly, and these plastic details are too coarse! if i replace them w/ parts exceeding the original kit price by a factor of 3 and get a turned aluminum barrel, perhaps no one will notice my finger print etched into the hull w/ liquid cement! [:p][:D]
anyway, i got a bunch more bits glued together yesterday.
also made sticks from sprue to hold the road wheels for painting.
a project in itself!!
then i painted them to simulate the rubber outer part.
i will try to take frosty’s advice and mask the outer w/ my circle template, which i found. any opinion on Tamiya’s XF-63 for the grey?
took today off to go to the cup race at Dover. see erock, we have another ‘dark secret’ in common. [:)]
once again i thank you all for you input and warm welcome, and i hope that you know i am jesting when i tease about the PE, resin, etc. i am not making fun of anyone but me!
ed.
Wildwilliam how’s the project going? Your humor will fit right in with the guys and gals of this forum. [8D][^]
“It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.”-R.E.Lee
Sorry for the delay in getting an update.
i had gotten some work done, but suffered delays in getting the pictures ready.
then my emails w/ the pics were not getting thru to Moses.
nevertheless, here we are:
Monday night i painted the metal part of the road wheels Tamiya XF-53 (Neutral Grey).
i had read in another thread that the XF-63 (German Grey) seemed too dark, so i went with this lighter shade.
i took Frosty’s advice and used the circle template to mask the rubber parts of the wheels.
results varied. at several points i wondered if the rims were some metric size as the choices i had on my template were:
‘a little to big’ and ‘just a bit too small’.
i tried both, and eventually settled on the slightly oversized one.
i figured i could touch up w/ a brush later.
each wheel was mounted on a piece of sprue. i painted the backs first, dropping the template over the sprue and painting around it.
later, i determined that it would be easier to pull the sprue out, paint the back, and push it back in. then i would not have to paint around it.
once the back was done, i stuck the sprue into a foam block, held the mask over the front and sprayed that side. i tried it w/ the wheel vertical and horizontal. neither was ‘easier’ than the other for me.
then the wheel went onto another foam block to dry and the next one was started. i wiped the template now and then, but did not clean it w/ thinner as i was afraid of the thinner getting onto the black paint.
(because i knew i would be trying to go too fast for it to be all wiped off!)
when that was done, i returned to gluing bits together for the tank.
while getting ready to glue the top pieces on the ‘eyes’ on the front of the hull, i determined some nitwit had glued them on rotated 90 degrees! [B)] i rechecked the instructions and the box top picture. the instructions were inconclusive and i blame them! [}:)] but the boxtop was rather convincing. i was able to slide the exacto blade under the pieces and cut them free. i cleaned up the backs and the hull w/ sanding sticks and put them back on in what i hope is the proper orientation.
before i started that job, i had removed a piece from the sprue to attach to the left rear fender. it looks like a little license plate holder. the back has a serious ejector pin mark on it, so i filled it w/ CA. once i was done mucking about w/ the ‘eyes’ on the front of the hull, the ‘license plate’ was nowhere to be found! [:(!] a careful search of the floor yielded the missing road wheel hub from day 1, but no ‘license plate’. recalling the CA on the back, i checked everything else on the table it might have glued itself to, plus my forearms, feet, and most of the stuff in between. it looks like i will be making a replacement piece from sheet styrene. (THEN it will turn up!)
is there a rule in armor modeling that at least one piece must be ‘missing’ at all times? i will have to be more careful and not jump from task to task so much. and maybe not try to do everything in the same square foot of a 40" x 30" table!
here are some pics of the upper and lower hull separate, and mocked up. feel free to comment, but i doubt the pictures are clear enough for you to pick out too much! [:(] i GOTTA get a better camera. but borrowers cannot be choosers i guess.
see the roadwheels lurking in the distance?
thanks for all your help!
ed.
Coming along nicely wildwilliam!!! Isn’t the lure of the dark side insidious??[:D] I just got started on armor myself recently so I know what you mean. I’ve been collecting kits and detail sets for a few years now and started a Tamiya Marder III (almost 2 years ago, but didn’t do any building at all for a while). I’m almost done witih it now and it’s been a lot of fun. Mine is becoming a very heavily used vehicle and it’s actually been fun trying to make it look that “bad” [:p] Enjoy your self and learn some new techniques that don’t quite apply to a/c (like I’m doing) and you have fun.
BTW, did you check behind your ear for the missing piece? [;)] [:D]
Eric
Nice clean build going Ed !
Ed, sorry it took a while to get the pics up. For some reason, they were just not unzipping properly. But am glad all went well.
The Pz IV D is looking sweet. I love the kit, alhough I know it is a tedius clean up on some areas…considering how old the mold is. You are right about Tamiya’s XF-63 Panzer Grey being a bit to dark. Scwarzgrau is supposed to on the blue shade rather then on a dark shade like XF-63 is. When I do a Scwarzgrua…I take Neutral Grey and add a little Flat Blue to the mix…but you look like you hit the nail on the head. The build is coming along very nicely, and hope you send me more pics soon to get up. Good job old timer [;)]
Cheers
Rob
wildw: sorry to b so slow in reply (very limited online time now that i’m back in school)