Beyond The Sprues
Current and Finished Projects => Physical Models => Land => Topic started by: raafif on August 25, 2012, 01:11:14 PM
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Dug an old kit out yesterday arvo & started converting it -- Tamiya's Sturmtiger in 35th scale. I've been thinking that despite being built in mid-1944, by early 1945 the big mortar was redundant to needs as there were no German Army assaults happening -- they being on the defensive on every front. So I decided to make it into a Tank-killer by retro-fitting a 128mm gun.
Despite it's cost of $69, the kit is fairly simple with most parts making up the wheels & individual-link tracks (YUK !!)
I needed a new mount for the gun & found that half a ping-pong ball fitted nicely in the large hole in the superstructure. Yet another ball-point pen made a good barrel & a Warhammer base with a collar from an Italeri Elephant made the armoured mantlet.
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/SJ1.jpg)
I will only add a few other new bits 'n' pieces to the model but am wondering about paint for it ..... either a 1970's "Berlin Brigade" type scheme (but different colours) or this one to blend in with an urban setting ?? .....
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/SJ2.png)
Thinking that as crews had to wait a few days at the depot for the conversion-kit to arrive or for the conversion to be done, they had time to paint the vehicle & added some foliage to the rear-deck and a liberated picket-fence to complete the disguise once back at the front.
British tank-crews had a saying in Normandy ... " beware of moving haystacks" ... the Russians in Berlin learnt to beware of moving houses ......
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Good idea. :)
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This is just crazy enough it could work!
Nice to see another wonderful raafif creation in the works! This one's gonna be fun!
Brian da Basher
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Whoa, that's cool! :) The picket fence for a skirt is a neat idea. And with any luck, it might even be effective against HEAT rounds.
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Looking good. :)
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Raafif, lovin' the new mobile home idea! ;)
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Back to this model ...
SturmJäger-1, Berlin 1946 -- last tank out of the emergency rebuild shed ...
just a coat of paint, added the periscope to the front-left corner & doing the wheels ....
After seeing this done on a model on another site, I decided to do a few repacement wheels (Panther inners & rubber-Tiger-1) from wecks on each side too as the supply of parts is non-existant at this stage of the war. I'm adding more wreck-wheels to the superstructure for aditional armour.
Still have to get some transport track for one side of it ....
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1147.jpg)
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1197.jpg)
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1198.jpg)
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1199.jpg)
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Looking good.
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Could have a lot of fun with the additional wheels on other models too... Good thinking :)
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just a quick update now that I've got most of the track on - standard track one one side & transport on the other. I should have interspersed some standard links in the transport track to indicate that it had been repaired in a hurry to get it moving again.
Next job will be masking the tracks, cleaning up the base colour & adding an ambush scheme ....
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1232.jpg)
(http://i148.photobucket.com/albums/s34/hobgrot/1234.jpg)
I will NEVER build another model with indy tracks !!!
I used the kit tracks which said 96 links per side - I used 101 links per side to get the proper sag & could have made a slightly better job by leaving the idler off till last & setting it at a better angle to tension it properly.
From now on, if I can't get replacement rubber-band tracks from somewhere, I won't build the kit ! so it doesn't look good for another project currently side-lined - a rebuild of my 30yr old Italeri Elephant ammo-carrier whose tracks have disintegrated :icon_twisted:
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LOL... indy tracks.. 8)
Well it certainly is a whopper, be interesting trying to get the trigonometry right to get that around some narrow street corners.
As a stand off weapon wow !
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Well, here we are back to an old project after nearly 4 years ! No wonder the old photos have gone :-[
The JagdPanzer Sturm ('46) is Tamiya's SturmTiger with a new long gun (Papermate Kilometrico pen + Warhammer base & some putty), I decided to make this vehicle a quick upgrade tank to make it competitive with the newer Russian tanks. One track is the narrower “transport” type to make it look like a rushed job to get it back into combat. To finish it I settled for a standard camo as I had lots of problems with the base coat - Humbrol no longer seem to have any quality control on colour standards, they vary very widely bewteen tins bought at the same time even :'(
Had lots of problems with the single-link tracks too which are ABS plastic in this kit so normal model glue didn't work - had to mix my own glue (MEK + plastic sprue) which I now use exclusively as it is slightly better than brand glue & about 20 times cheaper ! :) .
I "damaged" some left-over tank wheels & hung them on for extra armour.
Finally finished :smiley:
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That's some superlative paint work, raafif! I especially like how you did the gun barrel and added that damaged spare wheel.
Most excellent and well worth the wait!
Brian da Basher