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Modeller Build Logs
Tristar Panzer IV Ausf. C |
| By Paul A. Owen | | Started: | May 11, 2006 | | Updated: | Feb 11, 2008 |
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Recently Tristar released an excellent kit of the early Panzer IV in the form of an Ausf. C. Moulded in pumpkin coloured styrene the kit features individual track-links, photo-etched parts and an excellent finesse of detail and a high level of accuracy.
Initially I thought a kit of the early Panzer IV would have limited appeal, I certainly wasn't that interested in one. After some research the subject began to interest me more. According to Panzer Tracts No. 4 there were 134 of the Ausf. C produced. This kit represents the later type, with a small rain shield above the driver's view port, which was also retro-fitted to earlier tanks. Later in their service these vehicles where retro-fitted with stowage boxes on the rear turret, additional 30mm armour plates on the hull front, a Notek lamp amongst other small details.
The Ausf. C was introduced into service in 1938. It was fielded in Poland, France, the Balkan campaign (Yugoslavia and Greece) and the early part of the Russian campaign. A few survived in service longer, in Normandy even! I have never seen one in service with the DAK in North Africa however. The specific tank that I want to model belonged to the 6th Panzer Division during the opening phase of Operation Barbarossa. These tanks typically had all of the late features and the retro-fitted turret bin.
I plan to borrow a turret bin from Tamiya's Ausf. H kit, replace the tracks with a set of the new Model Kasten 38cm tracks (I have a "thing" for kasten tracks) and use the new Aber fender kit. I also want to correct all of the small detail errors in the kit, most of these have been documented by Kazutaka Yokota in the Kits forum ( http://www.track-link.net/forum/modelling_kits/4332 ).
Tristar sent me this kit as a review sample, since I have been too busy to do a good review I thought I'd start this BLog now to document what I have been doing. Thus far I have assembled the lower hull...
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| Hull Side Engine Vents | Dec 10, 2006 |
The early Pz. IV's hull side armoured vents where an open box with three cross slats, all welded together. It was constructed of thin armour plates, probably 8 or 10mm. The Tristar part, while good as-is, I felt could benefit from some thinning down.
To thin the part out I used files, sandpaper and scraping with my model knife. It's important to regularly check the progress to make sure that all of the slats are reduced an equal amount.
The assembly was bolted onto the hull at the rear through a final flange, this is not present in the kit so I made one from 0.010 sheet styrene. The bolts where added to the inside, these should match up with the screw heads on the outside of the upper rear plate. I cut the bolts off of a scrap kit and used them.
In the photograph below the top image is the part before I thinned it out, the bottom image is after. It's difficult to see in this photograph however, but the difference is quite visible "in person". The rear strengthening bracket that I added is visible in the bottom image too.
The part was then mounted on the kit as per the instructions. Since I am not using the kit fenders I had to add a strip of 0.030 styrene to fill in the gap left by the missing kit fenders. The finished assembly is visible in the second attached photograph.
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