SPA Modeler

Great to see you Owl in action again!

- Kari

KSaarni wrote:Great to see you Owl in action again!

- Kari

Whoop it's great to BE in action again!

Stikpusher wrote:

CallSignOWL wrote: ...I wouldnt know enough to tell the difference between any of those. I guess i'll just refer to it as a generic Panzer?

LOL! Well, at least a late model Panzer IV since it has the schurzen, long gun, etc. when compared to the
F1 and earlier versions. But with a little work you can make a more accurate late G, H, or J, depending upon what you add, leave off, or alter. Or just go straight OOB...

I'm doing this one oob, but if I was to do another tank, where would I find the info about which version has what?

Squadron, Concord, and osprey all publish books on the Panzer IV that will show you evolution thru all the variants. Off the top of my head I can't say which websites would have the same info, aside from Wiki or Military Factory. But I suspect there has to be at least ONE site dedicated to the Panzer IV. During the time that tank was in service it went thru a constant series of design changes from versions A thru J.

Thanks, stik!

Continuing on, I sprayed a quick primer coat to cedi my seams, ten got started on making some stowage. Gotta love good old Shep Paine!



The cloth rolls were made from tissue dipped in a white glue/water mix, the tarps are actually strips of a used dryer sheet (also dunked in the glue/water mix), while the sand bags were molded from sculpey.

Coming together nicely there Owl. One tip on tank stowage- things that will get in the way of operation of hatches and vision ports (or turret and gun movement) will not be there for real. You have the bow gunners hatch covered with a sandbag on the top deck. That's a big no no. It would block the ability of that guy bail out in combat.
And before you glue those jerry cans in place, you might want to open up the areas that should be open on the three bars. Those things were molded before model companies gave us such "accurate" detail.
Keep on tanking!

Stikpusher wrote:Coming together nicely there Owl. One tip on tank stowage- things that will get in the way of operation of hatches and vision ports (or turret and gun movement) will not be there for real. You have the bow gunners hatch covered with a sandbag on the top deck. That's a big no no. It would block the ability of that guy bail out in combat.
And before you glue those jerry cans in place, you might want to open up the areas that should be open on the three bars. Those things were molded before model companies gave us such "accurate" detail.
Keep on tanking!

Umm... Which one is the bow Gunners hatch?

The Jerry can handles should be easy enough to sort out with my micro-saw , and I did make sure the turret can still rotate

Bow gunners hatch is on the right front. In this photo, the bow gunner is standing out of the open hatch and leaning against the turret.



The bow machine gun in the photo has some sort of fabric cover over it.

The driver is on the left front, in this case his hatch is open but unoccupied.

The hatches on the hull plate below the bow gun and drivers vision port are access hatches for the transmission, final drives, etc., and can be covered with whatever to increase frontal protection.









This is how you want your jerry can handles to look...



some quick work with the razor saw or needle files will take care of it...

This should be good. A bit of a departure? I'm old and don't remember.

LyleW wrote:This should be good. A bit of a departure? I'm old and don't remember.

Definitely a departure! I've only built like, two tanks before.