Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. G
Most of the lower hull built, with the inner wheels added so the link-and-length track can be glued to them later.
Rear plate, minus the muffler to ease painting.
Here’s when you know you’re dealing with a Tamiya kit: just dropping the inner wheels on has them sitting perfectly in line and not askew to varying degrees.
The upper runs of the tracks, drying on the jigs supplied in the kit.
Basics of the hull top built. I’m probably going to leave it loose until after painting.
Tracks added. They fit pretty well and were easier to install than some kits I’ve built.
Most of the details added to the hull, and the turret started. I left off the gun breech, as it will be entirely out of sight on the finished model.
I had a close call when I knocked over my glue bottle. The only damage, luckily, was a big drop that landed on the right front mudguard. I helped it evaporate quickly by blowing onto it, so it wouldn’t get much chance to soften the detail (this was before I fitted the axe and other tools).
I had almost forgotten how quickly you can put together a Tamiya kit if you’re not trying to correct minor issues it may have 😉
The model is now basically finished as far as the parts from the box go. All I need to do is add some small bits myself based on photos of the real thing, plus the crew of course, and then it’s ready for painting. Stowage etc. will only be added after that. Some bits are still loose here for painting as well (the upper hull, the turret stowage bin, and the muffler).
Build completed, as far as I can before painting. I removed the spare track fittings on the transmission deck at the front, because the real tank 215 didn’t have them.
On the right-hand side, I added a second jerrycan rack instead of the spare track stowage Tamiya has there (this meant cutting off the shovel but leaving its brackets), as a photo of what is probably the real 215 shows one there. The jerrycans are from Bronco, only because I didn’t want a visible difference between the cans on the two sides of the vehicle.
Tank sprayed in Tamiya XF-93, and the skin on the figures has been painted. I also made a start on the uniforms, but the loader’s is a colour I’m not happy with so that will get redone.
Because on the real tank, the S-hooks were in use, I had to remove them from the mudguard and build the brackets from some plastic strip and stretched sprue. The grey hooks are spares from an old Dragon StuG kit, from which I removed the moulded-on brackets. Now I need to still clean up one Tamiya hook as well, because the real tank had three of these hooks on the front plate.
Darker patches sprayed with a mix of Tamiya XF-93 Light Brown (DAK 1942) and XF-49 Khaki in roughly equal parts, as I had no good model paint for RAL 7027. I restricted them to bits that looked darker in photos of the real tank. The gun barrel is XF-63 German Grey because it was probably that colour from the factory.
After the brown patches, I lightened it with more XF-93 to spray lighter centres to the patches. Next, I mixed XF-93 with white at about a 3:1 ratio to highlight the rest of the model in the same way.
The whole model got a wash of thinned Army Painter Soft Tone to shade it, and then I painted the camouflage on the turret front with a brush and some Life Color RAL8000. This follows the available photos of the real tank as closely as I could get it, but it beats me why it only seems to be on the turret front and nowhere else.
After that, I drybrushed the model with Army Painter Skeleton Bone, and then did that again — because I have two bottles of it, which aren’t actually the same colour … So first with the darker of the two, and then with the lighter.
Decals from the kit applied.
The numbers over the hatches were fun to apply, for a given definition of “fun” anyway, using a LOT of Micro Sol to soften them, and pressing down firmly with a folded-up cloth and a blunt dental tool between applications to get them to settle around the detail. It may need a bit more Sol added later, not sure yet.
The real tank had number 411 painted on its stowage bin, overpainted with 215. I put a 4 and a 1 on it from an ancient Almark set for 1:72 German aircraft, then the Tamiya numbers over them (cut loose so I could position them better).
Chipped paint added where it shows in the pictures of the real tank. Though the tank would have left the factory in tropical camouflage, my assumption is that many of its components, such as the mudguards, hatches, etc. and perhaps the entire hull, would have been finished in Panzer grey already before the order came to paint the tanks sand.
More chipped paint, and also the remains of a white outline to the 215 on the turret bin.
Left track painted in base colour, except for the bits I couldn’t reach with a fairly coarse brush — those were done with a fine brush after taking the picture. This rather of makes me doubt I will build a Panzer IV or similar kit again with the tracks added before painting … Workable tracks FTW.
Tracks, tyres etc. fully painted: sand wash over the dark grey tracks, followed by drybrushing with lighter grey and Humbrol Polished Steel. The rubber tyres are dark grey with a wash of thinned Indian ink and a grey drybrush. The worn-away metal on the roadwheels, sprockets and idlers is also Polished Steel.
Wheels installed. The upper hull is still loose at this point.
Most of the spare track armour added to the front plate, as well as the jerrycans and spare wheels to the sides. The links on the nose are Friuls, that I got from another modeller, the rest is from this kit.
I added oil stains around the hubs, as they’re quite prominent in photos of the real tank.
Crew figures painted.
Remnants of the original turret number 411 added to the turret side, painted with a fine brush, after I noticed in a photograph of the real tank that they’re visible here as well.
Sandbags made from two-part epoxy putty. Tamiya gives you four in plastic, but I couldn’t use them because I fitted the track armour differently — and in any case, Tamiya has left out the ones on the hull roof.
And it’s done! 🙂
As I recently painted one of Hellers vacuum-formed diorama bases as a desert, I might as well photograph this model on it too 🙂
Коментарі
30 24 December 2023, 14:29
Eddy MarshallThats a pretty clever way of doing things..! Leaving half the wheels off to one side - makes the entire track one removable sub assembly... How have I never thought of this..!? Nice looking Panzer... Tamiya still got a solid kit by the looks of it...
26 December 2023, 17:59
Jakko Removable, that might have been a good idea, yes … I glued the track to the wheels instead 🙂 My idea is that like this, I can still reach most of the track reasonably well to paint it, and that any unpainted bits will be largely limited to around the inside wheels where they won't be easy to spot. With both rows of wheels on, I have no idea how to paint most of the track at all. (These days, I much prefer workable tracks, because you can paint the model and the tracks separately and only then install the tracks, easily and without having to glue painted track links to painted wheels.)
26 December 2023, 18:24
Album info
Tamiya's Pz.Kpfw. IV Ausf. G kit built almost straight from the box.
