Hasegawa 1/72nd Sd.Kfz.7/1 Flak 38 *FINISHED*

[ShaunW]

No need to apologize, Stuart and many thanks for your interest and kind words. Hopefully I will be able to get more modelling done this year. Let's face it, I couldn't do any less, not having finished a single build for over 12 months

[Stuart]

No need to apologize, Stuart and many thanks for your interest and kind words. Hopefully I will be able to get more modelling done this year. Let's face it, I couldn't do any less, not having finished a single build for over 12 months

oooooo! That's painful that is - here's hoping for more bench time!

[ShaunW]

Finally today I broke out the airbrush and applied paint to the base and vehicle. The vehicle and gun received a coat of Tamiya XF-63 German Grey, thinned with X-20A, which I have a tendency to think is a little dark, especially when applied to small scale vehicles, but that will be resolved with subsequent dry brushing and weathering etc.












The base received a coat of a mix of XF-63 that remained in the mixing jar after painting the vehicle together with some XF-54 Dark Sea Grey, again all thinned with X-20A. There was no science applied to the mix, I just whacked in some DSG to lighten the shade as firstly I didn't want the vehicle and base to match (or indeed to match any subsequent German Grey vehicles that I might build and photograph on there) and secondly I think the German Grey is a too dark for the cobbled street.



Next job will be detail painting and dry brushing using paint brushes and I will also probably airbrush a lighter shade of grey onto the pavement area of the base.

Thanks for looking.

[Impisi]

Interesting - looks good so far

[Clashcityrocker]

The base looks very nice under paint. It will make a nice prop for other builds.

Nigel

[B4en]

It's all looking great Shaun. Your scratched improvements are pro quality, really.

[ShaunW]

Many thanks for your kind words, folks, they're always much appreciated.

During the week I've been engaged in starting the detail painting and weathering plus bodging on some replacement tracks from a cuople of ye olde Airfix Sd.Kfz.7's that I dug out of my old models box and that were built in the 70's. More of that later.

First up, I added some width indicators using plastic rod with a blob of Glue 'n' Glaze on the end. he paintwork of the body has received a light dry brush of Tamiya Dark Sea Grey to add a bit of contrast and to begin to put some life into the monotone German Grey scheme. I've also dry brushed a little Tamiya Flat Earth around the bottom of the front mudguards. I don't heavily weather models these days and generally avoid mud effects on small scale military vehicles as I fid it can be easy to overwhelm the model. The windscreen bag was painted Tamiya Red Brown followed by a light dry brush of Flat Earth, but I will increase the dry brushing to give a little more contrast, probably using some Tamiya Deck Tan or Buff. The seats were also painted Red Brown and have received a dry brush of Buff.





At the rear of the body I have added a couple of mud flaps using wine bottle foil which was attached with CA and painted Tamiya NATO Black, these will receive a dry brush of DSG and Flat Earth.



The dash has been painted up using Tamiya Flat White for the distinctive central tachometer (rev counter) and NATO Black for the faces of the other instruments and switches, followed by an overall dry brush of DSG. I would have preferred to use a decal for the tacho, as I haven't got it perfectly round, but had nothing suitable in my decal bank.



On to the rolling chassis and the replacement tracks. The OOB tracks are, quite simply, awful but I noted that those on the Airfix kit of similar vintage are much better, although still not brilliant. The outer face detail on the Airfix tracks is almost to modern standards compared to the Hasegawa efforts, although typically for the era there is no inner face detail, but the Airfix tracks are about half the thickness of the Hase items. Letting the Airfix tracks down somewhat is the fact that I dealt with these back in around 1975 and my clumsy efforts removing the tracks from their sprues back then has resulted in some chunks missing from the edges here and there. I like to think that I've improved a bit as a modeller since then I used the best bits from three tracks removed from two old Airfix models and had to do a bit of cutting and adding in of sections. The other issue is that the Airfix kit is to 1/76th whilst the Hase is 1/72nd, which means the Airfix tracks are a little narrow but a bit of bodging enabled me to get around that. Pictured with the body off, the bodging and general slightly rough appearance is evident but with the body on they look OK and are certainly far better than I could have hoped to achieve with the kit items. The tracks attached to the wheels easily using standard Revell Contacta and received a base coat of NATO Black followed by a dry brush of Flat Earth and Buff. The front wheels are the kit items and, in contrast to the tracks, are quite acceptable and were painted and weathered in a similar manner to the tracks.





Finally, the gun has received a detail paint of Tamiya Gunmetal, overpainted with Smoke to tone down the silver in the Gunmetal and then matt varnished using Aeromaster flat. Also added are the posts for the gunner's seats, which were made from plastic rod.



Thanks for looking.

[general rocket]

Coming on very well

[Cardinal]

That’s a neat trick with the wine bottle foil good work Shaun.

[iggie]

Lovely work Shaun

[Clashcityrocker]

Very nice work Shaun.

Nigel

[flakmonkey]

Really coming together now. I have to keep reminding myself this is 1/72, unless you have cunningly been using a giant size jar of Tamiya paint all this time.

[B4en]

At this rate you might actually finish this Shaun!

Nice work getting some Airfix tracks to fit, they look fine in place. The windscreen cover has come out nicely as well. It should be a great looking model when it's all done.

[ShaunW]

Many thanks, guys, you are very kind. The half-track is now completed (!) and I'm finishing up the base. All being well I will post up some final shots at the end of the week or thereabouts.

[Stuart]

Superb looking progress Shaun!