Small fry AFV's, light panzers, halftracks, trucks & armored cars etc

[Armor_Buff]

Just under 9 hours for the hull, I could get spoiled building kits like this one very quickly.

Tamiya nailed it with nicely molded details in my opinion. There’s a small a gap in each strap that holds the jerry can in place but that’s easy to fill.

The box on the right is nicely molded in plastic. I’ve seen that part done in PE but the plastic part is excellent, I wouldn’t replace it with aftermarket.

The latch details are on the same level of excellence and no PE fiddly bits.

The jack block with molded wing nut as a stock kit part just makes me happy.

[Armor_Buff]

Ten hours and forty-seven minutes to wrap basic construction excluding the tracks. The build went much faster than expected.

Build review & rating

1/35 Tamiya Panzer 38(t) E/F

5 Price $32 (Amazon Prime, free shipping June 2023)

5 Instructions - they are clear & concise, tricky steps have recommended sequence of assembly numbers, state of the art excellence.

5 Molding Quality - one small trace of flash on crisp parts that were free of blemishes and free of defects

5 Plastic Quality - The Goldie Locks blend of soft and easy to clean up but tough enough to allow Tamiya Extra Thin cement to be used if desired.

5 Parts Clean Up - Easy, not time intensive

5 Ease of build - Best I’ve ever seen

5 Accuracy - wingnuts, rivets, crisp molded in clamps, awesome MG, it all appears correct. I don’t have Panzer Tracts for this vehicle so can’t comment on the plan drawing level accuracy.

4 Fit - Excellent overall. Two piece muffler required finesse and bit of putty, had a couple of hair lines that might have been ok but applied a thinned coat of Tamiya basic. Jerry can straps don’t meet up and need filling in my opinion.

4 Doesn’t Require Aftermarket - All of the parts in the box are perfectly suitable for most modelers and useable. However, this kit has the cursed link & length tracks with punch marks on inside face. In my view link & length tracks are a major negative. The fussy OCD modeler (me) will be happier with aftermarket individual link tracks.

5 Details built Out of the Box - wingnuts, rivets, crisp molded in clamps, awesome MG, seems on the money but I’m far from an expert on this vehicle.

48 points out of 50 possible

Outstanding kit, highly recommended. This kit in my opinion is a truly exceptional in excellence, nearly as good the Ryefield Model’s KV-1 1942 (50/50)

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On a different note, since this build rapped quicker than I expected, it’s time to pick another kit to build on the road.

Two small fry canidates are the Puma & 251/9 and other the 1941T-34/76 STZ.

[Tank_1812]

Looks great Wade.

[Armor_Buff]

@Tank_1812 Ryan, thank you!

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PG-13 rated content? Maybe

SO kiddo’s & juniors look away some nasty sounding German words are about to appear.

Dragon sometimes does things that just make me happy in Schadenfreude sort of way.

I thought their whole collectable model kit Cyber-Hobby scheme was pure Scheiße. I didn’t drink the Dragon Kool-Aid and missed several kits I wanted unless willing to drop stupid $$$ on ebay with a kit Scheisser.

Example from today’s Ebay visit. Now that’s collectable pricing. Limited 3,000 production.

What’s a retired Panzer Police, honorary 1/35 scale member of the 11th Panzer Division in spirit, kit BUILDER do without a collectable white box budget?

Just cry in his pilsner.

So what did our dear old Dragon do a few months ago about this sad sad situation?

Kick the collectors square in the Gonaden or Hodensack by releasing a new Dragon kit. I think this was just for the domestic Chinese market.

Wink wink nudge nudge

Anyway with a fistfull of hong kong dollars via the magic of the interwebs, one of these fine items managed to find its way to my stash for about $47 dollars & free shipping. Thank you, Dragon!

We’ll not consider the other $160 worth of kits required to make it happen.

There’s a lot of extra parts that aren’t used. I decided to simply and move most those to the side. It’s an intimidating stack of plastic in Wade’s World. The parts on the bottom were all the ones needed from that sprue.

Bottom picture, only two parts to use from that tree.

Top unused parts, bottom rest of the kit.

I decided reducing clutter would be helpful for this build. Look forward to chopping parts and using the Testor’s Liquid Cement tomorrow.

[Tank_1812]

That should keep you busy for bit.

[Uncle-Heavy]

@Armor_Buff

Gonaden

Write ‘Hodensack’ instead
The whole bag with two roundish objects

[Arch-Stanton]

Schadenfreude is my favorite German word.

[CKPlasticModels]

Thanks for the great review, as always! (And the colorful responses ) It’s only solidified in my mind that I should get this kit.

Good luck with this half-track, I’ll be watching!

[SSGToms]

Fantastic build Wade. If you were home, or had the cordless airbrush with you, you could have had that model in paint in 11 hours. This model is close to perfect and everything a modeler could ask for. Imagine, this model could be purchased at the AMPS Internationals on Thursday, built, painted and weathered in the hotel room, and entered in the competition on Saturday, good enough to win a medal!

[Mead93]

Nice build up of the 38t looks great!! I like the honest review too!

You’re spoiling me. The 38t is my favorite armor platform. And I have a huge soft spot for half tracks!

[Armor_Buff]

@Tank_1812 Ryan, indeed, I’m almost overwhelmed with pure kit shock after the elegant Pz 38(t).

I’ll have to cheat a little by slapping Sector35 pre-assembled tracks on this beastie to speed paper panzer production.

@Uncle-Heavy , Robin, ‘Hodensack’ it is, edited…

@Arch-Stanton Al, agreed! The word does have a nice ring to it. Especially when discussing or building Dragon kits.

@CKPlasticModels Colin, thank you. The review for 38(t) really writes itself. I think you’ll be pleased with the kit if you roll the dice.

@SSGToms Matt, thank you. I think you’re on the money the Tamiya Pz 38(t) could be built one day then painted and weathered the next well enough to be in the hunt for a🏅. That could be a fun, an AMPS 'Slam-Fest Challenge!"

@Mead93 Mead, thank you, much appreciated. Me building any Dragon kit has serious comedy & disaster potential, never mind a complex halftrack with inside parts!

My last escapade with this sort of small fry was an Italeri 234/2 Puma, that had so much mold shift, sink marks and short shots - it landed in the .

Hopefully, the 251/23 goes better than that did.

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Background

FSM - Cyber Hobby 251/23 build so I know it should go together without too much hassle.

Avoiding a potential pitfalls. Floki’s Models: 251/22 building the lower hull seemed worth viewing even with it being 22 instead of a 23.

Perth Military Modelling: Intro to Cyber Hobby 251/23 jokes aside, the Dragon kit isn’t exactly like the Cyber-Hobby one. No metal main gun barrel etc.

Off to the races… looks just as nicely molded as Dragon’s 2002 era Panther D…

…that’s all I’ve got for now, so I’ll go away…

[Uncle-Heavy]

My favourite German expression is: verarschen

verarschen - English translation in English - Langenscheidt dictionary...

Wollen Sie mich verarschen? Are you trying to make a fool of me?
Sie haben mich glatt verarscht. They made a fool of me.

[Armor_Buff]

Checked Scalemates, saw Dragon released the base 251 C/D kits in 2003/2004. That surprised me as the molding looked 1990’s Dragon, soft and not crisp.

Perhaps that’s the price of waiting for the re-pop. I noticed this with the suspension parts and would guess those molds have see the most action.

Step 1 - no issues, clock work, solid instructions

Step 2 - no issues, clock work, solid instructions.

Care should be taken to ensure the swing arms aline correctly. The fit is decent. Checked both sides straight edge and sides relative to each other. This one will go ground work so not overly worried.

Happy modeling day!

Kit Re-pop Celebration

I decided to break my long standing rule of no beverages of any sort on the work bench.

[justsendit]

Beer and glue and cutters, oh my!

[SSGToms]

Friends don’t let friends build drunk.

[barkingdigger]

@Armor_Buff

Why all the underside work? Just old habits from back in the day for combating this sort of thing.

I find a swift punch to the gut puts a stop to this sort of nonsense!

Just saw this thread - that’s a fine 38 build you have there. The Skoda 38 was a cut above everything ese in its class at the time, and it was a pity the rapid arms-race leading to King Tigers etc made it obsolete so quickly. Is it a completely new tool? I know Tamiya has reboxed Italeri kits in the past…

[Armor_Buff]

Thank you, Tom. The kit shines with It’s Tamiya excellence practically right out of the box.

One should get him to put the model tank down first with an offering of a warm jelly donut…if that didn’t work, bring out the big guns, offer a bucket of KFC, that’ll do the trick for sure…wink.

@barkingdigger

Is it a completely new tool?

Yes, completely new tool by Tamiya from 2019. It has a couple of different box arts.

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@SSGToms Matt, I kept thinking about this…

@SSGToms

you were home, or had the cordless airbrush with you, you could have had that model in paint in 11 hours.

I have the cordless airbrush with me but not suitable paint. Decided to fix the problem like the US Government likes to fix many problems…by buying more of something that really isn’t needed.

Just dropped a fat paint order to Spruebrothers.com so hopefully in a few days lacquer fumes will be released outside testing that airbrush with some Mr Paint RAL colors.

[SSGToms]

Excellent!

[Armor_Buff]

Most of today was focused on one of the other “hobbies”, helping mom prep for “Sunday Dinner”.

Made a Spanish Basque style/inspired Burnt Cheese Cake for her based on Brian Langerstrom’s YouTube How to Video Brian is the NightShift of YouTube cooking in my opinion.

Last picture is quality control testing…

Anyway, didn’t have much Dragon time today wrapped Steps 3 & 4

[tankerken]

@Armor_Buff

Last picture is quality control testing…

That does look good!
Ken