Panzer IV ausf. H, 1/35 scale

This is a build that I restarted back in January 2023 at almost this same time! It was a build I’d started before I took a bit of a hiatus from building, but also my first full kit build in retirement; I’d retired the previous March and it took me unti the start of the next year to get back to model building. A right out of the box build, It saw a flurry of work trying to make a deadline as a donation for a wargaming tournament prize, but I just couldn’t;t make that date, so it went in slow build mode as I had a bunch of miniature wargame minis to build for a game I’ve under design.

Kit number, N-218, being marked with the older company logo of Italaerei, this is a kit made around 1975, and time will tell how well the parts fit will be. Oddly enough, the company is still selling this very kit to this very day! There is also a retool, I’ve heard; and I have a much newer kit from another manufacturer, but this is a good practice kit for that. I intend to build her with a Winter camo, probably chipped paint. It comes with figures, but we’ll see how good and adaptable they are to a Winter scene.

OK, sorry for the edit…I now have the hang on how to insert an attachment picture, lol. Note that a lot of the pics you see aren’t the best cleaned up images, lighting-wise…I used to use Photoshop Elements to clean my pictures up but I need to get it up and running on my new computer.

Roadwheels!

…for me, never fun, but usually the first starting point on a tank build.



After snipping them from the sprue, the first step was to trim off the plastic nubs from where they were attached to the sprue, with a #11 blade craft knife; cleaned the flash on the wheels with a sanding stick. I just get into my Zen Zone and go at it! 

I placed them, pre-sanding, into the tank hull pan (is that the term… or chassis?) just to keep them handy and safe from inadvertent spilling… then split them into two piles for the different sides of attachment onto the transmission suspension (…I wish I knew tank parts like so many other fellas do…I feel like a bit of a dolt, haha).



Fairly decent instructions provided with the kit. The road wheels use the old heated screwdriver tip method… not a fan! I’m not even sure why it’s done, but then again, I didn’t really look too hard, yet …we’ll see how I approach that later 

A couple hours of work continued with the Pz. IV with suspension work, attaching the eight spring suspension units to the tub. Cutting these off the sprue was a hassle, as the plastic is old hard, brittle plastic and sharp-eyed folks may notice a couple missing ends on one side of this crate. Ugh. Well, nothing a generous amount of mud can't hide in the end, right! The units went on fair enough, but I should have dry fitted the suspension road wheels on to let dry in an even, flat-ground pattern...ooops...needed to tweak a couple susension units after it dried, which was a little hairy, but nothing broken. I also mounted the rear of the tub, and the rear idler spindles.







So yeah, you will likely note right off the bat that, I put the leaf springs on backwards! So, full transparency… I made a lot of mistakes on this kit along the way, as you will see in future posts. I was moving too quickly through the build, but I take some comfort in the fact that it wasn’t all me, but rather some sketch manual instructions/graphics. You know…it doesn’t really matter to me though, because I’m building! …and I can hide mistakes real well, haha.

So at this stage, it was a couple months later, into March 2023, and I found myself splitting my time between two kits (also have a P51-D Mustang in the works), as well as design on that game mentioned earlier… a Vietnam War miniatures wargame. So first big news came in m y modeling career… I became a Tamiya Extra-Thin convert! OMG, this stuff is gold! Game changer.

Started with two L-shaped holders that secure a big-assed cable to the rear of the tank. I was holding the first one with angled tweezers when, Phwiiiing! …popped out and I feared was gone forever. I mean this piece was tiiiiiiny! Unbelievably, I found it on the bench! They’re both on the tank now… the cable cracked in one spot, but I was able to rejoin it with glue. Next, the muffler and a small side unit went on.

 

Next was, attaching two sides of the upper hull… man, I love me my Tamiya Extra-Thin! My hands aren’t as rock steady as they’d once been, not that I’m feeble or anything, ha, but dexterity is a little weaker, and I have a left thumb that doesn’t behave properly when pinching with my index finger — the Tamiya glue is a lot easier to maneuver than the pipette on my old Model Master brand (which I can’t find, anyway).

 

I was lucky with that particular part, especially where it was maybe 3/26th of an inch, the width of Angel hair spaghetti! I’ve not been as lucky hunting down the outer wheel hatch for one side of my P51D Mustang! …I’ll  either have to consider leaving the model without it, or fashion a makeshift one; I have thought about making the bird a wounded crate, with some bullet holes, hahaha.

On the TET… yeah, it’s amazing stuff indeed! I did try to get some of the Tamiya Airbrush Cleaner but Amazon’s been out of stock on it… it’s basically the same stuff as is in the small jar.

Next up was spending a couple hours assembling road wheels and a persnickety tow cable (very delicate cable hooks, where one broke off…ugh…got it back on). Lots of sprue connectors and flash to clean up… these older kits can be a real pain! Yeah, I was kinda devastated over the errors with the suspension but, mud and snow will be covering much of the underside of the tank and will hide some of my faux pas!

 

…used an old trick, having used a Sharpie marker on some of the road wheels, until I realized, I’ll be priming and painting later, so I stopped where you see them done. I’ll be honest, there are some hiccups in my restart back into building… not paying close enough attention to instructions… shaking off rust from my building chops; some of that is to be expected but, I need to up my game soon. I know that sounds a bit harsh on myself, but I generally hold myself to high standards, including my hobbies.

 

Cut and cleaned up upper road wheel attachment parts

 

Everything went together fairly well… the instructions weren’t real clear on a couple things and had to back track a bit but, overall everything went together well.

 

Yeah, a road wheel fell off, but reattached afterward I took the pic below

 

So it was coming along, getting more and more back into the swing of things!

My workbench area is located ion my furnace room, with a fantastic bench, itself! But it’s a mess! I try to spend a few minutes every time I do a session at the workbench to go through some of the piles of stuff that has amassed itself in the area after a couple home renovation projects and two water damage events last year… had to hurriedly move stuff somewhere, and my work area seemed to take part of the brunt. I’ve also been moving gear and purchases into the general area for reorganization and storage.

 

Aaaaanyways, the drive sprockets and idler wheels went on nicely… all components needed trim and sanding, but luckily, this kit doesn’t seem to have a lot of sink marks. I’m loving the new Tamiya Extra-Thin!!! Have I mentioned that? LOL …though I still find I need the Model Master pipette delivered glue for certain parts, but that has only been about 2% of my usage, so I would say I’m a TETc convert!

The tow cable came out pretty good… as you may recall, one of the hooks broke off, and I was lucky to salvage the situation! I wasn’t planning to put the cable on at this early stage but, the decision was made for me!

 

Next up was some of the most fiddly work I’ve had on this kit so far… the front sides were persnickety to get in place, with some tricky dry fitting to get placement correct…this is where the TETc is far superior to what I’d used previously, as I was able to tack a corner in place, adjust grip and hold, and then glue the rest. Brilliant stuff, this glue! There are a few gaps that will need tending to later… nothing due to misplacement of earlier parts, but rather errors in manufacturing (it’s an old kit!). 

The front plate assembly set my mind at ease, on initial worry upon restarting my building endeavors, that my dexterity had suffered too much over the years (I especially have a bit of a wonky and rebellious left thumb, with suffered strength issues, likely for all the computer typing done over the years of working)… I can confident say that though I’m not as sure handed (or fingered, as the case may be) as I used to be, I can still pick a lock if I need to!

The machine gun setup is a gem…the best of any armor kit I’ve ever worked in! Set in a true ball mount assembly, the end result is that of a MG that is movable! Pretty sweet!!! Though now that I think of it, I better paint that sucker before I seal the hull up!!!

 

 

Finally got to the workbench again by this point in July 2023! …having been sidelined by sciatica for a month and a half! I was only able to get a couple hours in, but it was nice to be back in the soup. Started work on the turret and was proud to have it completed. The instructions were pretty horrific for this section, and a little guesswork was needed to figure out what wasn’t written or shown put together, but I managed! I started with the upper superstructure of the turret. With the bottom ring and mantlet aside. The hatches went on pretty smoothly, though there’s not a lot of wiggle room. The rear equipment storage area (not sure what it’s name is) was hell to attach, as there are just a few small attachment points and it’s looked pretty precarious, but ended up holding secure this far!

 

There’s a couple hooks behind the cupola,Mon the back side that was super tricky! …incredibly small hooks that were tough ti position. I did loose one of about six, I think, but I considered myself lucky to finally get those two attached!

Upper cupola and hatch, ports went in pretty easily. The gun loader unit did also, but the instructions didn’t really give a good indication how to seat it inside, so it was a dry fit trial and error where I deduced how it “sits”. Again, the instructions aren’t vet specific and it was tricky to get the two rings seated properly with no guide pins or slots to help. The picture in instructions really didn’t give great indication of placement of the notches in each ring, but it looks about where I think they go.

 

The mantlet was a challenge, as there wasn’t a lot of surface to seat it, but some nimble finger work got it on the base ring unit.

 

 

Ahhhh, so now, boys and gurls, we get to Moral of the Story time! The moral is, READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!!! Sorry for yelling there haha. This post show what not to do… I assembled the gun totally wrong. I was wondering why the front of the gun loader barely has contact areas ti glue to the inner assembly of the mantlet area, but I managed after some tricky finger gripping.

 

I’d put the bottom and top of the turret together and thought the fit was pretty flawless for the most part…some gaps were able to be overcome quickly and the gun barrel went in smoothly.

 

 

 

 

 

For those eagle eyed modelers out there, I had the mantlet installed incorrectly… it was glued inside the turret! Oopers.The instructions were confusing and now that it was pointed out, I definitely wanted to fix it!!!
 

…speaking of, thankfully, the turret itself is held in place with a screw-on/tabbed securing deign, so I was able to attempt a fix even had I sealed the upper deck and lower chassis… but not having done that yet, it made a simpler disassembly. I gently twisted back and forth on the incorrect gun connection area inside the turret, accessed from the bottom and was able to get the whole gun out in one piece. It had plenty of room to slip the entire thing right out.

 

….but of course, the mantlet couldn’t possibly fit through from the inside, not the base of the gun from the outside, as you can see above so, there really was no graceful way to separate the barrel and mantlet other than to break it off the base of the gun barrel serving as a kind of pin. Snap, it went, but cleanly.

 

So, there was no way to make a good join without pinning it so, the solution was some sprue…

 

…I cleaned out the hole on the inner side of the mantlet and the original gun barrel end. Then, I snipped a piece of sprue. Next., using a pair of mini channel lock pliers, I held one end of the sprue pin like a vice and used a craft knife 11-blade to whittle the end that would go in base of what was the barrel end (now, being a small tube, in essence). I glued the in-whittled end into the back of the mantlet, then the whittled end went in the other end… glue applied and held the joined areas together. After the glue set a little, I propped the whole turret up to cure over night.