Tuesday, December 1, 2015

More Rubicon WIP

Well, I have nearly finished the Panzer III, the hole I made on the glacis between the ventilator and the track guard still needs to be filled.
 The white crate is made from layers of Evergreen plastic strip to simulate planks, with a top surface of thin strip. Microstrip makes the reinforcements, and thin microstrip makes the straps. There are fill issues with the HO scale boxes, so I have filled them with Milliput.

Next is the Crusader III tank. Most of the body has been completed, though I have to add the front lights and bend up the guards from wire (a jig is supplied in the kit). The rear fuel tank is proving a problem as there are no fixing points (I might have shaved the locating points from the fuel tank when cleaning it up).
 I do need to add stowage, as the Desert Rats used German jerry cans, I will use the ones from the German Stowage set.

The last Rubicon kit I am assembling is a T34-85 tank. I started assembling the tank just before visiting the Imperial War Museum (IWM). The shape of the turret of the tank at the IWM is different to that of the Rubicon model, the model is not wrong, it is just a different version of the long lived tank. I have modified the profile and added the bulge to house the electric turret traverse motor.
This is going to be a Post-War Central Europe example, so it needs the reflector under the tank, I have modified the tanks to have the forward filler caps and some additional boxes. On the glacis I will add the brackets and the splash board. The mounting points for the smoke canister at the back needs to be removed.