Tamiya Sd.Kfz.7 almost OOB

[cliffj (R.I.P.)]

Needed something easy to help my mojo along and with taking care of the wife nothing too complicated. I've had this in the stash for a LONG time and decided it was the build I needed. I say almost OOB because I do not like rubber band tracks (especially Tamiya) on German armor. They just don't look right so I went with Friul tracks with sprockets. I would have gotten Modelkasten but no one had them in stock. I got them from ScaleHobbyist for $37 and change S/H included.

[BUCKY]

Allright!!!! A half track! I'm here for this one!!

[JCON]

The 8 Tons are cool!!!

[JEFF]

There you go, Cliff. Nice pick, Dude. Gotta love Scalehobbyist.

[Robbo]

I'm in before it starts for a change

[JCON]

Ya made it Ian, here you go pull up a chair with us!!!

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Count me in Cliff.

[tony]

Me Too

[Deleted]

Nice I'll pull up a chair for this too

[BUCKY]

We need more chairs, Joe!!!

[JCON]

How's that buddy???

[cliffj (R.I.P.)]

Thursday Judy's son and daughter took care of her all day so I could get a break and have some time to myself. So I started the Sd.Kfz.7 and after 5 hours I got most of the assembly done and into the paint booth for German red primer...













Had problems with the Friul tracks that I will rant about tomorrow.Right now I'm tired and it's off to bed.

[BUCKY]

Very smooth primering, Cliff!

[Deleted]

nice clean build there looks smashing

[dogfish7 (R.I.P.)]

Nice progress Cliff.

[cliffj (R.I.P.)]

Thanks all!  Last night I got the Panzer Gray on and tomorrow I should be able to get the Afrika Grunbraun and Khakibraun on.

Now for my Friul rant.  The 5 hours I spent building didn't include the 2-3 hours I spent trying to get the Friuls to work. I got the drive sprockets together and noticed that they were sloppy on the Tamiya axles and stuck out too far. I decided to get the road wheels done as per Friuls instructions which meant surgery on them cause the new tracks weren't as wide as the Tamiya tracks and they had to be narrowed. Well after doing that the wheels were so tight they wouldn't rotate and were still too wide even then. I'm glad I didn't shorten the drive axle or I would have had the whole wheel and track assembly junk. As it is the road wheels are useless to me now cause there is no fixing them. What to do? I proceded to spend an hour searching the internet for a Modelkasten set but everywhere I looked they were "Out of Stock". Finally I just Googled 'Modelkasten Sd.Kfz.7 tracks for sale' and out of all the sites listed only one had them,BNA ModelWork in Australia. He had one set left and I jumped on them like stink on poo-poo. This set comes with tracks,drive sprockets and road wheels so everything should fit and I've never had problems with MK. I've only done one other set of FRiuls and wasn't really impressed with them. The new tracks should be here next week.

BTW - a new set of Friul ATL-24 tracks are for sale.

[JEFF]

Wow, Cliff. What a mess. That sucks. I'm glad to hear you found a set that will work. Guess I've been lucky with the Friuls I've done.

[JCON]

Looking good to me!!!

[cliffj (R.I.P.)]

Got the coat of Afrika Grunbraun applied over the base of Panzer Gray and decided not to use the Khakibraun.  I will have the Pz Gray showing through the Grunbraun by dry brushing. Since I use enamels, the chipping fluids and hairspray won't work to do this. It's the method I used on the kubelwagon. And before you ask "Why didn't you compleately spray the frame and other goodies attached to it?" this is why. When the Afrika Korps got to Africa Rommel wanted to go on the offensive right away. Most of the equipment was Pz Gray on arrival so it got painted in the new camo color whenever the maintenance crews had time. With time being short the crews painted all that could be seen easily and didn't worry about what was under the vehicles too much. They didn't want to keep Rommel waiting on equipment because every square inch had to be painted .













Next up weathering and hopefully tracks.

[JCON]

I like it!!! Well done brother!!!