Amusing Hobby 1/35 Lowe

[hummingbird]

Ok, I admit I maybe have a minor ADHD problem.. I'm building a dragon Dicker Max, 90% finished and my attention shift to this one which I got as a birthday treat for myself. I really can't stop myself from opening this and building this.

Anyway, lets get down to business. This is the Amusing Hobby 1/35 Lowe. I'm pretty sure most people know about it. Its a relatively new company that has only released 4 kits in total. TBH, I only knew about the existence of the Lowe after playing World Of Tanks and I have been impressed with the tank since then. What's worse, I saw Łukasz Orczyc-Musiałek's Lowe on the April issue of Military Modelcraft International and I just had to buy this.

This is what I get in the box-


For a new company, the moulding standard is quite high, granted it is not as high as Dragon or Tamiya but definitely on par with the likes of HobbyBoss and Trumpeter.

Some more of the spure shots - Sorry about the quality, I was at work -


I started-off with filling in the little holes where the end of the torsion bar of the suspension will go into -


But then, I deviated from the instructions and went ahead and build the turret and the mantlet -


The Turret is quite big even without the gun. Here's a shot with the Gun -


For a WW2 era tank, the turret is quite big. I took a comparison shot with my hand ( FYI, I have pretty big hands for an asian LOL )


The gun comes with two choice of muzzle brakes - the Perforated ones like the one on the 12.8cm Pak44 and the Germanic ( lets just call it that ) traditional brakes that one could see on the 88 or the 75. Obviously, I choose the much cooler looking one, the perforated one of course. However, The perforations came closed so I had to drill them out one by one. It was tricky but not hard and definitely worth it.


With that done, I was satisfied with the turret for the time being and moved over to other process. I started cutting off the torsion bars so that I can pot in the suspension system.
Here is the bars laid out for one side -


The torsion bars go on like so -

They made it so that the end of the bars just ''click'' into the receiving end, which was pretty cool, in my opinion.

From the outside, it looked like this -


Well that's it for this update. I'm really excited to be building this. There's something about this kit and the vehicle that just attracts me. Anyway, Thanks for looking and for the support as always and stay tuned for more.

 

[rookie]

Watching with interest, I have read a lot of good things about these kits. Looks nice so far

 

[hummingbird]

Watching with interest, I have read a lot of good things about these kits. Looks nice so far

Thanks. I will keep you updated.

 

[wbill76]

Definitely a big vehicle and one of the cooler looking 'paper panzers' IMHO. Will follow your progress with interest, off to a good start so far.

 

[Big-John]

Nice looking kit! Don't fret about the ADHD problem. happens to me more often than not!

 

[hummingbird]

Hey guy. Sorry for the wait. Lets pick up where we left off from the first update.

As you recall, I was putting on the suspensions. I followed up the suspension assembly with the wheels on the arms -


The instruction calls for putting in the inner wheels first ( naturally ) so I went ahead with that.

This is what I get after I put on both layer of wheels. A word of advice if you are building this, make sure all the wheels are aligned. The suspension are kinda fiddly and tend to make the wheels go off-aligned.


And this is what the suspension can do -

Be careful though as there are quite a lot of torsion stress and too much playing around will brake up the torsion bars. I almost broke one.

And as you can see from that photo, I put on the whole lower part together and applied some tamiya putty to rough up the surfaces. The Engine deck actually comes as a separate piece but the engineering behind it is quite good that gluing the deck on on the hull was just smooth and took only bare minutes.

Here is how the whole lower part looks -




For some reason, they made the front armour slab a separate piece off the hull. Unfortunately, mine was a little bit wrapped and gluing it on was a little bit tricky for me. And again, as you can see, I put texture on the front and sides of the hull as some research lead me to conclude that late in the war, the german war industry was re-cycling the metals so the quality of the metal surfaces and won't be as smooth as the texture on the , say, tigers or KT.

Here is a comparison shot with the King Tiger if anybody is wondering how big this thing is -


I also rough up the turret considerably. The kit comes with well-made casting texture but these details are a little bit soft so I decided to put in more texture.


I decided to put on the things I need to put on the engine deck. The engine hatch, hooks, filters cups, PE mesh so on so forth -

I opted to used the far superior Voyager Etch rather than the use the kit supplied etch.

I put on the Exhaust as well and also managed ( with great difficulty ) to put on the jack rack and the jack.


A bit more closer view of the jack ( I hate Voyager. So complicated. What could be done with one piece for Eduard takes like 3-4 pieces with Voyager)


I decided to deviate a bit and start making the tracks. Did I mention that tracks are workable? The tracks seems to be made by modelkasten ( a view some of the modellers who already build this commonly share but nothing solid ) and they are a bit delicated but function perfectly.
I only manged to put on a few yet. I have to put on 102 per side -


Well, that's it for this update. Hope you guys enjoy this. The usual, comments, feedback, suggestion and advices are welcomed.

Stay Tuned for more.

 

[hummingbird]

Hey guys. Thanks for sticking with me on this. I'm pushing myself to pick up the pace on this one. Lets start from where we left off last time -

I was talking about the tracks. Lets deviate from that for a while as I decided to put on the PE parts from Voyager.
First thing I put on was those little hatch-lock-thingy. I had to cut off the moulded one and glue on the PE parts -


I then went about putting the two head lights ( I have to admit, I am impressed by the moulded on cables ) and a little rectangle block to close what I think is a pistol hole. I also decided to lose the letter box vision hatch. Knowing myself, I will break it and lose it if I left it open. LOL.


Followed up by a little ring of some sort that is supposed to go under the air-filter cap -


Manged to put in, with some difficulty, the chain and the close defence weapon port plug


I put on the periscopes for the driver and radio operate after ward -


Followed by the visor for the Loader. I had to fashion a Scratch-built periscope cover as I have seen to lost it somehow.


Now, lets get back to the tracks. Here is a pic that I test fitted. I have only put on 100 at this point.


And here's the dry-fitted track, a total of 102 links as per the instructions -


Now here comes a major modification to the kit I made. As you can see from the photos above, the commander cupola and hatch sits directly on the same axis of the gun. If I think I know about tanks, that would be directly behind the breech. For a 10.5cm gun in L/71 Calibre, the breech would be huge and if the commander is sitting there, he would have become pancake with the first shot. Not to mention, the loader would have a hard time, loaing as well, with the commander in the way, well, sort of. These may or may not be true as this is a paper-panzer and we will never know but I will let logic dictate on this one and I just went ahead without looking back. So, the most sensible thing to do here is the move the cupola to the left of the turret. Here is a picture of it -

Its quite faith but I even put in a weld seam around the bottom edge of the cupola.

As you can see, the turret is in the base colour, Olive Green. After the cupola modification, the turret was more or less finished so I went ahead and base coated it. While doing so, I went ahead and paint the wheels and the lower chassis in anticipation of the easier track painting and installation.

This is the left side and there, you can see Red-Brown patches on the outer wheels and Dark-Yellow patches on the inner. The right side is paint the other way around, Dark-yellow on the outside and Red-brown on the inside. Just wanted to do something different.

Well, that's it for this update folks. Thank you all for the kind comments I have been getting and thank you for viewing my work and being supportive. Stay Tuned for more.

 

[wbill76]

Nice work texturing this one. The relocation on the commander's cupola is a nice touch and makes sense from a logic standpoint. Tracks are looking good as well.

 

[CallSignOWL]

neato

 

[geegad]

like what you've done with the texture bang on buddy

 

[hummingbird]

Thanks for the comments guys ..... Still working on this guy ... will keep you guys updated

 

[hummingbird]

Alright Gentleman.. time for an update. I do apologize for the delay between the updates as I was applying for masters and had to spend a lot of time discussing things with my parents. Dramas after dramas, oy vey... u know, asian parents ....

Anyway, lets carrry on with the wip -
The voyager instructrions calls for 2 different option, one where the tools are attached directly on the hull and the other where there is some kind of layout (I don't know what its called. Its also seen on the panthers as well). I chose to go with the latter options as I don't really enjoy seeing the tools just stuck on the hull.
This is the right side -




and this is the left -




Followed by the gun-cleaning-rods and the tow cable -
Right side -

I chose to omit the two cable on the left side -


The Jack block and its clamps


Following all these, I made the fenders. The kit supplied fenders are rather plain and lacking in details and I wasn't particualy motivated to use them so I decided to use the voyager fenders. It wasn't easy making them and many a time, curses flew around the air then I would like to admit but I managed to pull through.
This is the Rear fenders -

Sorry about the flash. Couldn't find a way to take better picture.

This is the front fenders-


I also bought a few extra items to add to improve the visual interest. First of all was this item -


I haven't build these yet but they are plastic and the casting quality seems to be top-notch.
I also bought a box of tamiya figure-


which I will try to place them like so -


Still deciding on the final places for the crew to stand on though.

I manged to invest some time in painting and finished painting all over the entire vehicle. I been mixing my own shade of olive green, redbrown and dark yellow that this time, I decided to use straight from Tamiya instead of mixing my own shade. I have finished the panther and tigers I and II in dark yellow base and to be different, I used olive green as base this time.









Some close ups on the tools and the Jack Block -






I can't decide if I should paint the hatchet, wire-cutter and shovel in metallic colours with chipping or keep them like this now.Anyway, that would be a decision for another day.

Well, that's it for this update folks. Hope I don't bore you out with too many words.

See you all next update.

 

[EHOG]

I would expect black tool parts with metalic chiping from what I know of military issued recovery tools.
The build looks great either way!

 

[hummingbird]

Alright Gentleman.. time for an update. I do apologize for the delay between the updates as I was distracted by the Dicker Max, the tiger, the t-90 and many other family problems.

I'm terribly sorry to leave you all hanging, IF you guys are looking forward to it. Let's get on with the update.

Last time, I stopped at the question if I should paint the tools in metallic colours. Well, I decided for it and I went ahead and painted them in a dark grey-ish metallic.









As you can see from these pictures, I have also painted the turret, chipped and applied the decals.











As you can see from the turret front photo, I applied the barrel in grey. I read ( AND suggested ) that late war German tanks were applied in some kind of heat resistant lacquer which is a grey ( or dark grey ) colour. Having no idea what shade of grey exactly it is, I just went ahead a spray a grey I saw in front of me.

The turret was suggested by my sister. Like the Chinese, we Burmese believe in numbers as well. I was going to pick a number ( I forgot which exactly ) that has some kind of connection with death and she said no and suggested me to pick '' 3 7 9 '' and I went with it.

I have also finished painting the crew figures. Due to the bad lighting, I took two pictures ( with and without flash ) for each figure -
Here is the commander -




I made him a loader as I will be putting him next to the loader hatch -





This is the gunner -




I don't know what he would be -





And I don't what is he either but he's a grumpy guy, that's no doubt LOL -





and remember I bought a box of Great Wall hobby IR device? Here is how it look out of the box -



The box provided two options on how to put on the IR device AND provide enough parts to make two as well. I build two out of the box and scavenged the commander's IR device of the Trumpeter E-100 for the third one. Here they are -



Here's the Driver IR device -



This is the Gunner's device -


And this is the Commander's -


I still need to build a little hub for the wire and video feed ( if any ) to go into. I will do it later. I'm tired for now.

I also rusted up the exhaust -






And here is how it looks minus the crew -





Oh yeah, I also put on spilled fuel and oil stains on the wheels, the engine deck and other moving parts like the hatch. I forgot to take pictures of that. I will just show them on the finished product.

Well, that's it for now. I have bought Panzer Divisions decals and waiting for it before I finish this. I'm planning to put on the markings of the famous division my favourite general commended - The Ghost Division. Wish me luck with my research.