Tamiya Panzer IIAusf. F/G

[Jeep]

This is one of Tamiya older kits but since my airbrush compressor is on the fritz I wanted to knock out another quick build. I must say this is one of the WORSE kit I have built in a long time, it was pretty disappointing and not up to the standards I expected from Tamiya! I had issues through out this build and it is such a simple kit. When I started I was actually thinking that if I added a spot of glue put the top back on it and gave it a shack it would come out assembled. Wrong, this thing is a pig, I had major fit issues, warped and misinformed parts, injector pin marks badly fitting parts and even thin plastic in the injection molded parts. This is in addition to the heavy molding and poor details. Oh well another challenge.



I started with boiling some water and tried to minimize the twist in the upper hull and lower hull parts, then I filled the thin parts of the badly injected plastic, I also took the time to perversely thin the over thick fenders with a dremel,



I filled the sponson bottoms and some of the other holes including those for the motorization with plastic card. I also ended up filling and even replacing some of the storage boxes with more card as there was no fixing them with simple heat.



The upper and lower hull fit together very poorly, I ended up filling and filing until I got it close, boiled the plastic to make it a little pliable the super glued together with clamps. I also had issues with the fit of the lower turret and the hull top, this also required a lot of surgery with files and dremel to get parts to match up.



I finally got to the rubberband tracks and they are 1/3 of the total length to short. Sigh this really took the wind out of the build. I am not sure that I want to super detail it at this point.





So at this point my choices are to super detail it or not. buy some after market tracks or not, which I can't afford right now since I don't have a income right now. or build a blown up tank.

 

[wyoroy]

Jeep, I built the same tank last year. I filled in the bottom like you did but I didn't have the warped parts like yours. My tracks were short short but nothing like yours.

Here's how mine turned out.

http://www.scalemodeladdict.com/index.php/topic,4744.msg68765.html#msg68765

 

[JohnSimmons]

It looks great, don't give up the fight now you've almost beaten it!

 

[Jeep]

I decided to keep going and see what I can make of it even though I am not happy with how the warping in the hull top looks, such as life. I found some good references of panzer twos in panzerwrecks #3 and #11. so once again another wrecked and abandoned armor project. They are kind of addiction,



I started off with two coats of enamel military brown spray paint. I let that dry overnight and started this afternoon with a wet coat of burnt umber oilpaint and a base of burnt umber pigments. then added somebrown oil iron oxide and burnt sienna pigments to vary tones a little.





Notice that the rubber tire has been cut off the center road wheel to help represent burning out. I also heated up the fenders with a candle and bent them with my fingers . I also thinned down the sides of the upper haul from the inside with a dremel tool, once the hauls half were glued together I poked a hole though to represent a anti tank gun hit through the side of the tank.

 

[Jeep]

the advantage of making a abandoned tank is the way to short rubber tracks are not a problem.

 

[wyoroy]

I love the weathered rust look.

 

[Jeep]

I laid down a coat of hairspray, waited a little while I sprayed two coats of model air desert yellow. Fifteen minutes latter I started chipping. Once the chipping was finished I started with a filter and oil paint washes. I then started with wet effect and rust streaking that blending all the layers together, I also applied a very thin mud wash over the running gear. I am undecided whether or not to continue with some must or not. Comments?