COMPLETED - Mark IV Male Heavy Tank Beute-Panzer

[Alexis]

Coming along nicely so far with the mods 




Terri

[petero]

Now that the gun shields are done, it's time to add the extra armor that was added to fill the gaps between the larger British gun shields and the smaller-diameter German shields.

The top and bottom pieces were fashioned first. They were made as full circles, to hold the rotating shields in place when all is finished.



Next, the side pieces were made and fitted. Nothing was glued yet, so everything was labeled so it would go back together properly. The gun enclosures are not symmetrical, which was something I'd never noticed before building the model.





The final detail is a sill at the top and bottom, made from rolling Evergreen strip stock and cutting to length.



These strips have to be glued to the top and bottom rings, but not to the gun shield. Tape wrapped around the inner diameter, with the sticky side out, held the strip for gluing and prevented any glue from reaching the shield.



Rivets were punched out of 0.010" sheet and glued in a plausible pattern, final fettling was done, and everything was glued in place. After the glue had dried, the top and bottom rings were cut to allow the guns to be removed. The upper rings will be reassembled later, to hold the tops of the shields in position as they rotate.









That's it for now. Thanks for watching!

Peter

[RAGIII]

Awesome work on the mounts and shields. Very Impressive!
RAGIII

[Juan]

Your mods look great, cannot wait to see more.

[Rob_Owens]

That is one BEAUTIFUL piece of model engineering!

[petero]

Thanks for the kind words, Gents!

With the new guns completed, it's time to mount them. The poly caps on the bases of the gun mounts don't hold the guns very securely, leaving them free to wobble around when the guns are trained, and potentially work loose and fall back into the sponsons. The new gun shields were made tall enough to reach the top plates of the sponsons, to prevent the guns from riding up on the poly caps. Now they need to be restrained from tipping backwards. The circles for the top and bottom added armor, which had to be cut to remove the guns in the last update, have been re-glued in place. Now the guns are held securely, but can still be trained and elevated.



Fortunately all that ugly stuff will be invisible on the finished model. If I'd started with Meng's Mk.V with full interior, I'd be in trouble!

Here are the sponsons all closed up, ready to stick onto the sides of the hull.



I'm certainly glad to have the gun modifications behind me! It was a simple task to attach the sponsons to the hull, being careful to get them on the correct sides.







Hey, it looks like a tank now! With the gun work done, I finally feel like I'll finish it. It's off to the paint shop next. Thanks for looking!

Peter

[RAGIII]

Looing Amazing! Can't wait to see some paint on this one!
RAGIII

[Manni]

Cool work! The modifications are superb done! Lokking forward to your next steps.
Bye,
Manni

[kensar]

Great engineering on the gun mounts.  Will they be movable?

[Juan]

Outstanding Peter, looking forward to you laying down paint.   

[lone modeller]

That is a really neat piece of modification. Nobody would know that you have done it if they do not know of the kit and see it for the first tiem.

Stephen.

[petero]

Great engineering on the gun mounts.  Will they be movable?

Thanks! To answer your question...





Peter

[Alexis]

Peter , she looks fantastic so far ! Great job on the gun mods 



Terri

[petero]

Thanks to everyone for the kind remarks. My paint booth and vents have been set up, so it's time for a bit of airbrushing. The last airbrushing I did was in March of last year, just before my workshop was packed up to move. Hopefully I'll remember which end of the airbrush to hold on to and not squirt myself in the eye 





The treads were airbrushed Tamiya Red Brown, and the tank is Tamiya Field Grey. I didn't try for even coverage, since these base colors will be thoroughly covered, weathered, washed and mudded before it's done. As long as the plastic was covered, that was close enough. The camo will be random blotches of beige, red-brown and green in roughly equal amounts overall.

On an irritating note, Photobucket has changed their terms of service for free accounts yet again, so it looks like my previous images will be shown fuzzy once I've exceeded some minuscule amount of bandwidth each month  . Rather than giving in to their extortion, I've switched to Imgur. I'll reload the images as I get the chance, from newest to oldest. If there's a particular image you want to see, just tell me which reply  number it's in, and I'll get to it sooner.

Peter

[kensar]

This build is really cool.