Sturmgeschutz III ausf G.

[Badder]

This won't be a full WIP, more of a 'mostly built and painting in progress'.

When I first started model-making in my early teens (late 70's) I was purely into Tamiya. There really was no better. Then life got in the way and model-making ceased for 35yrs. So imagine my surprise when I took to model-making again, joined this site, and found that Tamiya were no longer the be-all-and-end-all in model-making. 

I nevertheless stuck with what I knew and proceeded to get back into the swing of things with several Tamiya kits, all of which were around back in the day.

 

So, it was with some trepidation that I made my first foray into kits other than Tamiya. I had in fact been tempted to part with my cash by Dragon's StuG III ausf G. I'd seen some Dragon kits on BM and they looked quite good to me. Still, it felt like a gamble. And so it proved to be. What I HADN'T realised until I got home and opened the box, was that this particular kit had been sitting on the shop shelf (requiring a step ladder to reach) for 21 yrs. (Dragon's 'Imperial Series'...1995)

 

To say that some of the tooling was poor is an understatement. Locating pins on wheel inners and outers  don't actually locate the parts correctly and so had to be removed. This stood for ALL wheels, idlers, drive and road wheels. Not a good start. Worse still, the inner and outer wheels (for the idlers and drives) do not actually mate up correctly at all. Line up one inner tooth with an outer on the drive wheel and the rest gradually go out of synch, and similar occurs with the spokes on the idler wheels. I managed a kind of compromise with the drive wheels, where there is only the slightest disparity where it matters.. but with the idler wheels this was not possible as the spokes are in plain sight.  I basically had to glue them into 'the best of the worst' positions and then file down the spokes to hide the misalignments as best I could. They are therefore a bit messy and noticeably thinner than would otherwise be. More problems were encountered, again with locating pins/slots etc not lining up properly or being absent. 

 

The right pain in the whatsit though were the sprues. I'm used to individual sprues being marked 'a' 'b' 'c' etc. What I'm not used to though are single sprues marked with 'a' AND 'i', meaning that there were 'a' and 'i' parts on the same sprue! The same was true for 'h' and 'e' parts. I was also confused by the three 'b' sprues, one of which was completely different from the other two. And the instruction sheet... if a bunch of very ambiguous drawings can be called such, sometimes confused matters further. I find it really helpful to see the part to be fixed IN SITU. An arrow pointing vaguely to an area of the model is NOT very helpful. At least show the newly added part in the next panel? Nooooo, you'll maybe have to refer to the very final plan and side views on the last page.

 

Oh, and some of the sprues were warped, probably with age and gravity.

 

ANYHOOOOOOOOOOO... moan over.

Here's a few pics....There are some earlier pics to add, but it's way past my bedtime so I will post them later.

 

Above... pig's head roughened up with stippled poly cement and everything primed.

Above... pre-primed...replace the kit's debris grill with fine mesh material... adding damage to the debris grill... ooh and let's get rid of those mould lines on the brackets while we are at it. 

Above.... replace lost tiny part with white plasticard. Notice that the rearmost arm for holding the side skirts has a distinct bend in it (moulded that way, not damage) and that this differs from its counterpart on the other side, AND from the instruction sheet/parts diagram/photos of finished model. Soak with poly and gradually bend into a straighter shape.

Above.. skipped a few photos here, but I will find them. Base coat Dark Yellow. Camo added, Red-Brown and Dark Green. Overspray with chipping fluid, overspray with White. Rub back white with wet brush. Overspray with gloss acrylic varnish, add decals. Apply washes and pin-washes of dark brown, red brown.

 

 

TFL

Badder

Edited September 20, 2016 by Badder

[celt]

Got to love a Sturmgeschutz,nice work,like the paint job.

[FrancisGL]

NIce Project, looks good for now..., cheers Badder

[Badder]

12 hours ago, celt said:

3 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

NIce Project, looks good for now..., cheers Badder

Ha ha ha... thanks Francis for the 'looks good FOR NOW'. You are thinking that I'm going to mess it up! Yeah, you might be right. You know me too well!

Rearguards

Badder

 

12 hours ago, celt said:

12 hours ago, celt said:

Got to love a Sturmgeschutz,nice work,like the paint job.

Thanks Celt.

This is my first StuG and I have to say you're right on the love thing. StuGs do look great, what with their low profile and menacing 'pose'. They are the GT40 of AFVs!

This is my first use of chipping fluid so I never expected to get the effect spot on. Previously I've tried the 'chipping effect' just using varnish as a seal and I had mixed results and some complete disasters when the underlying paint layers were removed, exposing bare plastic!  I have to say that this  AK Heavy Chipping Fluid is pretty damned good though... much more resistant than plain old varnish. 

I will probably add some more 'whitewash' as if freshly repainted by the crew. Obviously the StuG is going to appear in a winter dio and I'm thinking the Ardennes/battle of the bulge should do nicely!

 

Rearguards,

Badder.

 

[Nick C]

Nice paint job, I did the same recently on a Tiger and it does look nice!!

[FrancisGL]

Please,  only suggest IHMO you going in the right direction, and I'm enjoying much as it is the process, if it sounded like something sarcastic, sorry, that by now, it was not my intention, EVERYONE can do something at one point that is not as we thought, but it is common with this hobby.

Best regards Badder

Edited September 20, 2016 by FrancisGL

[MikeR]

Coming along nicely that!

 

I agree that Stugs are a great subject, once you start looking there's so much variation that you can have an enormous amount of fun with them.

 

I've built three so far, two Tamiya's and a Dragon one, HERE, HERE and HERE and have two more Dragon kit's in the stash, one of which will a Sturmhaubitze with 10.5cm gun.

 

Mike.

[Badder]

3 hours ago, FrancisGL said:

Please,  only suggest IHMO you going in the right direction, and I'm enjoying much as it is the process, if it sounded like something sarcastic, sorry, that by now, it was not my intention, EVERYONE can do something at one point that is not as we thought, but it is common with this hobby.

Best regards Badder

 I was pulling your leg Francis.... I knew what you really meant.

Today I applied thinned Titanium White (Winsor and Newton's Artisan water mixable oil colour) I did this to whiten it up a bit more, to turn down the contrast and to suggest that the StuG has been whitewashed for a second time. Hopefully you will like what I've done. Don't worry though, plenty more time for me to muck it up mate!

 

Badder.

[Badder]

3 hours ago, MikeR said:

Coming along nicely that!

 

I agree that Stugs are a great subject, once you start looking there's so much variation that you can have an enormous amount of fun with them.

 

I've built three so far, two Tamiya's and a Dragon one, HERE, HERE and HERE and have two more Dragon kit's in the stash, one of which will a Sturmhaubitze with 10.5cm gun.

 

Mike.

Hi Mike.

Thanks for looking in and for the positive comment. I've had a look had a look at your 3 StuGs. Are you Finnish by any chance?  Neat and tidy jobs you've done there... and on that note I think the camo on the earliest one is absolutely superb. Really, how did you get it so neat?

 

Rearguards

Badder

[Badder]

5 hours ago, Nick Charnock said:

Nice paint job, I did the same recently on a Tiger and it does look nice!!

Cheers Nick. If your Tiger was the one appearing in the RFI recently, yeah I've seen it. Great job.

Badder.

 

[Dads203]

That's looking great Badder, the chipping fluid really makes things easier fella. 

 

Dan 

[Badder]

19 minutes ago, Dads203 said:

That's looking great Badder, the chipping fluid really makes things easier fella. 

 

Dan 

Cheers Dan.

I tried chipping on my Nashorn, using just gloss varnish as the barrier and acrylic white over the top, rubbed back with a water-dampened brush and it seemed to work well. Then I experimented with hairspray to fix bicarb 'snow and frost' over the model, but I decided I didn't like it. That's when disaster struck. I tried to wash the bicarb off with water, but the bicarb/hairspray acrylic combo reacted badly and stripped off over large areas back to the bare plastic!

This AK chipping fluid though has withstood everything I've thrown at it... amazing when you consider it has a drying-time of just minutes.

 

Badder

[Badder]

More damage to the air intake. I gave the superstructure a going over with Winsor and Newton's 'Artisan' Titanium White (Water mixable oil colour) This I thinned with water (Obviously) applied by brush. Once dry I went over specific areas again with neat white and blended it in.

 

Tracks and wheels dry-fitted.

 

 

 

Poor lighting. Looks less white here.

Another coat of gloss varnish will be applied before next stage of weathering.

TFL

 

Badder

 

 

Edited September 20, 2016 by Badder

[celt]

Nice work,Badder I look forward to the Dio.

[MikeR]

21 hours ago, Badder said:

Hi Mike.

Thanks for looking in and for the positive comment. I've had a look had a look at your 3 StuGs. Are you Finnish by any chance?  Neat and tidy jobs you've done there... and on that note I think the camo on the earliest one is absolutely superb. Really, how did you get it so neat?

 

Rearguards

Badder

 

Nope, not Finnish - British born and bred! I just have an interest in the "Small Axis" powers.

 

All three are hand painted, the oldest one very carefully!  It took some time due to what my work rota was at the time which probably helped as I didn't try to rush things.

 

Mike.

[Badder]

9 minutes ago, MikeR said:

 

Nope, not Finnish - British born and bred! I just have an interest in the "Small Axis" powers.

 

All three are hand painted, the oldest one very carefully!  It took some time due to what my work rota was at the time which probably helped as I didn't try to rush things.

 

Mike.

Well you must have a very steady hand indeed and a really nice set of brushes. If I had had to make a guess, I'd have said you spent days cutting and masking and using an airbrush. Even then, I'd be in awe of the neatness.

 

Rearguards,

Badder

[Ozzy]

I've missed this one, looking good so far. Those early dragon kits were slightly painful to build.

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Nice work.....I like the damaged area, it really adds character to the model and your whitewash is very well done indeed. 

[Badder]

3 hours ago, Ozzy said:

I've missed this one, looking good so far. Those early dragon kits were slightly painful to build.

 

3 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Nice work.....I like the damaged area, it really adds character to the model and your whitewash is very well done indeed. 

Thanks guys. In future I will endeavour to buy only recent Dragon kits,  and Sarge, good to see you're sticking with it and getting the hang of v4!  

Rearguards,

Badder

[Badder]

I popped to Hobbycraft to purchase some liquid latex and plaster of Paris, and ended up buying Tamiya's StuG IV while I was at it.

[Badder]

Lots of weathering done over the past few days. I've gone for the 'extremely weathered and battered' look. After the Titanium White filter and another coat of gloss varnish, I washed and pin washed with dark browns, brown/blacks and rust colours, concentrating the rust colours mostly around the brackets for holding the side armour plates, the hinges for the fenders front and rear, and the exhaust system. However, I've also added rust to the armour plating where it's been damaged or heavily worn and run 'rusty water' into the nooks and crannies. I boosted the most rusty areas with rust weathering powder.

Build wise, I have added the commander's cupola ring and hatch and the loader's remaining hatch, the latter left in the open position. I also filed down the aerial mounts, removing the aerial 'rubbers' completely, thus obtaining a larger flat surface, then drilled down into them in readiness for the insertion of the aerials themselves. I won't add these until the model is completed and will either use nylon bristle from a dustpan and brush set, or the carbon fibre stem sourced from one of my pole floats in my fishing tackle box.

Now I know some people don't like the 'extremely weathered and battered look', but tough. This is my first attempt at such extreme weathering, (ignoring the now deceased Nashorn which I had very nearly completed only then for me to ruin the finish, meaning that I had to strip back the entire model to the bare plastic, repainted successfully, then had the thing un-strip itself of mat varnish and paint whilst I was washing in warm water at the final stage of weathering..... a Nashorn which deservedly met solid and fatal resistance against the kitchen tap.)

This StuG will appear in a diorama at some point, but I am unsure whether to show it abandoned (and hence so rusty and battered/) or in use. Perhaps I should run a poll to see what others think?

Anyway,  here's some pics of the current state of affairs.....

 

The hole in the air intake was created by shrapnel rather than a round.

 

 

AAARRRRRRRGGGGGH! A strand of fibre!!!!! I love the detail at the rear of the StuG. Unfortunately, nearly all of this will be hidden behind another plate.

TFL

Badder

 

 

PS, did anyone notice the misplaced spare wheel? No worries, it's just dry fitted. Oh and I noticed yet another fibre!

 

Edited September 24, 2016 by Badder

[Ozzy]

Nice going Badder your weathering looks spot on, it's got a well used Russian front look about it. Maybe display during the Spring Thor, that way you could get a bit of mud on the tracks.

[FrancisGL]

NIce, looks worn out, but does not seem excessive, still can "recognize" a nice Stug, as you say there are people who do not like the weathering extreme, personally, if it prevents details are appreciated in the model, I do not like so much, and must be achieved really well to not look like a failed attempt.
Still out there, when you have the tracks ready, it will be very cool....

Cheers Badder

[Nick C]

Looks great, just right for a well worn vehicle.

 

Cheers

 

Nick

[Yeoman1942]

Looking good Badder.

 

i still struggle to think of something from 1995 being 21 years old. You are doing a cracking job bringing a kit of that age up to a modern standard