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Academy 1/35 Hetzer (early)


J.D.

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Making a fair bit of progress with this, my first model in about 5 years. I find armour a sod of a lot easier than aircraft. The finish is less demanding and the parts less fiddly for my shaky hands. First two were taken straight after the initial painting and chipping was done. The others are at 90% complete. The whole idea was to do something "straight out of the box", instead of adding a turned barrel and photo etch. What I didn't know was that the Academy kit comes with a couple of photo etch parts. I had some reservations about these, not least because of some reviews I had read which said it was too hard to bend. I certainly had no problems and that part ended up being a small triumph for me.

 

The first job on the road to completion is the open hatch. I think the colour is not too bad but the finish is pants so I'm actually going to put a small piece of card over it with a handle. That should help and give a rim to the edge. The jack needs some work and still requires the hold down straps. I think I will also have to go over the rusty bits again. I'm not going to love it but, in spite of not clear coating the pastels, they seem to have lost their edge. This was also my first attempt with artist's oils and I'm surprised how easy it was.

 

Anyone considering a Hetzer (I don't really like big tanks) should look at this one. It's a lot cheaper than some of the others and has some excellent detail. The only complaint I have is that the exhaust was too short to lead to the muffler. I had to extend it by about 1.5 mm to make it fit but that seems to have worked. The "link and length" track system worked moderately well but it was fortunate that I had found a YouTube clip explaining the assembly or I would have been all at sea.

 

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Edited by J.D.
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12 hours ago, Yeoman1942 said:

Nice build, looks like you made a better job of the drive sprocket than I did on mine.

 

I found this really hard and I can see why it would cause people headaches.

 

I had put the tracks together as per the instructions and then set them aside for final painting and assembly. In the meantime, I had to install the supports for the side skirts and do the bulk of the painting.

 

Once I had done that, time came to assemble the track and wheels, which I had put off or as long as I reasonably could. Trying to get the track under the skirt supports was hard enough and amazingly, I didn't flick any off. I had to do this with both the drive sprocket and idler wheel in place, all the time thinking something was going to break. Fortunately, it didn't. Then I had to put the interleaved wheels inside the drive sprocket and idler wheels and finally the remaining road wheels.

 

Probably not difficult for anyone who has built a model or two. I'm still learning and I found it an absolute bear.

Edited by J.D.
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i think a more positive locating pin would go along way to saving a lot of hard work. My Hetzer was my second build after a long lay off and I wasnt quite up to your standard. 

On the bright side it taught me a lot and I was able to move on to an AFV club Centurion. 

 

Keep at it JD you are good at this

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I thought the best way to weather it was to imagine it moving in and out of bushes and damaged buildings. The expression, "looking like the last spring rose that had been dragged through a knot-hole in the fence" sprang to mind.

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