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E-100 128mm Waffenträger


Andy Moore

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I built a couple of Modelcollect's E-100s earlier in the year, and I was really impressed with the level of detail they had for 1/72 kits. I'd been thinking about picking another up, and this one seemed a good choice, since it fits in perfectly with the 'utterly absurd things to stick on an E-100 chassis' theme that the previous two had :D.Obviously, the Waffenträger (weapons carrier) E-100 didn't exist, but at least that means you don't have to get bogged down in accuracy, and can have some fun with it, which is the main reason I'm doing it.

 

I'll post up some sprue shots, then get on to the little bit of work I've got done on it over the last couple of days

 

Sprues, in no particular order. Some are in light grey, some in dark grey, and a couple in sage green. Quite a few of the parts aren't needed for this version, including a complete upper hull plate, and the parts fro the working suspension, that Modelcollect included with some of their earlier E-100 kits. Some of the sprues were bagged and some were loose, and a couple of small parts had become detached and were rattling around in the bottom of the box. Nothing was missing or damaged though.

 

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The tracks are the usual rubber band sort the Modelcollect have supplied with all their other E-100s. The detail's good and they can be glued with regular cement, but they often come warped, as these ones are, although not badly

 

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So, on to the actual progress I've made, which isn't that much. The hull is together, which is only a handful of parts. Still got the etched grills and other details to add. I sanded off the mounting points for the side skirts, since I saw no reason why they'd be fitted if the vehicle was never going to have skirts.

 

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The two hatches have moulded lugs to represent the handles, so I've sliced those off and replaced them with fuse wire

 

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The only other work I've done is to get the main barrel and some of the gun cradle together. For some reason, none of the gun and turret parts have any connection pins, so getting everything lined up is a bit tricky. The plastic's quite soft too, so I had to go easy when cleaning up the join on the two-part barrel, to avoid any flat spots. Having said that, the barrel is slightly oval anyway, so it'll probably need flattening slightly on the top and bottom to get it more circular. If there was a metal one available I'd probably swap it, but I'm not aware of one so I'll stick with this one for now

 

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That's it so far. I'll hopefully get a little more done over the next few days.

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

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Can you bend the tracks back into shape when placing them in hot water? Tracks are of a different plastic, but does it work just like styrene and such? Heat, bend and reshape them, or are they too elastic for this to work? The detail is looking good. In 1/35 this thing would be even crazier.

Prost,

/Stefan

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9 hours ago, Soeren said:

Are you a WoT player, to chose these fantasy tanks to build?

No, I don't play, but I do love the slightly crazier tank designs.

 

6 hours ago, Blaubar said:

Can you bend the tracks back into shape when placing them in hot water? Tracks are of a different plastic, but does it work just like styrene and such? Heat, bend and reshape them, or are they too elastic for this to work?

I did try that with the tracks on one of the E-100s I built previously. Those ones were worse than these, but the hot water did straiten them a little at first, but as they cooled, they went back to their original shape.

I'm hoping that, once these ones are fixed in place, the warp won't be that noticeable.

 

Andy:cat:

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A little more work done on the E-100

 

More of the main gun is together now. Still a few details to add

 

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The gun parts are a new tooling that Modelcollect have added to the existing E-100 kit for this release, but despite being newer, they're noticeably lower quality than Modelcollect's earlier stuff. There are no alignment pins on the gun parts, just straight butt joints on everything. Lots of flash and heavy mould lines too. The detailing's still okay, but the whole gun/turret assembly has a very short-run feel to it compared to the E-100 chassis.

 

The worst part of the kit is the two-piece turret. It probably looks okay in the photo, but most of the corners on the upper half have very rough burrs, and the fit between the upper and lower parts is pretty poor.

 

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The lower section just wedges in, with no tabs or other alignment aids to hold it in place. Just dry fitting it caused the thin bar at the bottom of the gun cut-out on the upper turret to split. It'll all need a lot of clean-up, trimming and filling. Not a huge problem in itself, but it looks like I'll have to fit the gun before joining the turret parts together. That'll no doubt mean painting the gun and turret interior beforehand, then having to mask all that off while I deal with the turret joint.

 

That's not the only sloppy area with the turret though. It looks like Modelcollect didn't really think through this weapons carrier conversion of the E-100 chassis. The turret connects with a regular bayonet mount, using a couple of tabs going into slots in the hull cut-out, then twisting to lock in place. Trouble is, since the weapons carrier version has a lower rear hull, the edges of the circular cut-out go right up to the sides of the lower hull.

 

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When you add the turret, and turn it to lock it in place, the tabs hit the hull sides. As a result, this is as far as the turret will turn when on the hull

 

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I'll have to trim the tabs back or remove them altogether, which will probably mean finding another way to hold the turret in place, as it'll probably be quite top-heavy, and might drop off without something to hold it on.

 

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I need to check if I can fit the gun after the turret's together, but if not, the next stage will be to paint the gun and turret interior. That'll mean picking a colour, but I'm not sure what I'll be doing in that regard yet. Maybe panzer grey for the gun and red primer for the turret?

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

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Hi Andy. I have only made one Modelcollect kit but I did find the detail to be good and most of the fit was pretty good too. I have recently picked up another of their range and look forward to following your progress on this one. :popcorn:

Kind regards,

Stix

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Andy,

are there actually PE parts included to cover the exhaust and the engine louvres? Or will they remain as they are as of now?

Prost

Edited by Blaubar
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On 27/11/2017 at 20:45, Blaubar said:

Andy,

are there actually PE parts included to cover the exhaust and the engine louvres? Or will they remain as they are as of now?

 

Yes, you get PE mesh for the engine deck and a few other areas.

 

The etch set that comes with the kit is a generic set that's included with all the E-100 releases. The E-100 below is one of the ones I build earlier, with the standard rear mounted engine. The waffentrager has the engine at the front, but the etch detail will be the same

 

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Andy:cat:

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I'm about ready to start getting some paint on parts of the build. The gun is done, and mounted on the bottom of the turret. That'll get painted, and at least partially weathered, before the top of the turret is attached. I've left a few bits and pieces off the gun mount, as they simply won't be seen once the turret's finished.

 

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The upper turret has had the rough edges cleaned up, and I've added some weld beads to the armour plates, together with a few other random details, mainly because it looked very plain as it came in the box.

 

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Due to the open back of the turret, I've added a few generic details, again to make it look a bit busier, plus a few plasticard blocks to stop the lower turret from pushing up too far.

 

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The hull's also a bit sparse, and could do with some pioneer tools. You don't get anything in the box though, and I don't have anything in 72nd in the spares box so it'll stay sparse.

 

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Paint soon

 

Andy:cat:

Edited by AndyRM101
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When I first skimmed through this thread I assumed that this was a 1/35th scale kit so incredible detail for a 1/72nd scale build.  Looking forward to seeing the battle weary/distressed finish developing on this one.

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I agree with richard, incredible extra details, most impressive in 72nd, these look to be great little kits, I've  seen a few model collect kits built up on here and they all build up superbly oob, but this'll be a leap up 

Glynn 

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Thanks guys,

 

4 hours ago, Plasto said:

Looking good... Made a decision yet on the build for the M4 GB??

Thanks Plasto. It'll be the Korean Sherman, just as long as Tamiya don't delay the release. It's scheduled for Jan, so I should still have plenty of time to get it done before the end of the GB. I might pick up the Takom M31 as a stand-in though, just in case the E8 is delayed.

 

Andy:cat:

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On 05/12/2017 at 11:49, Portaler said:

PS I just noticed your signature cat moves !! Nice :-)

It's just one from the main emoticon list, but it looks like mine so I've taken to adding it to the end of my posts. Just make sure you never look straight into her eyes though. The consequences could be dire.

 

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Anyway, enough of the hypnocat. Back to the Waffenträger. I've got the main gun painted and partly weathered. I base coated it with AMMO Dunkelgelb lightened with Cremeweiss

 

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I then gave it a very light, wispy camo with Gunze interior green. I'm going to do the turret in red primer, so the interior base got a coat of that using Vallejo cavalry brown

 

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I also ended up painting the support rail for the gun in red primer. The hypothesis I'm going with here is that the gun was a pre-existing flak gun that was repurposed for use with the tank. In the conversion process maybe some parts were swapped out, hence the red primer support rail.

 

The individual sub-assemblies got some light chipping and a few pin washes, then they were all brought together. Theoretically, the main gun is meant to remain posable in elevation, but it's a bit rickety so I fixed mine in place

 

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Once the turret top is added, hardly any of this is seen which is a little disappointing, but hey ho. Modelcollect does another version of this with twin flak guns and no turret, so I might get one of those in the future to sit next to this one

 

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I've still got the interior of the upper turret to paint, then I can close it up, fill the inevitable seams and get the turret exterior painted.

 

Andy:cat:

 

 

 

 

Edited by AndyRM101
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