NIK122

Well I've run out of superlatives so what can I say!? Not bad, not bad at all!😎

Good morning all! I've some more of this build to share so here goes. The build is progressing painfully slowly but it's getting there. I noticed that the kit is missing this rear light (pictured below). It's apparently a spotlight used to blind a pursuing driver in the event of a car chase. No I'm not making it up! I've no idea how practical this would be. The kit has a peg molded onto the rear side of the fuel tank housing, below the towing hook, which corresponds with a black and white drawing of the car available online but the position doesn't look right. No light is included with the kit so it was possibly an oversight? A SU122 light from the spares box came to the rescue with a conveniently attached bracket. And in place. Next up are the alterations to the headlights and horn positions. The horns needed moving outwards to create room for the jerry cans that were sometimes carried in front of the radiator. I've removed the horns and cleaned up the rail and added new brackets with spare PE. The clear parts for the light lenses have no detail on them so I've added the light shrouds using Revell tape. (other brands available). The jerry can rack on some G4 examples is an extension made to the license plate frame. The kit parts are very heavy so I used them as a template to fashion new ones from spare PE. The new frame attached with gerry cans from 'Battlefield Models' to check the fit. The G4 has a series of vents running along the sides of the hood. The front two on each side open forward and the rest open back to provide additional ventilation. I figured this would be a nice detail to add on the closed side of the bonnet. I drilled out the front two vents and added the flanges. Two new vents cut and checked for fit. And glued into place with plastic rod stays. I think these vents were manually operated and not controlled from the dash? So moving on to paint. I had a go at weathering the underside which was a bit of a disaster when it came to sealing it with what was either a dodgy matt varnish or my impatience with letting everything dry?! I used AK dirt and dust deposits liberally and well it's ok but needs more work. I guess as it's never going to be seen in the end so there's no harm in experimenting. I think I'm done with painting and weathering the engine bay. I've forgotten to add the claxon! The last of the lines have been added. There is still the steering column and steering linkages to add but things are looking suitably busy I think. Lastly there's the Notek light. This has come courtesy of the Italeri Opel Blitz kit. There are two provided so the Blitz kit can still be completed without needing to make another Notek. I've added a few details as the light is quite prominent. That's it for now. Bon weekend and thanks for looking

Really nice work. I think it's going to look great under paint 😎

Good afternoon everyone. Some more on the G4. Finally got some paint on after procrastinating on how the best way to proceed with it. A final tweak to one of the kit parts was the radiator fan which in my haste to get it to paint I nearly forgot. As you can see the part looks like a ring of choc ices!? I tried to thin them and made a pigs ear out of it so more drastic action was required. Each of the blades was removed leaving a stub for the new blades. And with new blades. 0.4mm plastic card Trying to work out a paint sequence has been a bit of a head scratcher mainly because the mudguards are molded to the chassis. I've opted to paint all of the underside of the car in semi-gloss black Tamiya lacquer paint, including the underside of the mudguards. It's simplified masking no end and once weathered whether this is correct or not will be moot I think. The chassis was a semi gloss black on the cars anyway. I've opted to add as much as I can to the chassis at this point that has a black finish on it. According to the reference material I have, the two rods running from the wishbone mounts to the differentials are opposite to what the instructions indicate. An easy fix. I've laid down some base colours so don't be alarmed by the finish. It's really too much at the moment. I'll tone it all down with oils after it's been sealed with varnish. The steel is MIG metal acrylic colour and the pipes are brush painted Humbrol antique bronze. The engine took some creative masking. I cleaned it up and picked out details with a brush. I'm thinking that a grayish wash may bring out the details as a contrast to all the black? Any suggestions with this welcome. That's all for now and thanks for looking

Triumph 3HW 1/9 aftermarket business in the offing!? APADesign.......🤪

Are the pannier frames scratch built?😮

Awesome 😎

A save is a save! Keep going! It's going to be epic once finished. No pressure😆 Jokes aside, don't give up, surely this model deserves better than a dusty shelf!?

I guess it's just about having a go. Aside from the wheels there just isn't any aftermarket for this particular kit. Everything I've added is as cheap as chips. Evergreen, sprue the odd bit of brass and stuff from the spares box. There's nothing to loose really, pocket wise. What is vital in these things is good reference material. Thanks Goser😎

Thanks John. The lettering was incredibly fiddly but worth the effort I think 😎

Thanks Keith 😎

Good morning all! Here's hoping you're all well. I've been chipping away at this model and I think I'm ready for some paint in the engine bay. That will be the next post. I've come to the conclusion the only way to paint this model going forward is to use the hood and sides of the engine cover as masks before making any major alterations to them. So without further ado here's where I'm at..... The first thing to be tackled was the cars horn. The reference book I'm using has the G4 given to Franco in 1941 and according to the book is the most wholly complete and original remaining example in the world. The 'horns' on Franco's G4 look, to my eye, to be newer additions to the car which raises the question, although this G4 is as a whole completely original, has the horn been changed since 1941? I ask this for two reasons. The horns look more like something you would find on a Rolls Royce and the images I have of the G4 from back in the day show a Bosch FK12D 1 klaxon. This incidentally is what is provided in the kit. Yes I know, there is no turning back now! Full geekery has been embraced. A point of note is that Franco's G4 also has an air raid siren fitted to the engine bay. As you can see, there is room for improvement. This is the real thing. It never ceases to amaze what you can find on Ebay! And after some fettling. The exact positioning of the horn was the next question. I initially made a bracket for it using Franco's G4 for reference but the horn clashed with the exhaust manifolds so a rethink was required. Below is the first attempt. This is pure speculation. The firewall has some sort of bracket to the right of the left firewall brace. Pictured below. It appears to be redundant on the completed car. Combined with this image I don't think that it's beyond the bounds of probability that even if the horn wasn't mounted to the bracket it has something to do with it. It's interesting that the horn is not parallel with the engine block!? It's too low to be conforming with the shape of the hood so maybe someone was having a bad day? Second attempt below. I've just made this from styrene as the horn will cover the top of it. The white rectangle is the technical spec plaque. Next up the opposite side of the engine has had a little tweaking. The air filter has had a piece of spare PE cut to size and added with a styrene strip added to represent the retaining clip?, later removed because it clashed with the manifolds. The updraft carburetor remodeled. Far from perfect but visually an improvement. Some more detailing to the fire wall includes this return loop? of some sort that fills a space under the reserve fuel tank. The real thing has some kind of fibrous string wrapped around it. I've used Tamiya tape, 0.5mm brass rod and sprue to make this. Fuel pump with added PE bracket from spares. And finally because I like torturing myself some 1mm PE capitol letters courtesy of AccurateArmour. And everything dry fitted together. There are a lot of missing details on this side of the engine that you could really go to town on if you so chose but I'm going to leave it as it is. Bon weekend and thanks for looking

I need to pay more attention to this part of the forum. I can't keep up with the output! A very nice model John. It's great to see a model that looks like it actually works😎

Really nice work! I really enjoyed building one of Takoms big guns and judging by your efforts you have too. Inspirational 😎

Good evening. A small update. I long session Sunday spent switching between the few images I have resulted in a scratch built thermostat. There was a lot of speculation as to the shape of the bottom of it and I think there should be a small hose attached to the underside. As I've no images to show where it might go, it's been left off. Constructed from the usual sprue and evergreen. The hose was made from heated and stretched sprue. Its overall length looks a little short but after the effort in getting it and everything else aligned, I can live with it. And all together Some additional bits to the firewall. No idea what any of them are for or why the hooks/hangers are at different heights. There is only a bracket for the horn to scratch build and the horn to add to the firewall on the left at this point. As this side of the engine bay will be covered by the hood I will do a little additional modelling but don't see the point in going crazy with it. Until next time thanks for looking

Good evening all! Following on from last time some more bells and whistles in the engine compartment. Not being able to get the reserve fuel tanks position looking right I ended up reworking the firewall. I think the proportions are looking better. It's all guess work really. The firewall braces have been remade longer. I'd made them initially to the height of the underside of the reserve tank. Looking at the available image of the real thing the tank must be shaped to allow for the brace as the holes for the bolts are visible where the tank is mounted. A strip of evergreen has been added across the top of the opening at the bottom of the firewall to give it more depth. I ended up increasing the width and depth of the reserve fuel tank and reworked the fittings at the top so that they were more accurate by being to the left of the dome shapes on top. The first of the fuel lines added with 0.5mm lead wire and clips made from drilled out evergreen. The fuel pumps bracket was made from a piece of PE fret. I forgot to take picture of the first two pumps that I made so this is a picture of the second set. All the pumps were made from sprue offcuts and 1mm rod. I think that these too should be mounted on some sort of bracket but again I can't find a good image. The pumps and the rest of the fuel lines added below. I know how the top pump on the firewall is connected to the forward pump by the steering mechanism but I don't have a decent image of how or where the rest of the fuel lines run or how they are connected. This is unfortunate. I'm leaning towards adding them but running off out of sight somewhere. Next up is the radiator. It appears that as well as it being completely missing from this kit, it's also missing from the 1/35 kit? I made this up from evergreen that I scored with the top of a scalpel blade to give the radiator some surface texture. There are just enough images of the radiator to get an overall feel for its size and shape. And finally a dry fit. I'll replace the styrene rod with 1mm brass rod before painting. Next on the to do list is making the fittings that connect the top of the engine to the underside of the box protruding from the top of the radiator. The Thermostat 29, according to this illustration. That's it for now. Thanks for looking

Some beautiful work here. This is going to look fantastic when completed 😎.

😮😵‍💫🤪

Good afternoon. Some progress on the engine bay and engine. Thoughts and observations welcome. First up are the corrections on the parts of the chassis that will be visible with half the engine covers off. So as you can see the chassis frame is open at the top so this needed filling to just beyond the firewall. The attachment points for the spare wheel brackets go right through the frame for some reason so this was corrected also on the inside face of the chassis. Strips of evergreen were added to the slots in the chassis frame and filled. It would have been a lot easier to do this without all the delicate front suspension parts added and it wasn't without incident. I should have planned it out better. Next up was fitting these triangular pieces to either side of the engine bay. They look a bit of a mess as I initially shaped them to the shape of the chassis but it didn't look right. The straight inside edge is more accurate to the pictures I have. With some paint and all the other gubbins they will be fine. There's a flange to add, just in from the outside edge of the triangles, that the vertical part of the hood shuts against. The firewall has had a couple of alterations to it. The holes for the reserve fuel tank and horn have been filled as I wasn't happy with the positions. Using the thinnest evergreen I could find the sheet metal detail was added around the outside edge of the firewall. There's a good image of this online so it was a case of copying it as closely as I could. The radius was added to the bottom left of the wall and the opening for the steering column was improved on. Scratch built firewall braces with some ModelTrend bolts. Moving onto the engine, I've cut off the cover for the sparkplug leads and added a thicker shaped piece of evergreen with holes for the leads predrilled. The slot is to stuff X8 0.5mm lead wires into, from the distributor cap. The distributor cap and what not has had some detail added. No idea what half this stuff is. Even in 1/24 its all still pretty small. And all of the above with the leads added. I drilled holes in the block and added 1mm drilled out evergreen rod for the sparkplugs and immediately regretted it because of painting! The 0.5mm lead wire is lovely stuff to work with but doesn't like tweezers which was a little frustrating. Finally the reserve fuel tank which is situated to the right top of the firewall. The basic shape is OK but it should maybe be a little wider!? And after some alterations. I've reduced it's height and had a go at adding some fittings. They should both be more to the left than they are but it was a squeeze to get them to fit. I'm in two minds as to whether to do them again. That's it for now and thanks for looking

No idea why it posted twice 🙄

Good evening! Right less moaning and more action of sorts. Finally got all the bits and pieces through the post. A great reference book, 'Mercedes Benz Type G4(31) The Ultimate Story' by Lewis Pershing. £9.99 before postage. A bargain! Also whilst trying to find anything useful in 1/24 scale for my G4 build I ended up taking a closer look at Italeri's Opel Blitz kit...... Yeah, I bought it! Tis a disease! Anyway it was a jackpot moment when viewing the kit online because the kit has two identical sprues included(for the military version), which means X2 Notek lights, front and rear, X2 shovel and pickaxe, X2 jerry cans. If you have the Opel Blitz kit in your stash then there's no need to scratch build a Notek and if you have the means to cast jerry cans then you could save yourself a few pennies. A point of note is that the sprues in question are included in this kit for the military option but it's not specified on the box. Some nice details with separate handles and filler cap. (Mid war?) And the shovel and pickaxe. I've included these as they could add interest as random objects and because I think I've spotted a field modification on a G4. The image below is of a G4 belonging to Luftwaffe officer. Unless I'm mistaken there's a shovel on the running board with some type of fixing securing it? More of the build shortly thanks for looking

Oh come on Stef! It's not that bad😆😬. You could just throw it together straight from the box, kind of.......... I'd be interested to know how the 1/35 version compares to this if you have it?

Good evening! So here's some more huffing & puffing on this build. Apologies for there not being anything to do with the engine as I've been awaiting the delivery of a reference book and some lead wire. It never ceases to amaze me what I get excited about these days!😄 Doing the engine justice and showing it off is a lot easier said than done. I've already a list as long as my arm of things to consider and all I really wanted was an easy, quick, fun build! Yeah scrub that! A challenge it is.............. So, in order to work out what needs improving in the engine bay it made sense to build the tub as the fire wall is part of this. As you can see, the fit out of the box is a dream. 😂 It's all part of the hobby, right?.......right? Chassis and tub dry fit. Next up! No it's not sanding rash. Out of the box😑 From above the issue only gets worse. The thin piece is the back of the boot/trunk. In all honesty this issue won't be seen once the folded down rag top is installed but............I just can't leave it alone. After some effin' & jeffin'.........scraping and Tamiya putty. And with the trunk in place. What on earth was all the fuss about? The trunk. It appears that there were two types of trunk on the G4. A curvaceous type and a much more box like option. I think that the rounder trunk is the earlier type, ie what's in the kit. The obvious problem with it is the lack of a door or handles. Was my solution the best option? I don't know but it was all I could think of. I drew on the outline then taped the outline as a guide. Unfortunately I think I've outlined the later shaped door on the earlier trunk, so apologies to the purists. Two nights later after some filling, sanding and Mr Surfacer, I got the panel lines looking ok. The next job was doctoring the aftermarket spare wheels to fit on the spare wheel mount. This needs doing so that the mounts can be positioned correctly as the fit of the kit parts isn't positive or clear. The backs of the 3D printed wheels are solid and need hollowing out. I went out and bought a 14mm HSS drill bit and used it as a twist drill to remove the center of the wheel then removed the rest of the material with a cylindrical grinding bit in a Dremel/Parkside. Parkside are cheaper. Thankfully I only need to do this once as on the opposite side the hood of the car will be closed, you won't be able to see the back of the other wheel. All that's left to add is the bracket that the spare wheel is bolted to. Thanks for looking

'So my newest guess: It is the pump of the central lubrication system and we see the plunger in reach of the driver's left foot in the cabin.' I think you've solved this mystery Jochen!😉

Good grief! Online archaeology or what? I hope this may help but........... handbrake on a canoe springs to mind! Both of these images are of an Opel Blitz. Maybe there is more technical information that you can use to identify just what the 'mystery object' is, by researching the Blitz?! It's slightly annoying that these things aren't clearly labeled😂