Revell 1/72 SLT 50-3 "Elefant" & SaAnh. 52t

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

My current builds seem to have entered The Cupboard Of Latent Enthusiasm, and while gazing blankly at my Obvious Stash for inspiration, this caught my eye

Small scale, no tracks, basic colour scheme.

After hours 🍷?

Ah, go on then.

 

A couple of things I noted once the squishy box was opened:-

1) There are a lot of wheels

 

and

2) The 175+ parts are scattered across all the sprues

 

Take these first two steps, for example, needing #1, #2, #3, #4 and #5.

 

Think of it as an Advent Calendar starting July.

 

Anyhoo, the parts I recognize as the wheels have been glued together and set aside awaiting seam removal.

 

There may be Shiraz involved, but whatever floats your boat.

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve

 

[Model Mate]

ooh - lots of wheels. This is crying out for some mechanical assistance - wheels on sticks, low speed drill, sandpaper maybe? Just to save your sanity (and keep the wheels round).

[sardaukar]

oh nice, there is a transport group build on currently and this would qualify I've been trying to decide on which of my 1/72 tank transporters to build for it.

 

will follow along with interest.

[Old pro]

Trumpeter have just released this, most likely with rubber wheels, I know that doesn’t help you much, I just find it interesting that there are now 3 models of this vehicle available, Revell, Takom and now Trumpeter! It used to be anything German and WW2 would sell, seems to now include anything German 😂😂

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

On 3/21/2023 at 11:00 AM, Model Mate said:

ooh - lots of wheels. This is crying out for some mechanical assistance - wheels on sticks, low speed drill, sandpaper maybe? Just to save your sanity (and keep the wheels round).

Yup, tried that. The axle holes are quite shallow, my small drill wouldn't spin slow enough to not vibrate the wheel off, and my filing technique needed quite a bit to be desired.

 

So, out with the old Stanley blade to scrape off the seam, rescribe each tread, then clean the fluff off with TET.

Before, and after.

Should be ok under some Flory 🤞

 

I'm doing them between other steps in an attempt to keep my sanity

 

Steps including the main drive

 

Dry fitting the whole assembly and glueing in sections results in

 

The drive shafts and dampers took a little wiggling, but it's sturdy when dry

 

 

I'm aiming to spray it all black separated, then assemble and give green at it. Hopefully, that will produce shadows where I can't get to.

 

Next up is the cab

 

Apart from the hugely overscale wipers, there are some fine details on the interior and exterior.

 

There's not much in the way of locational indication of the five panels, and the glazing is to be cut from (supplied) thin clear sheet, but three or four synchronized hands should make light work of it.

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve

 

[Maddoxx77]

Does the kit include the leopard A4? 

Good progress so far. I always respect builders that tackle 1:72 scale especially the ones who do so with Shiraz on the side 🤣

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

On 3/23/2023 at 10:08 PM, Maddoxx77 said:

Does the kit include the leopard A4?

No, just the tractor and trailer in this one. There's another boxing that includes a Panzerhaubitze 2000 & Fennek, that might find itself in another Lab session where I actually pay attention to the build.

 

It would have been useful if the instructions had the plans for the windows to the same size as the parts

But not to worry, some dividers and a careful eye got them close enough.

 

While fumbling round with the front, the headlights seemed a touch one dimensional, so I added a slice of cotton bud stalk that will eventually be silvered and filled with clear PVA lense

Never gave much thought to how tricky it was to cut a parallel sided slice from something a couple of mm dia, but these two were the closest from nearly half a length.

 

Anyhoo, the inside of the cab has been painted

 

Probably a brighter shade than typical, but I figured it will be inside and darken down a fair bit once installed

 

 

Straggler swarf still in the running

 

I got some other sub assemblies started, but

On 3/23/2023 at 10:08 PM, Maddoxx77 said:

Shiraz on the side 🤣

Found it's way in and no doubt some may have to be redone.

 

Hey ho.

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve 🍷

 

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

To get the rear mudguards level and flat with the top of the chassis frames, I decided to glue them to the chassis first, thus ensuring that they were level and flat

 

However, as the main bed is on rails, this created a step

 

And as can be seen from the Revell destructions, they should be level

 

I was about to either cut them off and redo them, or, more likely, just shim them with some packing, when I wandered over to t'Interweb to have a look at the real thing.

 

From www.Panzer-Modell.de (many other image sites are available), it can be seen that there is indeed a toe-catching step.

 

Shiraz 1, Revell 0

 

Also shown on that excellent site, a feature of the rear is the winch cables, that pass through cable guides.

Revell have them solid, so I cut a slot in the plates and drilled them through with a 0,5mm drill so I could pass a cable through them

 

If only I can do the second one the same...

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve

 

[sardaukar]

Nice work so far, I like it.

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

The second winch cable guide was done as the first, so I moved onto the rest of the upper structures, adding some fictional pipework to the canisters

 

Handles to the rear fenders

 

And some handles on the engine cover too

 

Turning my fumbling to the trailer, the basic body goes together simply enough

 

And is quite rigid

 

The four steerable axles look a little involved in the destructions, but after some carefully measured muttering they eventually solidified

 

I've left them as separate assemblies to aid painting

 

The rest of the underside is populated with a selection of boxes and such, also left detached

 

The front legs can be assembled deployed as in above, or stowed flat against the underside.

 

I'm going to have them in the deployed configuration, but removable. There are guides for locating, but I'll save that joy for when the wheels are on, as there is no set angle for the footplates.

 

I'm planning on those rather large but shallow ejector pin marks to be

a) hidden by the stowage

b) hidden by the wheels

c) hidden by being upside down and covered in a dark paint

I know I should fill/sand them into oblivion, along with every sprue gate and seam line, but my inner sommelier is very distracting.

 

 

Comments and suggestions for a fruity Shiraz for under a tenner from Tesco

 

Cheers

Steve 🍷

 

[Bullbasket]

That would be excellent detailing in 1/35th, let alone /72nd. Great work.

 

John.

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

The rear loading ramps had me lulling for a while, but not because of this.

They're held onto the trailer by plastic rods that are slightly oversize and brittle, so I replaced them with some pin shafts that gave some wriggle room.

 

My quandary came with the ramp hinges. Revell have them so that the ramps can be posed either fixed stowed upright or fixed deployed, but not moveable.

 

After contemplating building new hinges from layers of plasticard, I tried slicing through one half of the hinge to see if that helped

These are one half of the hinge with the bar across the fingers, the the other half of the hinge with the hooks was left whole.

 

Result!

 

 

 

Now they can be either up or down

 

Spurred on by this achievement, I gave the whole shebang a coat of Tamiya XF-69 NATO Black, that is actually a very very dark green.

 

Or so I thought I remembered, as it all looks a little NATO Grey to me now

 

Anyhoo, it will serve as a shadow layer for the rest of the colours.

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve 🍷

 

[echen]

Great piece of surgery there! Very effective.

[Orso]

The box art is interesting. If I read the info right about this vehicle the Leopard 2 is to heavy for it.

[Old pro]

2 hours ago, Orso said:

The box art is interesting. If I read the info right about this vehicle the Leopard 2 is to heavy for it.

The SLT 50 was upgraded into the 50-3 to be able to cope with the early Leopard, can even cope with a Chieftan, which must be on its upper limit. With the advent of the A5,6 &7 Leopards the SLT 56 was introduced to cope with the additional weight, although visually similar there are minor differences the easiest way to tell them apart is that the 56 has double headlights and the 50 just single.

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

Sad to report the loss of a couple of small parts to the Nether Dragon.

A couple were pinged off mid cleanup, and a couple were when my Optivisor lense fell out into the shallow dish I was storing small parts in.

They don't half jump about, don't they

 

Anyhoo, moving swiftly on to the rest of the paint, the NATO Black was masked with Maskol

 

Some Vallejo 71.028 US Flat Brown was squirted about

 

Followed by some more splodges of Maskol

 

Everything got a coat of Tamiya XF-67 NATO Green

 

Ooh, exciting!

 

The layers of Maskol were duly removed

 

Ooh, unexpected!

 

 

That Maskol stuff has a PHENOMENAL grip on itself. Everywhere I had wrapped it round bars or struts etc, it gripped like the Red Weed.

 

There were some more casualties, but hopefully I can disguise them with sloppily applied weathering.

 

 

I'll let everything settle down for a bit, then get a coat of Pledge on.

 

 

Maskol 1, Shiraz 0

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve 🍷

 

 

[Orso]

On 4/27/2023 at 7:55 PM, Old pro said:

the easiest way to tell them apart is that the 56 has double headlights and the 50 just single.

 

 

I would say it is even easier to tell them apart by looking at the trailers. There are more wheels on the 56 🙂

Edited May 8, 2023 by Orso

[Old pro]

31 minutes ago, Orso said:

 

 

I would say it is even easier to tell them apart by looking at the trailers. There are more wheels on the 56 🙂

Well yes there is that, but a 56 could pull an old trailer and vice versa 

[ProfSparks]

Hi All

 

Some good pics there @Old pro 👍

 

Shame mine didn't quite get there.

 

Why?

 

Read on...

 

It was all progressing so well, I got the winch cables fed through the guides

 

And got the 18 wheels masked ready to paint the tyres

 

(on a side note, that DSPIAE circle cutter is definitely a tool of two halves. Meticulously machined and feels like a high quality piece of kit, turns out repeatable circles, BUT the actual knob used to lock the cutting blade is too flat, making it really difficult to adjust.

Anyhoo, I digress)

 

What really put the mockers on were the decals.

 

They resolutely refused to leave the backing paper, as can be seen above, the backing adhesive seems to have impregnated the backing and stopped the water releasing them.

The couple I tried to pry off fragmented and were just as useless.

 

Oh dear, you may have heard me exclaim.

 

Thso, I could either halt it there, source alternative decals, or complete it sans decoration.

 

As I'd come this far, and was looking to start something anew, Option C was adopted.

 

Back on it.

I inserted some bent wire to hold the ends of the winch cables in position

 

And the guide were pinned to attach them to the sides

 

I put the glazing into the cab with Pledge, and while these hardened, I set about the trailer

 

Winch cables and drums

 

Engine housing

That exhaust looks a little too rusty

 

But eventually I get the cab on and it's finished

 

 

 

It's not turned out too bad, even though it's bereft of colour.

 

It fits with the trailer too

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reet, onward and upward.

 

Thanks for all your input, see you next time.

 

 

Comments and suggestions welcome

 

Cheers

Steve 🍷

 

[echen]

Terrific build. Inspires me to build one. Even in 1/72 your build seems to capture the bulk of this vehicle. It certainly looks the part!