StuG III Ausf.F WIP #1

Last Friday, I had to make a decision on what kit to take to Telford with me to work on. This was made a little more difficult when this kit arrived in the post that morning. So a choice had to be made and it was the StuG III which won the fight.


This should be a straight forward build to do, only a few bits of etched detail to be added, in otherwords, I can build it straight out of the box. So on Saturday I got started, the first job was to assemble all of the road wheels, idler and drive sprockets. Some flash needed to be removed, especially on the idler sprockets and there is still a little cleaning up to do on them. Next was to add all the suspension arms to the hull. There was some mouldlines on them, but these were cleaned away with some scraping and sanding. I first mounted the end arms with their shock absorbers to get the ride height, then all of the ones in between when the hull was standing on a flat surface. Once they were in position, each was given a drop of glue to hold them in place, then the same was repeated on the other side. That was as far as I got over the weekend.


As some of my other projects are at the stage where it is awkward to take them to work with me, this one is ideal. So over the last few days, I finished off the suspension and the lower hull assembly. I'm not adding the exhaust yet, as they will need to be painted separately and weathered before fitting. Today I started on the upper hull sections. After drilling out a few holes in them, I started remove the details on the mouldings as per the instructions. Once the upper sections are finished, I will paint the interior with some German Tank Interior paint before joining them. But this will be a few days off yet.


So, tonight I'm doing a little work on my Hawk, giving it another going over with the black paint after cleaning up some marks in it.