Early Ausf. N

Everything seems to fit "crisply".

The track tensioner has only two parts and fits together (in my opinion) better than Dragon or Tamiya.

The Dragon road wheel has the better detail but the Academy will be fine when painted and weathered.

The first "Noob-gotcha" I found is the idlers can be assembled mis-aligned.

The Friuls fit perfectly.

I'm impressed how well the fenders fit into place.

The tracks almost fit over the return rollers. It may be possible to flex the fenders up to gain the space to slip the tracks over the complete return rollers. If not, only attach the inner half of the roller.

Later style engine covers (parts E12, E13 and three H14s).

The 75mm is Parts D2, D3, D4 mounted on D21. Filled eight screw head holes on the turret roof. Smoothed the turret sides. Fit is still good but the turret shell has some slop around the join at the front lower sides.

End of the third session. Later style fan covers are Parts E3 and H14s.

Almost ready for paint. The turret lifting hooks are one-piece affairs that would not bear close inspection. Dragon's two-piece ones look much nicer but these are way easier to install and will look OK sitting on my book shelf.

Ready for its tracks. I've left off the small fiddly bits for after the test fitting of the tracks is complete. Overall the build has been easy. The instructions are great. I can see myself building this kit again.

OK, Friul time!

Oh, wait, one more thing to delay, (I mean check) before Fruil time. These are the early style engine covers from a Dragon kit. I would like to build a non-Tropen, early Ausf. J in Russia at some point. These covers are almost a drop-fit, just a little long.

First stage clean up (about 60 minutes of work). Scraping off two pour-gates (?) on almost every link, left and right runs.

Drilling and assembling in batches of ten.

Crazy Glue dabbed on the ends to keep the wire in.

Final pin.

The final pin is hidden under the model. The drive sprockets fit tight enough that I won't be glueing them on.

Ninety-two links give you a freshly tensioned track, zero sag.

Ninety-three links at first looks too loose.

But when the model is actually on it's tracks, you get just the right amount of sag.

Onward to the final details.

Drilled out the holes in the spare road wheels. Added a bit of wood grain to the jack-block. Three-piece jack has three pieces.

Very little clearance between the turret and the forward spare wheel. I though for sure that they would foul.

The jack and the fire extinguisher do foul each other. I trimmed the foot of the jack a little and the crisis is averted... When I build this again, I will mount the extinguisher closer to the hull.