Panerkampfwagen IV Ausf. H

I wasn‘t sure how well those ejector pin marks would be covered once the tracks were installed, so to be on the save side, I decided to fill the with black superglue. I covered the pin marks on the fenders, who were furthest on the edge of them and the ones on those radiator inlets. 

The back plate of the upper hull didn‘t completely touch the structure, because I sanded away quite a bit to eliminate the gap between the plate and the hull. Clamps could‘t be used to press the contact areas togehter, so I used my clamp like this, due to the torque created by the clamp as a lever, the gap was gone and as the glue dried, it stayed in this position. 

Bad ejector pin mark placement but once you find out on how to sand this recessed area properly, the marks are will be quickly gone. 

Using pattafix to attach the wheels to an electric drill. This way I was much quicker sanding the sprue gates away and also created realistic sanding marks along the circumference of the wheels. 

The cheap washi tape I used to hold the inner wheels to the electric drill left some sticky residue. This probably happend because heat was created when the sanding paper touched the parts which led to the glue coming of the tape. To be sure no residue was left, I washed all wheels in soapy water. 

Here I used a soldering iron set to roughly around 500C to lightly melt the muffler. I held it up to the plastic until the area got more shiny and the used a sculpting tool to create dents. In the picture you can see that I protected the thin muffler protection using water drops because those small plastic areas melt way faster and I didn‘t want to risk ruining those parts because they melted completely. I actually got the idea of the deformed muffler from the instruction manual, where they showed pictures of the back from a real Panzer IV with deformed fenders and a deformed muffler. I strongly advise to try the melting behavior on a piece of leftover sprue from the same(!) kit. First I started at 200C and noticed that nothing was melting. Then I turned further and further on the potentiometer of the soldering iron until I was at 500C where the melting started fast but in a very controlled manner. However, don‘t take my numbers for granted, since I have no idea if the temperature reading of the soldering iron‘s potentiometer is even correct, maybe I was actually on 300C because the potentiometer is broken. And test your current plastic reactions first!! 

Some update on the Panzer IV build. I recently got hold of the book „Modeling tanks and military vehicles“ writen by Sheperd Paine. In it, I read that you can aviod to fill the gaps on the main gun barrel simply by using way to much cement and pressing both halfs together. Due to the force, melted plastic squezzes out of the sides and after some time, while it‘s still soft, can be scraped away using an exacto. I used Revell‘s Contacta Professional because it is much thicker and doesn‘t evaporate so quickly like extra thin cement.  

The rear storage compartment, which is located behind the turret, fitted so well, that no seam lines were visible. Because in real life, to access it, the top plate is lifted up, I decided, that a deep panel line should be visible. I used plastic 3m tape, to guide my razor saw. After that, I used a special panel line scriber (the thinest one from mrp) to further improve the panel line.  

Here‘s a picture of the rescribed storage box. 

I finished the interior of the turret as long as everything was accessable due to the top plate missing. I protected the areas from paint that will „touch“ the top plate using liquid mask or masking tape, to be able to use plastic cement and get a strong bond. 

I am thinking about doing a diarama in the future, were the tank is resupplied with ammo through this door, so this will be the only spot to look at the interior and even than, there will not be alot visible because it will be quite dark in there, no need for super detailing. 

I didn’t add alot of detail because most of it will be hidden anyways. 

Using stretched sprue and 0,2mm lead wire, I created new springs for the back fenders. 

Due to being from the 80‘s, there are quite alot of ejector pinmarks on this kit, however, most of them can be sanded away easily like here on the additional turret armor. 

The metal beams that hold the additional skirt armor were fixed in position using patafix. That way I could see, how all the parts fit together without glueing them to the model. In the right picture you can see for instance, how the beam that holds the side armor is not touching the other beam, thus they need to be pressed together go create a good bond between them. Especially with such a critical parts like this armor and the fact that this kit is from the 80s, I think it is very important to dry fit everything to aviod unpleasant surprises.  

Next to the antenna mounting, you‘ll find those metal tubes on the panzer IV, I think they were used for cleaning the gunbarrel. In order to stick them together, they used to be hollow, thus I used a small drill to create those holes because they were missing.