Repositioning gun shields
I had looked at the gun and decided that the placement of the shields was not right so I pulled them off before repositioning them with the opening at the front end being smaller. This ensured that the hatch would close with the MG rotated sideways.
The model was now broken down to its sub assemblies and parts ready to be washed prior to being primed.
I have looked at some small details and am still wondering if I should add them but I had decided to do a straight from the box, now I wonder which way I will jump.
Additional detail?
After considering whether to do any detailing I thought that a couple of items would be all that I would add to the model. These would be the electric feed to the front Bosch light and the spare aerial attachments on the left hand side of the hull.
Let’s start with the spare aerial attachments, these consist of two tubes which were welded to the hull side, a clamp to hold them in the centre of its length and a plate with two short tubes welded to hold the other end.
For the front longer tubes I used Albion Alloys 0.5mm x 0.3mm micro tube which was cut to length with a new sharp scalpel blade. It was achieved by putting the tube on a cutting mat after it had been marked with a pencil and then the blade was rolled over the tube with a little downward pressure, but not very much, ensuring it’s kept square so the cut is clean and at right angles to the length so as the blade travels forward the tube is rotated so one gets an even cut. Some super glue activator was brushed onto the hull while the tube had some of the glue applied and then the tube was applied to the surface. The central holing bracket was a clamp from my spares box and was glued into place with superglue as per the micro tubes.
For the last part of the aerial holders I first made an L-shape from 10-thou plastic card to which two small plastic tubes were glued. Once dry this was attached to the rear fender support.
The front Bosch light is nice but it has no electric feed cable. This was rectified by first adding a small slice of 0.75mm rod to the side of the hull just in front of the first bracket that holds on the side schutzen. When this was dry a piece of thin rod was cut and the end glued to the rod and the hull side and allowed to dry so that it could be then angled over the side/front plate. I then glued this to the front plate and cut it to finish behind the mounting plate for the light.
These are the last items to be added to the build. “Perhaps”