Speed Hetzer!

Written by Jurgen Mares

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Speed Hetzer!
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Jurgen builds the Italeri Hetzer...fast!

Whilst at a local show and swap meet some time ago, I picked up Italeri's old 1:35^th scale Hetzer from a bargain bin. Talking with the seller, he said that he'd built a couple of these before and that they were pretty good value, in that they were basically accurate and a pretty quick build to boot!

So, whilst waiting for parts for another build to dry, I thought I'd crack open the box and see how quick it really is was put this one together.

First off, a couple pics of what's actually in the box. Even though this kit is older that both my children put together, all the parts were still sealed in the bag. The detail looked a little basic and soft, but time would tell how things turned out.

You get just two sprues, some hull sections and some non-'Magic' tracks!

The instructions! Not the most detailed or comprehensive I'd ever seen, but hey...for under $10, I wasn't complaining...

So here we go. I kept track of the time I spent on this just to see how quick the build really was. I copied the time I began each section and added it to various images. First up I put together the suspension....

Then the two halves of the gun were glued and cleaned up. This was then fixed onto the hull and was movable...

With that done, I moved to the roadwheels. They had no detail whatsoever on the inside surface, but the outer faces seemed to have some decent detail...

Then the two halves of the hull were joined and the front and read hull plates were added...

So far, 2 hours in and it was nearly done...and that included time for a cigarette, coffee and taking pics of course! The grab handles, miscellaneous fixtures and the side skirts have now been done.

Then it was time for the non-magic, non-DS tracks. Good old staples are holding them together...

Seeing that this was going so quickly, I decided that I'd throw a hurdle in. I'd stuffed up the suspension...whilst looking at some references, I realised that I'd put them on upside down! So, here they are fixed! Oh the shame.......

With that fixed the rest of the parts were added to get the model ready for the spray booth. I decided to replace the jack block with some Balsa wood and foil straps...