Model Armour

Well, decided I had to have a go at this one after reviewing it yesterday! It's been a long time since I've built a 250, and I wanted one on the shelf, so here she is!

REVIEW: CYBER-HOBBY Sd.Kfz.250/10 Neu w/3.7cm PaK




Now the pictures have turned out to be a bit of a problem....since when taking some more this morning, the camera warned me that the CF card wasn't in. Only it was. Thinking it was just loose I pressed it home and continued, only to discover later, that all the pictures I had previously taken had somehow dissapeared?

Anyway...on with the build!

The chassis in this kit, unlike it's previous incarnation, comes as a one-piece unit, with the lower sidewalls already moulded in place. The original parts are still provided for some reason as well. The first thing to do is attach the drive housings, which again are provided moulded in place on the old chassis...




Then the suspension swing arms and idler assembly were cemented, making sure they were absolutely straight with the help of a steel rule. Aside from all being set at the correct angle, they have a tendency to toe-in towards the body of the vehicle. Although they are keyed to sit at the correct angle, there's a lot of play and it's safer to set them with a rule....




The roadwheels in this vehicle consist of five pairs of interleaved wheels including the idler, these can be made up separately for installing later...




Next it was the tracks. These are Magic Tracks, and unlike most, these can actually be made up into a set of working tracks with sparing use of the superglue. Each pad has a tiny drop of superglue gel placed into the middle of it's lower surface and placed using tweezers. The help of a simple jig made from two pieces of 'H' beam and flat card makes it easy!





>>>>CONTINUED........

As you can see from the review, the two front wheels are constructed in a nice way, being built from 'layers' to achive the proper tyre tread pattern...




The two front hooks were installed....




And the towing pintle at the rear....




The front steering assembly is non-working since it hasn't been changed from the original release of the 250 series of kits, but it's more or less complete and once assembled doewsn't look bad....




Since there's an engine supplied with this kit and I haven't decided whether or not to show it yet, I installed the steering arm into the engine compartment. At this point it's difficult to see how the engine will fit in! We'll see later I suppose!




>>>>>>CONTINUED........

Next up I turned to the inside of the vehicle. There were one or two details I wasn't that impressed with, and decided to try an improve them, but then found that I had the Eduard set for the 250/9 (#35995), most of which can be used for this build. First up then....the floor panels in the rear compartment...



The Eduard pats don't come with the two loacting holes for the bench seat though, so instead of making holes in the panels, I cut the two loacting pins off the bench and superglued it into the correct position. The ammo bins are fitted to the opposite side of the rear compartment...




For the front of the compartment there are various details provided along with new floor panels. One of which is a new holder for the spare armoured glass blocks from the vision slots. For replicating the glass in these I use multiple layes of acetate sheet cut to size. This gives them a pleasing greenish tinge, much like the real thing, which you can't actually see in this picture...




There's also a map-case thingy for the back of the driver's seat. Discussion ranges far and wide what this actually was.




New foot pedals too for the driver....




And lot's more detail added to the driver's compartment....most of which I have no idea what for!




So here's where I'm up to....more progress later!



Vinnie

Great start Vinnie, the Eduard set is making all the difference. Look forward to more

Deano

Off to a good start Boss - just think of it as a mini 251

Darren

Nice once Vinnie...

casting looks great on this kit.
Combined with your clean way of building....

nice

Frerik

Thanks Lads...

A small update. I'm at the stage where I need to start fitting the brackets and equipment to the inside walls of the fighting compartment. The inside of each of the walls is covered with a plethora of locating marks. The Dragon instructions indicate to remove some of this, but in practice, all of it can be removed, since the positioning of all the equipment is not that exact...




I used a mixture of lead strip, Dragon and Eduard photo-etch to fix the equipment in place....







That's all for now!

Vinnie

great start boss,count me in on this build.

phill.

Wow Vinnie-
nice tidy work! This is going to be a beauty!

Steve

Again, nice work Vinnie. These 250s are great little kits aren't they

Gary