1/35 Tamiya German 8 Ton Halftrack Sd. kfz.7

[Tankbuilder]

Hi there.

This kit #35148 Tamiya German 8-Ton Halftrack sd. kfz. 7 dates from the mid-1970s and as such, and because it was originally designed to run via one electric motor, it is pretty basic. however it is fairly inexpensive and can be built up into an attractive model out of the box. With some basic tweaking with some styrene and/or metal wire or thin rod much can be added to it to improve the looks. Fortunately, these days there's lots of info on the web about these vehicles including video footage on YouTube.

I've been sharing my progress on this build on the What's On The Bench Today forum here but decided to start a new thread with everything in one thread in case anyone is interested in this build.

I decided to make the track suspension articulate because the front wheels are already articulated in the Tamiya kit as well as being able to be turned from side to side. this makes it so much easier to place the finished model on rough terrain.


I have a bit of a production line going here. I am building the three 1/35 scale Tamiya German 8-ton halftracks.

The tractor variant for the 88 mm flak gun, the quad 20 mm flak gun variant and the 37 mm flak gun variant. I'm working on the chassis of these at tthe same time.

The chassis of all three are nearly done and the hood assembly is done as well.


I cut off the 'D' shaped locating tabs on the track wheel mounts. Now those axles can articulate like the real ones'



Now the wheels pivot. Note the retaining caps/hubs aren't on yet.





Comments are very welcome.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

After assembling some parts I decided to open up tthe left doors on tthe cargo bay. I also opened up tthe two doors at the top rear of the cargo bay. At first I was going to leave the lower rear door closed.

When I first cut off the battery box on tthe underside of the cargo bay and made a floor for the cargo bay I installed that floor a bit to low as you can see in this image'



After James posted a great image of the rear of the cargo bay that also showed the spare wheel well door open I decide to open that door too and build a spare wheel well. Chukw was kind enough to send me somer spare wheels for this project.

Because I opened that spare wheel well door I had to remove my cargo bay floor and rais it up so that it was level with the openings of tthe bottom of the side doors and the bottom of the two large doors at the rear of the cargo bay.

I also have the 1/35 scale Tamiya 88mm Flak gun kit. I was able to acquire some extra ammunition boxes from a fellow modeller with the same gun kit. Tamiya did a good job on the cargo bay because 3 of thos ammo boxes laid side by side are a snug fit and 3 of those crates stacked one atop each other are also a snug fit. that means the cargo bay had a capacity for 18 boxes of 3 rounds per box of 88mm ammunition. It also means the ammo boxes can be used to hold dividers in place whilst the cement sets. Yippee!

Here's an image of the floor of the cargo bay repositioned to the proper height. Note the ammo crates being used as spacers for the floor.



Comments are welcome.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

Now I've done some more work on the rear section of the cargo bay as well as scratch-built a wheel well for the spare wheel.

Scratch-built wheel well with spare wheel in situ.




After a lot of work on various scratch-built styrene pieces, made using the Old Mk.I Eyeball, I was able to build the interior of that rear cargo bay. I used the 88mm ammo crates inside the main cargo bay in order to properly position the vertical dividing wall between tthe main cargo bay and the rear cargo bay.

I'm using 3 German ammunition boxes from the Tamiya German 37mm anti-tank gun kit. At least that's where I think they came from. I carved off the raised details and then sanded the boxes smooth and thinner at the same time.



I used two of them on each side of the vertical dividers to both locate those dividers and make sure they were square. later on I'll cut three of them down to make the six trays I need for the left side of the rear cargo bay.




The image of the wheel well shows the vertical dividers and the right hand shelf. I need to put L-shaped guides on those dividers for the trays.


Comments are welcomed.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

As I wqas working on different parts of these three 8 ton halftracks I decided to add treadplate to the floors between the seats and on the floor of the driver's compartment.

For the tractor variant I used some ancient brass treadplate I had.







Comments are welcomed.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

Almost forgot this.

Whilst looking at images of the area between the bottom of the body and the chassis I noticed some tubes and lines that I then decided to add to my air tanks. I used bits and pieces of parts from the scrap bin and also some stretched sprue for the air lines. You can actually see some of this stuff even after the body is on.







Cheers from Peter

 

[reconron]

That looks great so far,Peter!
Looking forward to the next steps!


Gr,Ron.

 

[moon puppy]

Git'er done Peter.

 

[Iron Mike]

Good stuff, Peter.

 

[tom1815]

Love seeing older kits getting a new lease of life, nice work

 

[SA Dave]

Love the floors

 

[jknaus]

James

 

[MrT]

 

[Swordsman]

Looking Very Good .... ....

 

[Tankbuilder]

Detailing the Winch

I didn't like the way the winch sat on the chassis because it sat too high. The images I have show the top of the winch cable reel about flush with the top of the chassis.

Here's what it looked liked at first. The top of the winch reel is the horizontal thing just above the wheels at the right of the image.






To lower the winch assembly I cut recesses into tthe middle longitudinal frame pieces.




Now the winch assembly fits lower and the top of the winch cable reel is nearly flush with the top of the main chassis.







Now to add a little something to that winch. At the front of the winch there is a 'L' shape rod that very nearly touches the winch cable reel. I think it's to help keep the cable from running off the reel. I decided I wanted that part on my model.

First I found a drill bit that looked about the same scale size as the rod in my reference image. Then I looked for something round and metal about the same diameter as the drill bit. The dressmaker pin was a near perfect match. I bent the pin into an 'L' shape.



Next I drilled a hole in the winch cable reel holder to put tthe 'L' shape metal rod piece into.



Then I used cyanoacrylate glue to hold the 'L' shape piece in place. Once the gkue set up I trimmed the rod to length and squared off the top with a small grinding stone. Here's what the winch and cable reel look like now.




Believe it or not you can actually see this assembly when the body is on the chassis. Here's the body temporarily on the chassis. The winch is just to the right of the white piece.



As always comments are welcomed as well as greatly appreciated.

Cheers from Peter

 

[Tankbuilder]

How I made my winch cable.




Just in case anyone wonders where I got my winch reel cable from. I made it.

I started with some cotton crochet yarn the right diameter. I took a shallow bowl and made a dilute solution of white glue and water. This solution was to stiffen the yarn so that when dry it behaved like a real steel cable would. I gently and slowly pulled the cotton crochet yarn through the solution being sure that the entire yarn was coated and that the solution soaked into the yarn. Next I slowly pulled the yarn through a scrap of paper towel and watched the emerging yarn to be sure that the twist in the yarn was visible. I then hung the yarn to dry. When dry I painted the yarn with some Krylon silver paint I had. To make the cable a brighter silver I might run it through some Testor's 1146 (square bottle) silver paint. I pour off almost all of the carrier then stir it well and spread a glob of paint on a smooth surface. I then pull tthe yarn through that. Pouring off most of the carrier from that Testor's silver paint results in a very bright silver colour.

I didn't post images because I think the process is self explanatory. If you want images, let me know and I'll make some more cable and take images as i do and add those images to this post.

Comments are welcomed and appreciated. Those comments are what let posters know their time and work posting something is doing something for others.

Cheers from Peter

 

[SA Dave]

That winch looks great thanks for the how to on the cable I will have to remember it :geek

 

[lupanzer]

Nice job!

Luiz

 

[Tankbuilder]

How I made my winch cable. (Also works for tow cables)

Let's make some model scale steel cable. This is the technique I used for my steel cable in my German 8 ton halftracks winch cable reels.


Here's some finished cable wound onto a winch reel on my 8 ton halftrack.




To make this "steel" cable we'll need some suitable thread, some white glue, some water in a small dish, a stir stick, some paper towel and some silver paint.




The first step is to find something that looks like it's a good scale size and has a nice twist to it. I used some crochet cotton. Remember that 1/35" diameter thread is equal to a real life 1" diameter cable.




The second step is to figure out how much cable you want. I just wound the thread around the winch cable reel until it was full.









Remove the thread from the reel and set the thread aside being careful not to let it tangle.


We need to stiffen tthe thread so that it'll behave like a real steel cable does - it doesn't bend suddenlt/limply. To do that we now need to mix some white glue and water to make a creamy mix.




Once we have a nice creamy texture we add the thread to it making sure the thread is totally covered. Let that set for a few minutes to give the glue a chance to penetrate fully into the thread.






Whilst the glue mix is doing its thing take a small piece of paper towel and fold it up to a handy size. We'll pull the glue covered thread slowly and lightly through that paper towel to remove the excess glue mixture.




After removing the excess glue mixture we put the thread someplace safe to dry. At this stage the thread is still tacky so I used a clothespin to suspend the thread near a fan. (If you have cats beware! They like to swat dangling threads).


The dried cable is now a lot stiffer and will mimic the behaviour of real steel cable. That is it will not sag/bend unrealistcally when laid out. This is really important when using it for tow cables as when on a vehicle they do NOT have sharp bends due to the nature of wound steel cable. You can see the difference in the stiffness of the thread in this image of the thread before and after the diluted glue mix treatment. Another thing that the diluted glue mixture and pulling the thread through a piece of paper towel to remove the excess glue does is that it causes any loose or standing thread fibers to lie down.




When dry the thread can be coiled for future use but be carefull not to coil it too tightly as it will now behave like a real steel cable and could kink or take a memory of the coil spiral.




I wanted this cable to be silver. I very loosely wound it on a flat surface and then spray painted it with some old Testor's silver spray paint I have. You can use alumiium colour paint or rust colour if you want. it depends on how you want the cable to look. Here is the painted and very loosely coiled cable. You can weather it further to suit your needs/wants. BTW, I use a drilled out nozzle to spray my silver paint. It now comes out in a thin stream and it saturates the thread with a mininum of overspray.




I hope this is helpful to you. Comments are welcomed and appreciated by me.

Cheers from Peter

 

[moon puppy]

Great looking cable Peter.

 

[Tankbuilder]

HOW I MAKE ADDITIONAL TREADPLATE.

I'm working on 3 Tamiya Sdkfz. 7 vehicles. The trouble is that none of them have any treadplate in the cab area. In fact the artillery tractor variant doesn't have any treadplate at all. I was luck enough to have some brass treadplate that I was able to use on the tractor variant but there wasn't enough to do the cab areas of either the Quad 20mm Flak gun model or the 3.7cm Flak gun model. Fortunately both of those kits do have treadplate on the gun platform. I decided to make some treadplate using the gun platform of the 3.7cm Flak gun as a pattern. This technique will work to create just about any pattern of treadplate and is very useful when a model doesn't have treadplate everywhere it should.


Here are three images of the treadplate as it appears on the Tamiya 3.7cm Flak gun platform.








To make my treadplate I use aluminium foil and a stiff bristle round paintbrush.




The first thing to do is place a piece of aluminium foil over a section of treadplate to be duplicated.



You want to snug the aluminium foil over the sides of the treadplate in order to keep it from shifting when working it.

Experimenting showed me that a stippling motion (dabbing the bristles of the brush straight down) onto the foil was a better technique than dragging the brush across the foil was as there was far less chance of tearing the thin aluminium foil.

I held the brush vertically to the gun platform and then gently stabbed it onto the foil. Repeating that motion transfers the gun platform treadplate to the aluminium foil and forces the aluminium foil close to each raised pattern on the kit platform.






In just a few minutes the pattern is duplicated and looks like this.






All you need to do now is remove the patterned aluminium foil and cut out the pieces you need and attach them to our model.

I hope this is of use to you. Comments are welcomed and appreciated by me.

Cheers from Peter