once upon a time there was a Hetzer..

[Timo Haehnle]

well...
"past tense" is not the right time form in the headline yet, because UPS don´t like to transfer the parcels to me at the moment.
But AT is helping to get the parcels finally delivered.

I´m Timo from Germany, new to this forum, as well as new to RC tanks in 1/6.
As kid I loved to build RC ships and cars, but well, most of it I could not afford.
Since I am adult things have changed, after ships and petrol cars, I ended up with RC tanks.
First in the scale of 1/16, but I never liked how they move on gras or dirt. After seeing the big boys playing, I decided 5 years ago to switch to 1/10.
1/10 is nice to handle and you still can carry your models around. But my personal feeling is, that there are less and less people doing 1/10, because in the Truck world 1/14 is key and in RC tanks 1/16 is most popular.
I am following the armortek forum roughly one year, I was in love with the Jagdpanzers.
Some trouble here where I live, the flat is on the scond floor, so as the room where I build my tanks. That means every tank has to be carried on the stairs. The only AT tank that fits the weight criteria from the Jagdpanzers is the Hetzer.

I learned a lot from you guys in the past month, as well as from Tonys videos on YT, on who he was building his Hetzer. During those videos the decision was done: I want a Hetzer!

So more to come here while I build the tank and I am happy to any suggestions, tips or "do and don´t"

A friedly "Panzer Hurra"

Best regards
Timo

[Timo Haehnle]

UPS was in some way kind to me, 2 parcels arrived today. The third one (the main one) "could not be delived". Strange because I was the whole day at home. Well lets wait for tomorrow, I am confidend that it will arrive as well.



Best regards,
Timo

[Klaus Uschkurat]

Hallo Timo

hätest dir einen drucken lassen in 1:6, könntest du zwei hochtragen.
Bei einem in 1:6 von Armortek wirst dir auch schwer tun!
Vielleicht sieht man sich ja mal in Hausen ?
Gruss aus Deutschland
Klaus

[Timo Haehnle]

I do 3D printing by myself, but even if a lot of people try to 3D print tanks in 1/6 I doubt, that this will work for long.
All my 1:10 tanks are made from Aluminium and its a complete different way to work.

[Timo Haehnle]

Die last Box arrived, as expected, on Saturday.

I really like how everything is packed and stored savely inside the box.

Next step was sorting things and get used to the parts of the kit.



Whats better than checking the inventory list at the same time?
Btw. the Hetzer is made from 980 Parts and 1089 Screws & Nuts.
Okay I didn´t count every screw, but the plan-numbers on the small pouches and the number of parts written on it.





Not everyone likes to go through the inventory, but I do. It gives me a better understanding which parts are there and what the might be used for.
Prior to the start of the build, I decided to use edge primer on the parts.



I am using the edge primer from Mipa and this one is some kind of yellow. Okay thats not what was used on the Hetzer back then. The primer on the real tank was some kind of red and brown (RAL 8012).
Personally it is more important for me that the primer works well and the Mipa primer does the job. Actually I could not find a dedicated primer for aluminium in RAL 8012. So in this particular point my Hetzer will not be scale. But it is a minor one.

The first steps are straight forward, nothing special. Except that I am following the tips from Tonys Workshop Videos and use Loctide to secure the screws.



Next step the idler housing. Here I decided to fist mount everything to see if it fits, then I will take it apart again and then prime it.





I really like the quality of the part. Not much need to be done to the parts except from cleaning.

[Timo Haehnle]

Its time for some news regarding the build of Hetzer No 16.
Well, actually not that much from the building itself, I am still working on the framework itself. I guess nothing what is really important for most of the people here:




Nevertheless during the last two weeks, I had the oportunity to visit some of the largest tank museum in Europe.
Not only to find a Hetzer in the setup from the German Army and not another Swiss G13, but also to decide about what kind of RAL7028 Dunkelgelb I should use.

The discussions about RAL 7028 are probably familiar to everyone who builds Wehrmacht models from the last years of the war.
The original sample cards have been lost, there is no source that can say exactly what RAL 7028 from 1944 (for my Hetzer) looked like.
I know that Armortek has a nice topic here in the forum regarding the RAL 7028, this topic was the actual reason for me to dive deeper in this topic.
The problem is that the popular heavy tanks have often already been restored and painted over.
The situation is different with the less popular vehicles, there are also vehicles that are obviously unrenovated.
That's why you can see a lot of different colors on exhibited museum vehicles and you can easily see if the color choice was "wrong" during the restoration.
The following pictures are from the Musée des Blindés in Saumur:

This Panzer IV has obviously been restored, the dark yellow is too light for my taste:


Same for this Marder:


Things geting more interessting with this Hotchkiss-based vehicle:


Unfortunately, if you take photos with automatic settings, the colors are intensified and the sensitivity is greatly increased on modern devices. The photo was taken with ISO500.
https://s20.directupload.net/images/250 ... e7nbik.jpg[/img]

If you go back to ISO125, the color is as I perceived it in the museum:


The JP is also a good example. According to the museum, it still has the original Zimmerit flooring. It looks too well preserved for that to me, but OK:


In the Tank Museum in Bovington there is a STUG III with the note, original paint and original Zimmerit.



While taking pictures in Bovington, I forgot to change the settings, so the color appears brighter than it actually is. Of course, the type of lighting also plays an important role.

One bad example:


A 2cm in front and a recently refurbished 8.8 behind it. Obviously no effort was made with the color scheme, neither the red, nor the green, nor the dark yellow match. It's a real shame to see something like this in a museum.

I builded up my mind, my Hetzer is now getting the dark yellow 1944 from Militärlacke.de, where in the description of dark yellow RAL 7028 there is a good explanation of how they came up with the color:

Militärlacke Webseite (only in German sorry)


--

Best regards
Falk

[Daniel Scholefield]

Good to see another Hetzer build
Only thing I would say that if you got the motion pack it should have come with the steel sprockets, make sure you use those rather than the aluminium ones in the kit.
The other thing I could mention from my build is I used etch primer then red primer to replicate the real vehicle but the choice is yours.

Also get a Dragon MG34 and the Armorpax remote MG mount as it's a very visible update to the kit.

[Chang]

Nice works Daniel. Love both the Hetzer and the scissor lift table trolley.
Lerh Chang

[Alex Easten]

Only thing I would say that if you got the motion pack it should have come with the steel sprockets, make sure you use those rather than the aluminium ones in the kit.

Great looking builds Timo and Daniel. Good to know, I didn't know the motion pack from Armortek came with steel sprockets, I'd been concerned about how durable the kit ones would be!

Thanks,
Alex

[Timo Haehnle]

Thanks for the advice Daniel! Before I ordered the Hetzer, I was a long time a silent visitor in this forum und learned about the Problem witrh the sprocket wheeI. I had a long discussion with Oldchap regarding this abd saw Liams solution. I am happy that the steel ones are now invcluded in the options pack.

Red primer or not. I was actually thinking a long time abou this. But because I don´t want to edge prime and then prime, I took the decision againt the red primer, because I fear too many layers of primer and color could look bad.

The Dragon MG 34 is allready here, but the Armorpax MG mount is a nice advice !! Thanks mate, I now have to search for it

[Timo Haehnle]

Here's another update on the Hetzer. The construction is progressing quite unspectacularly. Countersinking a thread here, breaking an edge there is nothing earth-shattering. The parts fit very well, but without knowledge of metal construction I think it would be difficult.

At some point I started building chains. Many people are afraid of that. Personally, I find this work very meditative and with the right music in the background it's actually no problem. As always with model building, you shouldn't put yourself under pressure. For example, I always build the chain in blocks of 10. Always connect 10 chain links, then the next 10. That way you don't get confused when counting and you can always build nice little pieces when you're in the mood:




What I really, really, really like at the Hetzer, are the leaf springs!. 95% of all tanks have torsion bars and so it's a welcome change to work with leaf springs.







One thing you have to be careful about is when gluing the tread onto the wheels. There are two potential problems here:

1. Loctide 480 has the viscosity of water, so you can quickly mess up your work area and possibly the pre-painted wheels.

2. Loctide 480 has the ability to hold very quickly. So the tread has to be glued on very quickly. I used an old board as some kind of support and drilled a hole the size of the wheel hub so that I could place the wheels flat on a surface. That was a huge relief, so thank you for the tip! Someone in a JP thread mentioned this idea and I could simple benefit from it.
I have no idea if it's necessary, but after gluing it I pressed the tread onto the surface with a cable tie for 24 hours. The effort is minimal and it certainly didn't do any harm. Is it necessary? No idea



The next step is the drive gear. I also applied primer to the inside of the parts, as this is steel running in an aluminum housing. I hope this will provide a little protection for the metal if moisture gets in.