Another Stug joins the chat

[Sjouke Kooistra]

Hey all.

New guy on the forums here
I'm Sjouke living in the north of the Netherlands and a little while ago I got the opportunity to buy my very first Armortek model after many years being on the fence about it. (we all know what I mean there )

after seeing you guys have fun at Millitracks again this year I decided to just go for it and through this very Forum I was able to buy Jim Marshalls Stug III number 54.

he had already started building it and so I had a head start on the build (he was nice enough to get a rolling chassis so no track build for me )
now since he lives in the US and I live on the other side of the pond everything had to be taken appart again almost and I had to puzzle it back together.

but so far ^^ it's going pretty great. though scrolling through the builds here i'm not nearly at the same level of details some of you guys can put on it.
anyways going to throw some pictures here in the thread as soon as i get that up and going and hope i can ask you experts here for some guidance when i need it

it's been a while since I've been part of a forum so bear with me as I figure it out again.

[Marco Peter]

WELKOM!

[Sjouke Kooistra]

just a few more pictures of the progress i made since the start of the build.

[Kees van Rijswijk]

Welkom

[Sjouke Kooistra]

thanks gentlemen ^^

so here's my first question
what all do most of you guys use to paint the models?
I'm used to painting plastics and wood ... not metal

and then for any dutch members the question ... where did you get your supplies?

[keithbraun]

I used a mixture of aerosol primers (auto paints) and dark yellow from Kings Army Industrial Paint. Camouflage and other details were Tamiya paints. Finished with a light dusting of a Tamiya spray. My Stug going to have an overhaul, but it did make an appearance at Militracks this year. Good luck with the build.

[Sjouke Kooistra]

Thanks.

seeing you guys drive around in the mud and sludge ... did any of you do anything in the way of making the hull watertight?

[Björn Johansson]

Welcome
Looking forward to read about you´r build progress

[Sjouke Kooistra]

been slowly building the upper structure

did some fender work aswell
and hung up some parts on the line to prime

[Sjouke Kooistra]

after a long time of having a cold shed and some health issues ... finally i had some time to do some work on the Stug
I saw a few guys here get a nice piece of equiptment to make uniform strips of milliput (thnx gents) wich inspired me to order one aswell and it's amazingly handy

first time fake welding ... let me know how i did please

[bryan massie]

Hi Sjouke

I'm not an expert by any means but you may want to flatten the edges more, it looks like the welding is almost floating if you see what I mean, what did you use ?, a good friend of mine told me to use the top of an empty pen, it gives you the curl shape and really press down on the milliput to fix it to the metal

cheers Bry

[Sjouke Kooistra]

Thanks for the comment I'll try your tip next time (there is enough welding still to go )

I used the picks on the second photo on the top right.
I saw the straighter welds on the stug at the bastogne barracks wich is why these are pretty straight.