jom

I've been waiting for a Stug to appear on the market, but nothing has, so I decided to try a scratch build.

Starting point was a Heng Long Panzer III and two reference books: German Late War Armored Fighting Vehicles: World War II AFV Plans by George Bradford and the Squadron StuG III walkaround.

Incidentally I just checked on Amazon for the Bradford book - you can get a decent size picture of the front cover, which is 3 views of a late G with Schurtzen, and the page with the main views of the early G is also available online....

Starting point was to scale the drawings up to 1/16 and compare the tank to the drawing. It's remarkably similar, the main difference being the engine cover and front upper body of the Panzer being about 4 mm too high. I suspect that HL did this to get the standard Tiger gearbox to fit.

I started by making a series of styrene sheet frames to fit at each point where the roof profile of the Stug changes. Once these were the right distance apart it was fairly easy to plate between them, to make the roof shape (Incidentally is there anyone out there not using the score and snap method of cutting styrene? I only stumbled on it a couple of years ago. It really speeds things up!)

Here's the initial rear roof build:



Jo

pzrwest

Been useing the score and snap method for years works great. Some thicker pieces like .060 takes a bit more scoreing but still works. Even curved score lines break cleanly if scored right. Good idea passing this on I'm sure there are some people who don't know this.... bravo jom

YHR

OH Good a new build thread. I love these.

Thanks for sharing

jom

Basic spec for this Stug will be a late-ish G (i.e. post Zimmerit) with welded mantlet and possibly Schurzen. I'm going to attempt to put as much detail on it as possible, and I really don't have any choice now having removed most of the detail on the tops of the track guards...

I've cut back the front of the body, added the 30mm welded on armour (2mm styrene sheet) to the front of the hull, and rescribed the front hatches.

Also added the front armour and the gun cutout to the crew compartment. I built the sloping front armour plate in one piece, as its the same angle both sides of the gun, and then cut out the gun aperture with a jewellers saw. Plates either side of the aperture are bent rather than welded together.

The hole for the cupola was cut with a 50mm hole cutter (used for wooden door locks) and the basic cupola cylinder is a cut down PVC pipe joint.

Jo

swathdiver

Nice work! This, like your BullDog might inspire me to resurrect my defunct Stug III D project!

ArmChairGeneral

Nice work so far, I am still waiting for a Stug to appear...

chrisko

Threads like this make me feel so...inadequate.

jom

Thanks for the encouragement!

I've glued in the cupola (using epoxy and wedging it in - not much sticks to PVC, except PVC cement, and that won't glue anything else. Hopefully it's tight enough to stay put.

I started on the gun. I Couldn't find any tubing the right size for the recoil sleeve (?) so cheated a bit and turned it from aluminium bar. The barrel is the panzer barrel turned down to match the breech end, just to see what it looks like. I haven't decided how far to go with the gun - airsoft, recoil, CO2? so this is a dummy for the initial build.
The rear mounting plate on the mantlet is angled back. I couldn't find a decent picture anywhere so guessed the angle. After I'd assembled it I realised that it's more than likely the same angle as the front armour plate of the crew compartment.
A 5.5kg package arrived from Asiatam today, so I might have to concentrate on the hull and come back to the superstructure later...

jom

Since the metal bits have arrived I had to try them out!

I started with the new top return roller mounts. Although these will fit into the existing holes I've gone for the realistic look and mounted them higher up - from the front, raised 2,4 and 3mm. I decided that I needed a drill template to position the hole pattern.
To make the template, I placed the new mount (fixing studs down) onto a piece of 2mm (.080) styrene and tapped it gently with a soft hammer to make a impression of the three studs onto the styrene. I centre spiked these impressions and drilled them out to 2.5mm. To mark the centre hole required a bit of thought...eventually I worked out that the easy way to do it was to assemble the mount onto the template (through the holes) and use a drill the same size as the bore of the mount (4mm) to mark the centre of the template. Then drill this out to 3mm.
From there it's easy to mark the centreline of each mount on the tank, fill the existing holes and mark and drill new centres (3mm hole) higher up. Then align the template using a 3mm screw in the centre hole and drill the fixing hole pattern in 2.5mm. Sorry if that's a bit long winded but it took me a while to work it out!

Oh yes - getting the old plastic ones out - most of mine had been spared the glue fairy and came out with a bit of wiggling and pushing on the pins from inside.


Jo

jom

Adjustable idler mounts: pretty easy to fix. The worst part is cutting and filing the old mounts off the hull. I cut off what could be reached with end cutters and then used a wood rasp to get most of the rest off, followed by a fine file and block sanding.

Asiatam provide a template for drilling the new holes for the three locating pins, and the new idler is a real snug fit around the rear corner of the hull. It looks terrific too.

One of the problems is that the idler swivel that screws into the boss on the lower hull side is held in by the original screw, and my bosses were just about stripped by the factory. I tried drilling right through (to use a long bolt and nut) but the hole goes through the centre of the hull to top body fixing screw tube. As these tubes hold two of the three screws I have left to hold the tank together it's a bit impractical. I've filled the existing screwholes in the bosses and will redrill for the existing screws.

icecreamslick

My Feedback: (9)

Nice Stug! [sm=thumbs_up.gif] I'm adding some of these metal bits to my Panzer III and it is nice to see what it is going to be like. I'm looking forward to your progress reports.

Panther F

Nice work jom! [sm=thumbup.gif] You guys and your StuG's!!! Now I need one! []

I especially like the adjustable idler mounts. Great detail work.

gigantohawk

Great looking work jom. I always like the look of accuracy. Did you find your "roller inspiration" from panzer-ketten ?.
With regard to the adjustable idlers, I think it's best to leave the existing moulded area on the side of the hull in place as per photo. It's an embreyonic photo, but it should give you the general idea.

Gigantohawk.

Leo2A6 Owner

Good progress. You have gotten a very good representation going. I see you used the same method i did for my Stig III B. Make a frame in the right profile then plate over it. Keep it up.

jom

gigantohawk - thanks for the picture of the plates for the idler adjuster. I went a bit OTT with the file, now I'll put them back again.....

Yes, the roller idea was from Panzer-Ketten (and mentioned on this forum too)

Jo

swathdiver

I've been looking for those metal rollers that are available to the USA, none of my British suppliers carry them yet. Great work so far!

ArmChairGeneral

Yup, nice looking Stug project, its a shame Asiatam still doesn't offer english on their website, I use a converter but its cumbersome and annoying, so I give up and don't order anything.

jom

Duplicate post.....sorry but I've had picture upload problems....[]

jom

I have acquired a little Stug (1/100 scale), so while the crew are waiting for this one to be built they can play with a (relative) 1/6 scale one...here it is next to some 1/16 track links.

swathdiver

Ditto!

jom

I wanted to ensure that the new low set gearboxes were mounted firmly, and more importantly fixed together so that they wouldn't stress the plastic hull.
I've used aircraft quality aluminium sheet - it's really stiff - and to fix the gearboxes I used some floating anchor nuts I've had lying around for for 25 years. Note that there are only 2 fixing points that can be used on each gearbox.

I built up pads with styrene to get the ally plate to the correct height, and fixed it temporarily with two M4 countersunk screws from underneath (one hole is the old battery cover fastening, the other was drilled).

After the motors had been test fitted, I glued the plate in using epoxy, and also epoxied in the screws and nuts. It's not going to move....

jom

Next step was to stiffen the sides - 2mm styrene epoxied and clamped, after roughening both surfaces with 80 grit emery paper.

Then all the holes were drilled through the new linings. The top roller mount fixings were countersunk back as the cast threaded studs on the roller mounts are only long enough to go through the outer skin.

There's also a bulkhead added behind the motors and a new styrene floor to be fitted.

jom

Duplicate post!

Jo

jom

Test fit of all the metal suspension....

All red oxided so I can leave it assembled and spray dunkelgelb on top.

A bit more progress on the armour - the gun mantlet is completely boxed and I've decided to open up the loader's hatch.

Next step is to get the hull working again.

fv432

outstanding work jo
have been following from the first post really nice work


Rob