Rex Ross

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To all of the Hetzer scratchbuilders on this thread..................

I wuz gonna post photos of the Hetzer I finally finished (but not painted yet) today, but after reading about all of your Hetzer projects and seeing your progress photos, I don't think I'm gonna do that. That old piece of advice came to mind......................

......................Never bring a knife to a gun fight.

Compared to me, youse guys are deadly serious about this little beauty. Mine is just barely gonna be R/C. It has been built from stuff in my parts box, the garage, and the kitchen junk drawer. My model sorta/kinda resembles a Hetzer from a distance, but inspected up close, it would give an IPMS judge a heart attack. I can't decide what to do with mine. Bury it? Burn it? Blow it up? ..............decisions, decisions!

My hat is off to you all.

Rex Ross

FFR2608

Rex,
I would love to see pictures of it.

YHR

Post away Rex. I for one would love to see your efforts. Not everything has to be museum quality. Part of the exercise of posting is to encourage others to try. A first attempt is as valuable to this forum as a musuem quality build. People will throw in their advice and comments, making it an education for everyone. Please post.

Dan

moonshadow5739

Hey Rex..... Dont you DARE destroy that project of yours or I WILL come up there and show you what a Irish/Texan temper is all about!
No, really, just keep working on it and PLEASE post some pics of it! Sir, it is I who pale before you. I have seen your work and I am always amazed.

Rex Ross

Rex,
I would love to see pictures of it. (FFR)
Post away Rex. I for one would love to see your efforts. (YHR)

Dear FFR and YHR ........ My initials are WRR....... are we related?

OK .....just for laughs, here are some out of focus fotos. This is my hobby. I do it for fun. I would never enter a contest. I take liberties (artistic license) with my models. When it comes to accuracy, sometimes I say "close enough is good enough". A lot of the time I say "screw it, I'm tired of working on this darn thing". I have no patience, or master craftsman skills. but I do have an ego, which is as big as all outdoors (and a butt to match my ego), and I'm proud of my stuff, just like a parent with a new baby, no matter how goofy looking the kid is. This is my 30th scratchbuilt 1/16 scale model. It's better than my first two or three, but not by much. I'm not sure what that should tell me about skill level.

Tracks are from a 1/24 scale model of something German that I got somehow/somewhere.
Road wheels are from a Heng Long Tiger, modified with large fender washers and Sherman drive sprocket hub caps.
R/C guts are from a ToysRus $20 Hobbico toy thing.
The rest is Evergreen and misc. parts from the parts box or stolen from other kits.

I should have posted a separate thread on this, it wasn't my intention to hijack the subject.

Rex Ross






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Tanque

Rex, Rex, Rex y'know I've never seen anything of yours that looks bad.
Ya want bad ? Here is my 1/10 guy in progress:




As I said, a WIP. It will be powered by a 21 -.30 4-cycle...


jerry

Me-109 Jagdflieger

So many Hetzers... So little time...Im still trying to absorb the awesomeness that is all of your work, very nice projects Guys I am Green with envy and drowning in drool [sm=drowning.gif]
Cant wait to see all of them finished,
Jonathan

Tanque

Hey Me-109 do you know who Walter Schuck is? ( sorry not tank related)

jerry

Rex Ross

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, Those photos are your signature. I/10th scale? All metal? Gas engine? Who else but you would do a thing like that!!!! I can't even imagine working in metal. But the 1/10 scale is beginning to appeal to my bad eyesight and fat fingers.

Me-109 Jagdflieger

Indeed I do, Im sending you a PM so we can keep this thread on the Hetzers
Jonathan

Tanque

Yep, that would be me.

I love the smell of glow fuel in the morning...it smells like.... like victory.

Jerry

Flyn Chris

Looks pretty dang good to me!! I would very happy with.

Panzerpaul

Oh My....a big No No !......seems I have angered the powers that be..............mentioned something I should not have in my prior post. In case you had wondered....that post was removed. So here is a synopsis again of my build. If anyone has questions.........email me direct at [email protected].

This is my 1/16th Hetzer project.......well underway. Took a resin kit (now OOP) I bought and bashed the crap out of it. Made a pattern for the metal pan (lower hull) which has been fitted with a Tamiya T1 gear set. Some parts were made from Pewter in Hi-temp RTV molds. Some just from resin in regular molds. Some are & will be scratch built from brass. Still need to make the tracks and drive sprocket from bronze. The lost wax masters are done. Just need to find a local foundry source to do the pour.

But based on the look of the tracks in Rex's build, maybe I don't have to make over 150 small track pieces.......if I can find whatever Rex used, it may be close enough...........So, Rex......please put your thinking cap on and try to remember what 1/24th scale German tank you bought.

This will be FO when done. All the Tamiya stuff fits, but the battery is custom shaped and the speaker will be without the box. Enjoy the pictures. Panzerpaul

Rex Ross

Panzerpaul................

Those tracks are from an Academy Panther, 1/25th scale. See below for one source that has it.

http://www.greatmodels.com/~smartcar...m_num=ACY13018

Those tracks are 1 inch wide and are not connected with pins. They have little nibs on the outside edges of the track that snap into the holes on the edges of the adjoining link. They can be pulled apart somewhat easily. I scratchbuilt a Hanomag SdKfz 251 in 1/16 scale using this track a few years ago, and the track worked out well on soft dirt for one afternoon. I didn't push my luck any further. I'm sure that they won't stand up to rough terrain or extended use for very long. To be a success, my Hetzer is only going to have to run for 20 feet, turn around, and come back to me. Then it's gonna become a shelf queen and collect dust.

moonshadow5739

Well, here is a few pics of the progress that I have made, slow as it has been...busy with work and all of that..anyway...have made the front glassis plate and gun sheild, now..I'm no scupter, but I dont think I did all that bad on the gun housing and gun sheild for my 1st attempt...started to do more work on the upper hull, and you can compare with pics I took of the real one here in Austin.
The road wheels are from the 21st C 1/18th Panther......from my rough measurements the HL Mk.III tracks will suffice for width, now I know that the Hetzer had double guide teeth, but for the 10ft rule that I am using, these tracks will work. I split the inner dish road wheel and added a spacer to allow the teeth to ride in and reassembled. Road wheel is now ready to be cast for resin copies.

Thats all for now guys, just putting away little at a time. Again, this project is not realy meant to be 100% accurate, I do not have the resources available to me for that, just to have something different out on the battlefield and look good at 10 ft away.


-Mike

kclank

looking real good Paul

Rex Ross

Your Hetzer has inspired me to finish (paint) mine. I also am going to do the three tone camo, but in a hard edge puzzle pattern with spots.

Your attention to detail is much better than mine. Your photos made me realize that all of those things I thought were rivet heads are really bolt heads. I really blew it on that one!

I wish I coulda seen yours before I did mine, I coulda done a better job........

tankman

Looks good to me, it's easy to see a lot of work and effort have gone into this little cracker. How did you do the remote machine gun it looks the business.
Alan

Rex Ross

This site was really good for details..............

http://www.vmmv.org/tanktk/hetzer/hetzer.htm

moonshadow5739

Well.....here is the FIRST pour from the mold that I had made for the upper hull.....I really do not know how Firenick does it..MAN!!!..this takes patiance and skill!!...some of which on this I just do not have! My hat is off to him! I'm just glad I'm doing just a few of these!

ANYWAY...the wooden dowel barrel and TC is just for looks

Just keeping all of you up-dated on whats going on....

Rex, Panzerpaul,..your Hetzers look awsome!..Keep going at it guys..y'all put these that I'm doing to shame..but like I said before, these are not to be 100% accurate, but just to have something different out on the battle-field

-Mike

moonshadow5739

Well, sometimes I just do not have patiance, I just had to add some color to one of the upper hulls. I now have 3 upper hulls poured, casting the road wheels at this time and forming the lower hulls soon afterward..my goal is to have the first one up and running in about a month.

Still have all of the little goodies to put on, ie remote mg, hatches, tie-down loops tools ect,ect. Like I said, just got impatiant.

121 will be going to D. Soza, he will be the commander of the hetzer platoon, 122 will go to TxTanker, 123 will go to Andrew, (new member) and 124 will go to my son.

Boy, I did not know really how many other people are doing hetzers! Keep it up guys! I love it!

-Mike

Rex Ross

[quote]ORIGINAL: moonshadow5739

Well, sometimes I just do not have patiance, I just had to add some color to one of the upper hulls.

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Gosh, I understand the deal about not having patience, I'm the same way sometimes. I
wish I could buy a box of it for some projects. I like your choice of camo paint. My Hetzer is finished, but not painted....I am waiting for theweather and my garage to warm up. I want the paint to dry, not freeze. How many hulls and stuff are you going to cast? Making more than one is an example of stuff I don't have the patience to do.....

Panther G

Rex the thing just looks amazing, great job. i have wanted one of these little buggers for a long time and recently decided to try to build one my self. Any plans or dimensions you have I would love to get from you. Again excellent job.

Rex Ross

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Unfortunately, I never take photos as I go along and I throw away any drawings or notes that I make when I get finished. I work from photos and scale drawings in reference books and have measured the parts of a 1/35 scale model to get working dimensions in 1/16th. I work by trial and error rather than thoughtful planning.

I am really impressed by Moonshadows' Hetzer, the details of his model are superior to what I did. Perhaps he can help. I'm not trying to be humble here, but everybody who has posted scratchbuilts on this forum has incredible skill and amazing attention to accuracy and detail. And that's just the stuff that shows on the outside. Then ya got the total R/C package where everything works. If all of the tanks I've seen on this site were set up for display in a big auditorium, I would put my stuff on a table in the parking lot, next to the dumpster. I love this forum, it's very interesting and inspiring to me.

moonshadow5739

Well, it's finally done!

I would like to say, that before many of you start picking it apart on what's wrong, (which by the way I am fully expecting), that this was built as a "fun" runner, to look good at 10ft and as a REPRESENTATION of a hetzer. It was never meant to be a IPMS winner.

I used stock HL tracks , drive sprockets and supprt rollers for simplicity, tools from a tamiya Sherman, but everything else was scratched and cast from resin.

I never knew when I started this thread that there was several of you had this as a project and a couple of fine folks even trying their hand at producing these for the masses. I wish each and everyone of you success in your projects.

Now that I am over my back injury, I can finish Bob's Pershing, complete the 2 other hetzers for my fellow club members and get back to my pet project.

Thank you all for reviewing this thread.
-Mike