Sd. Kfz. 251/17 WIP

Teaser

Few weeks ago, I dropped my old "Finetune" airbrush. Result: The needle was bent.
Well, I wasn't particulary happy with this thingy anyways. Cleaning it was horrible because of the screw-mount nozzle which was also responsible for the "shifted" spray stream, as the nozzle was never exactly centered. To keep it short: This airbrush sucked.

A week later, I met up with Martin, who is the president of DPMV (Deutscher Plastik Modellbau Verband - "German Plastic Modellers Society"). He was so kind to bring me his three Airbrush-guns:

• Infinity Evolution 2 in 1
• Revell Masterclass
• Triplex

I tried them all and I really liked the Triplex (German manufacturer, see here: Gabbert). It's a combined Double Action gun, which means, if you pull the trigger to the back, the gun doesn't only pull the needle back, it also opens the air-valve.

I looked around a few week and made a luck-shot on ebay where I got the brand-new full set with 3 different heads, needles and nozzles in a wooden case for 100€ instead of 160€:

I did some practices on paper to get used to the gun and it works really fine. The nozzles are self-centering and the spray-stream is just perfect!

To practice on a model (on which the airstream behaves totally different than on paper, depending on the angles of the model), I chose a model which I bought as a used piece. It was a partially scratched Sd. Kfz. 251/17, originally made of an ESCI Sd. Kfz. 251/1 Ausf. C.

Well the foreowner missed a lot of details, so I decided to pimp it up a little.

 I added the personal weapons of the crew, six carabines which were mounted outside on the vehicle sides. The case for the replacement barrel (on top of the drivers cabin) was also missing, as well as the headlights, which were made from semi-spheric sprue-ends.

 The flak itself had no targeting device and there was no crew with this afv.

I found some figures in my bits-box which were converted to fit in and look better.

 

 Finally I attached some personal gear for the crew and off it went!

 Next step was to choose the camo pattern. I did some research and stumbled upon a pattern that looked hard to make.

The base is german dark yellow.
Next follows a "network" of brown lines.
On those green lines, there are slightly thinner green lines to be applied.
Here's what came out:

 I sometimes missed the point and had to touch up some places afterwards, but overall I'm very pleased with the result. The models and figures will have to wait until next year to be finished though.

I hope you like the outcome as well :)

Half of the week is over, enjoy the other part!

Regards, Mojo