Sd. Kfz. 164 Nashorn

Few days ago I finished a model that survived quite some ramblings...
I started building the Revell Nashorn in 2011 but often got distracted by other projects.
For Christmas 2012 I received a big parcel with Revell models.Since they came 4 free, I decided to get some PE parts for them (1st time!).
And I bought some for the Nashorn as well: PART Ammunition lockers :)

So I started up again and prepared everything for the Paintjob. I always paint complex models before fully assembling them, so that I can reach every spot without trouble.
Shortly after basepainting the hull, my photo fell from the cupboard and landed on the poor Rhino which was grazing 1m below on my desk. Damage could have been worse, since the Photo was in it's soft case. The Photo itself was alright, but the Nashorn was a bit battered. All roadwheel wagons on the left side had a crack, part of the upper hull was broken and the lifting eyelet broke of. All could be fixed with Superglue.

However, this incident shrunk my motivation and the Nashorn was set to the heap once again. In April I finished the basic paint job and added the few decals. As I was about to attach the tracks I started getting nervous because I couldn't find one of the drive-wheels. 

Well it was on the carpet and it obviously got to know the wheels of my office chair :(

It had broken into many pieces and motivation was down again.

I contacted Revells department X (They take care of spare parts), but after two weeks they'd let me know that the Nashorn was currently OOP and therefore no Spare Parts were available. Down again. I plucked up my courage and asked for a Panzer IV drive-wheel and finally got one (Big thanks to Revell!!). Only to realize, that the Nashorn utilized Panzer III drive-wheels. Utter motivational drop.

Eventually i took a huge load of superglue and puzzled with the smithereens of the original drivewheel. An hours work and lots of curses later, I had reconstructed is as far as possible. Only one third of the inner sprocket wheel is missing.

I placed this part of the wheel in a manner that it's covert by the tracks. Looks good, but track assembly didn't work like a charm as you can surely imagine.

I really had my hard times with this one, but that's absolutely not because of the model itself. The kit is great and the result is sweet in my eyes if I may say this.

Have a look:

The Crew is from MMS and looks really fine. I did some conversions on them though:

 The gunner needed repositioned legs to fit his seat...

 And the commander now makes use of his Scherenfernrohr instead of his binocs. I also cut his arm off and placed it on the ammo cabinet (and attached it to his shoulder again )

Currently I'm working on a big project for a competition. I'm going to finish it by the end of the month. Looking forward to present it... :)


Welcome to the new followers!! Glad to have you here!

Best Regards,
Mojo