Back when I covered the
Sd.Kfz.251 Half-tracks I mentioned that I had built a
251/3 IV with added communication equipment a few years ago but couldn't find it! Well, it's turned up, a little the worse for wear.
It was - to be precise - in pieces, I'd dropped it during the move and just thrown everything I could find among the boxes (on a patterned carpet) into a tub. The
Notek light is a
permanent casualty and will have to be replaced when I find the spares cabinet!
Although - like most of my models - a bit amateur/inaccurate, it was in it's day one of my favourites, as it was the first time I used the rub-down lettering method for the markings, with a yellow undercoat, it was also a major triumph at the time to get the long pneumatic pole-aerial to look right...this was attempt No.3 I think! It still isn't very good by the standards of competition entries today, as it needs to be fatter at the base and get smaller in stages, each stage having a clamp and the whole steadied by two high and two lower guy-ropes. But it did what I wanted it to do and that was change the look of the parent vehicle somewhat!
Radio equipment was all scratch built from photographs and again has been
superseded by much better photo-etched stuff, the crew were the driver and officer from the
Airfix Sd.Kfz.222 and a (
Fujimi?) tank
commander.
The crows foot aerial on top of the pole, for years it had a four-way 'foot' made from
fuse-wire, tonight it got a hasty five-way (which I think is correct?)
using paintbrush bristles and a black marker, although it went semi-transparent when the flash hit it...you win some, you lose some!!
It was - to be precise - in pieces, I'd dropped it during the move and just thrown everything I could find among the boxes (on a patterned carpet) into a tub. The Notek light is a permanent casualty and will have to be replaced when I find the spares cabinet!
Although - like most of my models - a bit amateur/inaccurate, it was in it's day one of my favourites, as it was the first time I used the rub-down lettering method for the markings, with a yellow undercoat, it was also a major triumph at the time to get the long pneumatic pole-aerial to look right...this was attempt No.3 I think! It still isn't very good by the standards of competition entries today, as it needs to be fatter at the base and get smaller in stages, each stage having a clamp and the whole steadied by two high and two lower guy-ropes. But it did what I wanted it to do and that was change the look of the parent vehicle somewhat!
Radio equipment was all scratch built from photographs and again has been superseded by much better photo-etched stuff, the crew were the driver and officer from the Airfix Sd.Kfz.222 and a (Fujimi?) tank commander.
The crows foot aerial on top of the pole, for years it had a four-way 'foot' made from fuse-wire, tonight it got a hasty five-way (which I think is correct?) using paintbrush bristles and a black marker, although it went semi-transparent when the flash hit it...you win some, you lose some!!
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