Monday 29 May 2017

Next in the queue, a Panzer III

Starting on my 15mm Panzer III box o'goodies.

I originally intended to magnetize the gun barrels and turret bustles so that I could swap out the 37mm and 50mm guns, but that turned out to be more of a pain in the arse than I expected, so I'll just build 3 x 37mm and 2 x 50mm tanks.

I really like these little PSC kits. The only thing that would make them better would be if they included an extra turret body on the sprue 

Next day

The only thing I have against these injection-moulded plastic kits is that they're very light. That's not an issue if they're only intended for display, but for tabletop use I prefer them to have a little heft, to lessen the chances of being moved accidentally among other reasons such as an improved tactile feel in the hand — tanks are supposed to be massive things, so if you pick one up and it's light as a feather, there's a mental disconnect.

I made a little ingot mould out of plaster to cast lead weights in, designed to fit the hull cavity quite snugly. Each of these ingots weighs about 35 to 40 grams, which doesn't sound like a lot, but it's enough to give the model quite a perceptible increase in mass.

The ingots are glued in place with 5-minute epoxy.

I originally intended to do this with lead bird-shot, but these days lead shot is surprisingly expensive — I guess, with the legislation against its use on environmental grounds, it's just not as commonly available as it used to be.

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