That's exactly what I'm doing Carl as well except that I haven't glued the rear floor into place to allow for a bit more flexibility with painting on the long bench seat...what you see in the above shots are all dry-fit and not glued in place. The dry-fit was done just to be sure I had the tranny/cushion alignment right before it was too late with the glue setting up. It's something I picked up from building the 251 series, much easier to paint it in sections and then assemble the interior vs. build it all and then paint IMHO.

Ron,

Appreciate the comments and encouragement, will leave for Sydney in about 3 hours...and then the jet lag fun begins (leave on Sunday US time, arrive on Tuesday Sydney time...then come back Friday afternoon Sydney time and arrive Friday morning US time!).

While I was sifting around in my spares box for some vision covers today guess what I found! No, not what I was looking for, but some leftover sprues from a second hand Tamiya 250/3 I bought some time ago. The box had been opened, but to offset that, the seller had lobbed in some extra sprues from a similar kit, including a complete spare 250 transmission! Just too late to be any good, I'd already followed my own advice & used a 251 tranny. However it did highlight that there should be three levers on the case, presumably a shift, high/low ratio selector & perhaps a handbrake. Funny that the much maligned Tamiya could get it right for once!

Steve,

Those same levers are present in the 250/10 kit and are even on the sprues in the 250/1 kit (C23 and C28), but the 251 transmission doesn't have a way to easily add them to it and since it isn't very visible in the end, I left them off since my main concern was getting the prominent seat cushion located. But they are there in the kit...the only thing missing is the tranny itself.

After a long break due to many different reasons, including the holidays and vacations, I was able to pick this one back up again today.

The first thing that needed to be done was to paint the interior, so I masked off the important mating surfaces with masking tape and applied a coat of straight Model Master Dunkelgelb enamel to all of the interior sub-assemblies. I deliberately didn't lighten it as I would for the exterior in order to provide a color differentiation interior vs. exterior.



With that out of the way, the different areas got their various detailing attention, starting with the driver's instrument panel and radio. The kit doesn't include any decals for the instrument faces but the detail is molded well enough that it's possible with creative dry-brushing to bring their details out. Since I couldn't use the kit-supplied clear styrene parts, I simulated the glass by painting it with Silver and then giving it an overcoat of Tamiya Clear Smoke.



Next up were the hull sides with their various crew kit items. The side panels were also given an overall wash of thinned down Burnt Umber to provide some wear and color contrast.





Then I worked on the floor sub-sections. All of the leather seats were first painted with Leather and then given a wash of thinned enamel Gunmetal. The anti-skid floor plates received the same Gunmetal wash followed by a Burnt Umber wash and then dry-brushed with lightened Dunkelgelb.





Last but not least, the rear plate and hatch received a Burnt Umber wash and dry-brushed with lightened Dunkelgelb to prepare it for inclusion in the interior.



With that out of the way, I secured the floor sub-sections in place and then attached both of the side panels, making sure to get a solid even join front-to-back using liquid glue, particularly around the instrument panel bulkhead area.



Then the nose plate and rear plate were installed as directed in Step 16, with careful dry-fit checks with the upper hull to insure the alignment was correct at both ends.



I also managed to get the left side fender and storage boxes mounted but will finish the right side tomorrow. The storage boxes have the options for both boxes to be either open or closed, a welcome change from the 251 series approach as it allows for a consistent look between the different boxes if you elect to close them both up IMHO. Extra care is needed when attaching part E12 to the front fender, E10, since this has to align perfectly with E6 for the whole thing to match up. I also left off the top half of the exhaust/muffler pot after a test fit showed it's possible to slide this in carefully later and will make it easier to paint/detail it off the kit.



Happy New Year everyone!

I like the leather with gunmetal wash idea! Is that MM leather you use, Bill? Looking great as usual

Nice build log - thanks for this, as I'm building an alte at the moment.

One thing - shouldn't the instrument dials be black background, excepting the rev-counter?



(this is an alte I agree, but AFAIK they are all the same, 251s included.)

James,

Yes it's MM enamel Leather.

Catch-22,

You're pics are correct AFAIK in terms of relations between the 251 and 250 instrument faces. I'll correct the error (still able to do that since the top hasn't been secured yet). I also realized this morning that I put the grenades in upside down...that's what I get for doing model work on New Year's Eve!

Looking good Bill!

Thanks 9TT!

Two small corrections to what I posted yesterday (thanks to Catch-22 for pointing out the first one!). The first is the instrument panel, the smaller gauges should have black faces, not white, so these were fixed.



The second deals with the position of the hand grenades on the right hull side. I had these in upside down (fortunately not glued in place, only held by the clips), so they've been reversed and glued in place with a dot of CA gel.

Accurate or not, I liked the gauge faces like you had them originally. I would imagine they were VDO gauges, though I think most, if not all, gauges were black faced for the time period. Of course I'm more of does it look good than is it accurate, since I usually don't know what it's supposed to look like anyway And I've been known to be wrong on more than one occasion! The grenades look better, though!

Good progress Bill. Really nice interior!

James,

I try to be as accurate as possible, especially since other modelers tend to copy what they see being done by others and I would hate to propagate an error knowingly. Sometimes though on areas where it's low or non-visible it's less important I agree.

Frank,

Appreciate the comments!

Progress continued today with the remaining items from Steps 15/16 dealing with the external fenders, storage boxes, and other details. One of the "premium" upgrades to this kit is the inclusion of brass width indicator rods to replace the kit parts, a feature common to the 251 series of kits. The rods are provided as straight items that need to be bent to shape and, unlike the 251 kits, a jig isn't provided on the sprues so I used the original part A23 as a guide and bent to shape with a pair of needle nose pliers.



As you can also see in the above pic, the diameter of the bases is different with the brass items being slightly smaller. This translates over to the size of the locater holes in the fenders themselves and to remedy this I used some Aves Apoxysculpt putty and applied it to the underside of the fenders to provide a surface that would help hold them in place. It doesn't take much putty, just enough for it provide something to catch the base against, and a small dot of CA gel on the base did the job just fine.



The last remaining item in this step was the attachment of the right side stowage boxes, this went off without a hitch and both boxes were closed up.



Steps 17-19 had already been completed earlier and Step 20 dealt with details for the upper hull, so I skipped that briefly and went straight to Step 22 to attach the upper hull to the lower. Since the contact surfaces are narrow at the front and rear, it's important to get everything lined up solid and glued down as the hull top has a slight tendency to bow in the middle if not careful. I used liquid glue and finger pressure to glue the rear areas first to get that as a solid starting point and then used rubber-bands and liquid glue along the rest of the surfaces to get everything secured.



Once the bands came off, the details from Step 20 were added in the form of the engine bay hatches, rear AA MG mount, and radio antenna mount. The rear AA MG mount hole in the hull top isn't drilled all the way through, so I trimmed off the portion of the base that would've allowed the mount to be moveable and glued it into place. If you prefer it to be moveable, the hole just needs to be carefully drilled all the way through with a pin vise.

Step 21, which deals with the engine assembly, was skipped to allow me to save the engine for future use since I didn't want to open the hatches up on this one. The instructions do call for it to be installed first before the upper hull is secured and curiously enough the diagrams show the hatches in the closed position when you do this, a hold over from the previous kit when no engine was provided no doubt. I also assembled and installed the MG42 mount and splinter shield, but first sanded down the beveled surfaces to be an even thickness on the shield using sanding twigs. The MG42 itself will be installed later. The rear Notek light was also installed and the small triangular braces under each "step" in the fenders were installed. The instructions contain an error here, the parts E20(E21) and E22(E23) should actually be reversed in terms of which side they go on. Last but not least, the driver's mirror A24 was attached to the width indicator.



Next up will be to prep everything for painting!

Excellent job there so far, Bill. A question, do you gloss coat (future maybe) on top of your enamle base before doing the wash? Just wondering...

Rob

On the exterior, I will always use a gloss coat of Future. On the interior I didn't because the basecoat had been left aside for a couple of weeks to cure thoroughly and so didn't need it. Still have to be careful though as too much thinner or rough handling can cause the base coat to strip away. For stuff like the seats which were still uncured since they were painted the same day, the wash has to be applied very carefully with just a couple of quick swipes with the brush to avoid pulling up the underlying paint.

Thanks for the quick reply! I always assumed you had to put a protective coat of something like future over the enamel base when doing the washes, not matter how long it cured. This good to know..

Thanks and, again, excellent build!

Rob

Bill,

A very stunning build indeed. The details you have captured are great. I will be able to use some of your ideas on my 251 that is in progress.

Can't wait to see more!

Very nice work

Rob,

The trick is not to use raw thinner and very small amounts of wash at a time so it doesn't "soak" and therfore strip the paint. I used a small 10/0 brush like you would for a pin wash to do it as a means to control the amount of wash on the paint. It dries rapidly so it doesn't have a chance to eat away at the underlying basecoat. It can be done on exterior coats as well but I use the Future undercoat as a "fool-proof" protection...without it if the wash goes on too heavy there's not much you can do about it except drybrush over the top of it vs. just clean it off and start over with the Future undercoat.

Danny, Marcos,

Appreciate your comments as well!

Thanks again, Bill. Will surely try this method on my current 251 Auf D project.

Rob

I totally agree, Bill, it was more an observation/opinion than what I practice also Anyway, as always looking terrific, looking forward to more.

Bill -

Awesome build log, always a pleasure to see your work (and many others here), gives us amateurs some great tips and corrections to "issues". Thanks for taking the time to share this kit...have one in the stash as well. Cheers!

Tim

Thanks Tim, always a pleasure to know that the build log is helpful to others who are interested in the same kit.

In the spirit of that I would submit that the seat material should be black,and not brown, as that was the kind of "leather" used in German vehicles, Later in the war it was a synthetic leather I believe.

wasn't red or brown or black possible at any time? Bruce Culver thought any combination was available for early 251s, a or b.

http://www.geocities.com/motorcity/pit/3515/251/251-db1.htm