Dragon 1/35: (Leichter) Flakpanzer IV (3cm) Kugelblitz (Ball Lightning)

[pourquoi61]

The Flakpanzer IV Kugelblitz was designed in April of 1944 as a vehicle to be used to defend the Rhineland against allied bombers on the Western front. Development was given to both Rheinmetal and Daimler-Benz with production planned to start in September of the same year. The design utilised the by now old 30mm MK103/38 guns, which were used by the Henschel Hs 129 and the Dornier Do 335 Pfeil, this was due to the MK303 guns being reserved purely for the Kriegsmarine. The turret was a modified U-boat turret which could already house guns of this calibre. A total of five Panzer IV chassis were obtained upon which the new turret could be mounted and the vehicle tested, with the first real prototype going into the testing phase in November 1944. It is estimated that 2 - 5 prototypes were delivered in February/March of 1945 and it is assumed that all of these vehicles saw action in the Battle of Berlin, though there are no records to confirm this assumption since none of them survived the collapse of the Third Reich.










I have never built a Dragon kit before or used Magic Track, the only reason I am able to build this kit is due to the kind generosity of my son who sneakily bought this and had it delivered today. Many thanks!

[pourquoi61]

Ok, I have never built a Dragon tank before and after a morning's plastic therapy(about three hours)I have discovered a few things:
1 There are more parts not needed in this build than needed.
2 Do not trust the model instruction sheet.
3 Check and double check the parts you use.
4 Check and double check the positioning of said parts.
5 Find references of the model you are building.
6 Clamps will be needed, it is not a Tamiya tank.

Apart from this use it as a learning curve and enjoy the challenge.
It took me roughly 2 hours to assemble the wheels and the return rollers.
The main body of the tank was made up of two parts which had to be clamped to get a good fit.

The instructions show the holes on the tank, also those which need to be opened.

The model on the other hand has more holes, which on looking further into the construction, needed other holes opening.

AS SHOWN IN SECTION 10.

I glued the return wheel mounts in the wrong place,(again, double check the instructions)so to remove the parts a modelling knife was slid under and the mounts cut off.

After removal.

The next two pictures show the tank with the upper and lower hull in location.


Foot note: It is a good idea to remove all parts not needed and place them in a bag for safe keeping, this also makes finding the right parts so much easier and faster when building. DO NOT THROW ANYTHING AWAY AND KEEP THE PARTS SAFE!
Thanks for looking and if you have any tips for me please drop me a line,
Many thanks.

[pourquoi61]

The top and bottom of the tank's hull in the last post were not glued together.
In the next few pictures you will see that the upper part of the tank does not fit very well at all and the model will need clamping to get both halves to fit.




Last night I watched a video on YouTube by a chap called Hamilkar Barkas, talking about Tamiya extra thin glue and why he uses Revell professional glue. Especially on Dragon model kits and I must agree with him(watch it for yourself and see what you think).
This made me feel a lot better about this build.
Scared by the idea of building the Magic Tracks I moved on to other parts of the build. So I started to put together the turret.

I think it looks like the lunar landing module.

I then sprayed the model parts Tamiya flat black.


On with the build, the turret sits on a large collar which has two lifting hooks on. I broke one of the hooks while cutting it off the sprue and the broken part was eaten by the good old carpet monster. This left me with no option but to build two hooks. I looked around the house for some wire thin enough to do the job. All I could find was some resistor wire that I use when lighting models.
So I bent the wire over a cocktail stick(tooth pick)and then bent both ends back over a straight edge which happened to be a little file.


The ends were cut to the right length and stuck onto the collar with super glue.
Sorry for poor picture.

The tank turret, lower hull and inside of the turret ring were then sprayed Tamiya XF-68 Nato Brown.





Well that's all folks for today, I will post more next week.
Thanks for looking.

[martin57]

Great progress so far , good luck with the rest of it .

[pourquoi61]

Well today has been a day of mixed fortunes as you will see.
Test fit the wheels.

Got the magic tracks out.

Put them back.
Sprayed the top of the tank, sprockets and turret collar Tamiya XF-60 dark yellow.

Opened the tracks.

Went onto YouTube and watched some other mad bugger assembling the tracks and pinched his idea.
THANK YOU Panzermeister36!
I did not use a ruler I just assembled groups of five and glued them together until they fit.
The instructions by the way tell you to use 99 links for each side.
Also, when the instructions say right side they mean the right side of the tank as if you are the driver looking out the front.
As the picture shows I assembled the tracks in fives and then joined them together and tried them on the model


I just laid the links into each other and touched the with a little Tamiya Extra Thin Cement.
I used:
30 links for the bottom length,
15 links for the drive sprocket curve,
20 links for the rear idle wheel curve
and 34 links for the top length.
The next picture shows the idle wheel curve section glued to the top section.

This has been left overnight to dry.
Moving on, I painted the wheels on the hull.

Here comes the unfortunate part of the day, after gluing the turret to the turret ring I then found that the turret ring was broken.
So the turret was removed and the ring glued. This was left to dry and the turret was then glued(after a clean up job)back on, clamped and left to dry.

That is all for today, thanks for dropping bye.

[pourquoi61]

Ok, today I was going to do part two of the track build but I chickened out. The turret ring, now set looked like a good place to start today's construction time, so test fitting went ahead but here I found that the turret ring was very tight. This was resolved by some sanding around the turret ring housing.
Looking at the instruction sheet on tool placement, the positioning was vague, so it was a case of find the part, turn the tank upside down and match the holes with the pins.


After looking at other Panzer IV tanks and finished models of the Kugelblitz I could see that each tank had different locations for each item so I used a bit of artistic licence on the placement of said parts. Once I was happy I wanted to lay down a camouflage pattern, so out came the paints for a pourquoi pattern.


I used Tamiya paints XF-68 Nato Brown, XF-67 Nato Green on top of the XF-60 Dark Yellow base coat.

I will paint the tools another day, the turret cowl has not been glued on as it seems to have fit issues.
Thanks for dropping by.

[pourquoi61]

TRACK ALERT-------100 LINKS REQUIRED NOT 99........
To get the hull top to fit well I HAD TO REMOVE SOME PLASTIC.
As you can see...


Before starting work on the tracks I assembled the guns and glued them to the turret, once dry the turret cowl was glued in place.The guns were painted Boltgun Metal from Citadel paints.

The tracks were put together and painted Tamiya Black, I had run out of matte so gloss was used.

After finding that I needed an extra link the tracks went on like a glove.

It was then sprayed with a coat of matte clear and left to dry.
Thanks for dropping by.

[pourquoi61]

Time to weather the tracks a little bit before the hull top goes on. Sorry about the poor picture, the flash on my phone camera went off and you cannot see the number on the Humbrol acrylic paint top. It is Humbrol 29 Matt Dark Earth. All I did was to paint roughly between the tracks that is all.
Once dry I then dry brushed the tracks Citadel Runefang Steel.


This done, on with the hull top.
This was glued down with Revell Contact Professional, clamped and left overnight.

After being left 24 hours to dry, off came the clamps and the model was sprayed Tamiya clear coat.



Once dry I placed the Balkenkreuz on and added a number on the side of the tank.

When the decals are dry, give them a clear coat and leave to dry.
Fun time, weathering the tank.
First I mixed a small amount of Burt Sienna oil paint with a generous amount of white spirits.

Then fill a small brush with the paint mix and touch the recessed panel lines and watch the capillary action send the mix shooting around the tank. This can also be done around hatches and hinges.When happy leave to dry for at least 24 hours just to make sure the oil paint is dry.


.

[SergioSolo]

Looking good! Very detailed thread

[pourquoi61]

Looking good! Very detailed thread

Thank you kind sir and I think your builds on Youtube are very inspiring.

[pourquoi61]

On with the build. The tank was given a coat of Tamiya matte clear and once dry I added chipping and scratches to the model where I thought they would occur using a small paint brush and Tamiya flat black. The textured metal walkways on the side of the tank were dry brushed with black also.




The tank's exhaust stacks were also dry brushed with black.
Once dry, I dry brushed Citadel's Runefang Steel(that's silver to normal folk) onto some of the black scratches where heavy footfall would take place.



On to the home straight now, the spare track links are glued together and painted black and glued to the model, then the brass brackets are superglued in place around the track.

Periscope cover was added and painted along with the tracks for add-on armour, the aerial and machine gun.

So with a final coat of matte clear she is done.
Challenging but fun.
Thanks for dropping by.