As stated on the Home Page link, club president, Hammer Six asked Point Man (who used to be a friend) if he would build a Marder II for him and in a moment of total insanity, Point Man said yes. Hammer Six provided a set of templates that he got from someone online, a Dragon Panzer IIC, a 21st Century Toys
Pak 40, some castings, styrene and reference material in the form of three books on the assault gun. Point Man started the project last year, but then let it sit over the winter, before attacking it once again in May, 2017. What follows is a very loosely put together walk through of the process. |
Perhaps the most frightening thing about a project like this is taking a Dremel Tool to a perfectly good Panzer II and hacking away at a good portion of the upper hull. I quickly found that there were a number of spots in the hull where the styrene is doubled and it provides quite a challenge for the Dremel and arthritic hands. I buy steel cutting wheels (with teeth) from MICRO MART. They are much more robust that the cutting wheels that Dremel sell.
I guess I should mention that the first thing I did was copy the templates onto styrene and I cut out all the pieces ahead of time. Thus, as you can see in the above photos, I was able to temporarily fit the main pieces in place to get an idea of how the Marder hull was going to go together. Be forewarned, if you are thinking about a project like this and you ask Hammer Six for the templates; there are some glaring mistakes and omissions that really made the project much more challenging. There were some parts that I ended up redoing to make them fit, other parts that were missing completely and I just sort of had to figure it out using the reference material that I had. For example; the template had the rear deck hull as one long piece that went all the way across the back. In actuality, there are three separate sections, with one section over the motor that lifts up. I had to figure all that out and create my own parts.
The next set of photos reflect what happened after I picked the project up again -
The next set of photos reflect what happened after I picked the project up again -
At this point the basic hull has been put together. The sides are glued in place and the back ammo storage bins have been created. Sheet styrene has also been used to create a crew floor and interior bulkheads. At some point in the build, I realized that the front hull of the crew compartment was not going to work and the driver vision block was different than what came with the Dragon model. I added a piece of styrene sheet to the front of the hull and created a new vision block that was in keeping with the reference material. The inner bulkheads that surround the gun shield were not included in the templates either, so I just sort of had to try to do it as close to the reference material as I could, test fitting as I worked to insure that the gun could swivel left and right.
Below is a close up of the gun shield and the front upper hull prior to any sanding.
You can almost see it in the above photo left, Hammer Six bought several Panzerwerks casting for the projects, including the transmission set. That transmission is one solid piece of resin for sure. I made the mistake of trying to fit all of that after I had already glued the "gun deck" in place and I had a devil of a time getting it to all fit right due to the close quarters. The transmission worked out okay, but I could never quite get the pieces that go on the left side of the driver's compartment to fit right. I ended up adding some styrene bulkhead to kind of hide some of my mistakes. By the time I added a removable floor with the driver's seat and control sticks, it all sort of came together. You can only see so much of it anyway, so it wasn't really worth spending a lot of time on. I would need hinges for the middle ammo bin and fasteners for vehicle tools. I created a master for the hinges out of styrene and cast my hinges out resin using a clay mold. I did the same thing for the fasteners that would "hold" my tools to the hull. I used one of the ones that came with the Panzer II as a master and cast them in resin with clay molds as well. A clay mold is a great way to go if you only need a few pieces.
Here is the back ammo bins prior to the hinges being added to the middle section. Note that tie downs have been added to the top of the bins using heavy brass wire. You can also see my scratchbuild muffler, made from a piece of bass wood, some styrene tubing and a piece of card stock. When painted it all comes off looking like metal. One the front hull, I added a spare road wheel as was seen in the reference material. This wheel was provided to me by Cory Lord.
In this shot you can see more tie downs on the top of the hull sides. These were done the same way as the ones at the back of the vehicle. Finally, an overall picture of the tank at the completion of this stage. By this point I was actually beginning to believe that I might actually finish the vehicle before the June club meeting.
The next stage saw a little more detail added.
The next stage saw a little more detail added.
These two side shots show the addition of a holder on the front of the hull for spare track, a travel support for the 75 mm gun and tools on both sides of the hull
The hinges were added to the center ammo bin and in the photo above you can see it in the raised position. There is an axe on the left bin and grab handles on both outside bins. At this point not too much interior detail has been added. You can't really see but just a hint of it in the right picture, but I have added an air cleaner to the front of the engine compartment as per the reference material.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures after adding the interior detail. I waited until I had actually painted it to snap anymore pictures. On the left above is a shot of the freshly painted vehicle immediately after I finished painting the tools and the black on the road wheels. In the right shot is a look at the vehicle from the back. Notice the Panzer Crew Member down in the right hand corner of the shot. She is wearing the Panzer Black uniform.
The ammo stowage bins actually came with doors on the real vehicles, but I didn't want to deal with it. I added hinges to the bottom of the bins to create the illusion that the crew had removed the doors for easier operation. The photo on the right shows more detail, including a radio rack that took me about four hours to build. You can sort of see the driver's set down in the driver compartment.
Finally, the day of the JUNE CLUB MEETING arrived and Hammer Six got to see his newest tank for the first time. I had told him that I would give him a basic build. All the hard detail with a base coat of paint. I hope that he is going to have a lot of fun detailing it with ammo and crew items.
Finally, the day of the JUNE CLUB MEETING arrived and Hammer Six got to see his newest tank for the first time. I had told him that I would give him a basic build. All the hard detail with a base coat of paint. I hope that he is going to have a lot of fun detailing it with ammo and crew items.
As a build goes, I thought it was a mixed bag. The main components were challenging because of some of the issues mentioned with the templates. Once I got through the basic build and began detailing, I thought it was a much better building experience. I don't know how many tubes of super glue I went through. The vehicle soaked up 6 rattle cans of Testors African Mustard, which is about all of that particular color in Columbus. I know... I bought it all. On the whole, I would say I am pretty happy with the build. It's not perfect, but it does look like a Marder II and in the end, that was after all what I was aiming for. - PM