Hi guys, while I’m still considering what AM sets I’ll use on my CharB1bis, I’ve decided to start on a kit where AM is only an option after you have corrected all the mistakes: Heller’s Somua S35. I’ll be adding Friul tracks and probably some parts of Eduard’s PE set. The other corrections will be a good practice for my scratch building skills… Skills I actually don’t have
The setting will be Cherbourg and of course in German hands, in this case PzAbt206. Not sure about the camo but I think I’ll go for DG with vague brown and green stripes.
First, my sincere apologies for the quality of the images. Got some camera troubles. Nonetheless some are still sharp enough to make things look worse than I thought
A lot of filling and sanding to be done…. I’ve borrowed some shots of Do's Somua (
http://www.network54.com/Forum/110741/thread/1201551434) to illustrate the differences between the original Heller kit and my corrections.
So let’s start with the images: the Heller S35 with some scratched parts and Tamiya APX4 turret. This turret is borrowed from a Char and will be replaced by a modified Tamiya turret to better represent the APX1.
I ran into some problems with the hull dimensions. The angle of the left front is slightly off. As a result it continues a bit to for to the rear and ends too close to the main hatch. With some putty I’ve corrected this, and about 1mm suddenly is a considerable improvement. This also revealed the roof has some issues and the “bulge” to the front left corner has been shortened. Apart from that putty was used to make the connection between the turret ring and roof flush. Several corners of the roof still need to be sanded down to get the correct shape.
De hatch with the driver’s visor has been simplified by Heller. Also the basic dimensions are of. It’s a bit to wide and not high enough. The First work has been done but still a lot of putty and sanding remains to be done.
The vision ports of the kit are completely ridiculous, so the need to be scratch. Not happy with my first attempt but at least it shows the difference.
The main hatch is actually located in a opening with flat side. More evergreen and putty is necessary to create a flush line. Another problem is that most hatches are actually place in slight recesses, but the kit doesn’t really shows that. There is also a considerable amount of details next to the hatches that has been missed.
Again the modified front. The front edge of the upper hull has been sanded vertically (where the lower and upper hull are bolted together. See the lower left corner of the image).
The grills have received a cosmetic upgrade by adding rounded strips on them. This improves the shape and raises the grills above their base. Still a lot of detail work remains…..
The antenna mount has been located incorrectly. This also effects the hull shape.
A view of the modified hatches. Above the right hatches the armor should be a bit raised.
I made the wrong choice to cut pieces of evergreen to widen the hull. They will be replaced by more straight strips of evergreen. The armor over the suspension is also not to my liking. I used bras plate to scratch them…. But unfortunately they are too thin so I’ll have to redo them.
The dio plans, are also taking form. This will be the location:
The lay-out will be something like this. The black circles representing the tank crew, reds for feldgendarme, blue for civilians and green for "normal" soldiers.
And a quick mock up to show it 3D:
That’s all for now. Tip, tricks and comments are welcome like always.
http://groups.msn.com/dutchmodelbuilding
