Hello and Welcome and Suchlike

Hello, welcome. I am forty-six years old and I have been making scale models since I was five. The purpose of this blog is to document step by step the building of a model, in this case Academy's very nice Hetzer 38(t). My main intention is to be of help to younger/novice builders, who have built a few kits straight out of the box and now are ready to go the next step, which is 'super-detailing' or 'scratch-building'. But maybe you veterans will find something of use in all this too. Of course, when the time comes I will be telling you everything I know about painting, and some things I don't too, as I'm going to be trying out some new ideas. A lot has changed since I was a lad, when once the model had its base coat on it was all about splashing on some mud and rust streaks, dry-brushing and washes. Now there is acrylic paint. Now there is 'chipping techniques'. Now you can buy unbelievably realistic solutions to recreate rust effects and other weathering too. We shall see, we shall see.

I chose the Hetzer as it is a comparatively simple vehicle, with relatively few parts. This way I can cut down construction time and get to the painting, which is for me the main event. Also, there are quite a lot of references for this vehicle and historical/technical accuracy is quite essential to making a successful model. When I was young I wouldn't care about this sort of thing, I'd rush to the end and be perfectly happy. Nowadays I need the thing to be real. To do this, you buy yourself books. This is the book I got from Eduard for a piddling $3.95. It has high-quality photos of very inch of the machine, and I wouldn't be able to work without it:

We won't be doing any painting for a long, long time. It will be months before I finish construction, probably around six. Because I don't want you all to lose patience I've decided not to detail the interior because then it would be over a year. Instead, we will focus on making what's on the outside thoroughly credible. Finally, we'll need to build either a base or a diorama. We'll make that a fairly simple affair. Just as when we draw portraits we do not leave out the background, the vehicle needs some setting, or it's not finished. I haven't any special idea about this yet. I will need - at the painting stage, to decide where in the world the vehicle is/was and I'll need to 'landscape' accordingly. I mean, if this tank is hiding out in a barn, then the barn I make has to match, architecturally and in every other way, the location in which the tank's unit was known to operate.

We have bought a whole pile of 'after-market' parts. These are things like the truly beautiful Eduard photo-etched brass detail set, Fruilmodel's gorgeous cast white metal individual track links (no, you seriously cannot be using those hideous one-piece vinyl things), turned metal gun-barrel for the cannon and a really nice machine gun for up top, things like this, all of which take your model from the B Class into the A Class. Much of what's in the kit is going to be blobby, dodgy, and need replacing with either after-market parts or our own ingenuity. Parts of this kit will be built from whatever I have lying around.


Construction is not so hard. The hardest - and it is hard - part about building models (once you've got all the reference material you need) is patience. Slowing down. Do not be looking at the finish line. Look at what you are doing right now and know that the slower you can go, the better it will be. Be willing to do tests, experiments. If you don't you'll bugger it up and have a real headache to fix it. Keep your work bench super clean and tidy. You need to be able to put tools back in their place every time you use them. Don't let piles 'o crap clutter your work space; clean up whenever you take a break or when you finish for the day. You need to stay focused, and keep things as simple as you can for yourself, and you don't want to have to look for things; you want them to be right were you put them. Like a surgeon, if you will. Above all you need to learn to resist with all your might the almost overwhelming desire to cut corners.That said, I'm probably going to cut a few.

Every day I work I will take photos to show you what I've done. For months on end you're going to see how various construction challenges are met. This early stage is all about the right blades, files, sandpaper, glues and filler. You don't actually need a lot of tools for basic construction. I think we must be just about ready to get this show on the road :D