Panzer IV and the third party tracks

Articulated third-party individual link tracks

The title may have spoiled the decision already, but I wasn't going to bother with the kit's own link & length tracks at all. My first tracked model ever (Revell's 1:72 StuG III with a Saukopf) had those and I didn't like them one bit. Either I got traumatized by them or maybe I was just an unforgiving person.

Panzerwerk Design

Some time earlier I encountered Panzermeister36's review of a bunch of 3d printed tracks in YT and based on that I ended up looking at two different companies. Wasting time with the customs didn't really entice me so I thought I'd prefer the EU inner market and order something from the Polish Panzerwerk design, if I could figure out which of the track types (1-8) was correct enough. My other options were T-Rex studios and Tankcraft, the latter used to have the Adam Mann -consulted tracks but all of that had disappeared from their webshop. I guess they didn't want money.

Of course I had been thinking about this for ages, and during easter '24 I finally pulled my shopping pants on and dragged myself to the online store.  Then, for a good handful of days the site only returned a HTTP503 error and the console logs weren't too useful. When complaining about this out loud the store got back online the next day or the day after that in the middle of all of my back-and-forthing.

Only in the checkout stage it was said that the only payment method was paypal, which I was a bit allergic to and avoided whenever possible. So I left the almost neighbours hanging and checked my second option (spoiler: I didn't choose them but went with this set here), which I documented in the next chapter for the sake of completeness of this story.

My calendar in the Spring absolutely horrendous, so on the Monday when the courier was supposedly delivering my order the window was "during the evening" and on that single day we couldn't guarantee that someone would be home to accept it. So I accepted the shittier option of "I'll get this from a nearby fuel station instead of you carrying it to my door like I've paid you to" and another day's delay because why would these companies work in a reasonable and sane manner?

The funniest thing was that there was someone home all evening that day, but we didn't know that when the decision had to be done :D

 

T-Rex Studios

These people also had some Type 3a tracks available, so I took a closer look. The price was lower and the webshop also appeared to work.

So, sixy 'murican monies for the bits and S&H, plus customs and VAT. This would be tolerable. But when I got to the payment stage the only option was, again, paypal.

If I really had to use paypal, I'd at least then skip the customs part if I could. This was the only reason I rechecked the Panzerwerk store and would you look at that,  now it worked. Otherwise I'd ordered the T-Rex tracks without any additional grumbling.

Resin tracks in action

On a Tuesday evening I fetched my packet from a fuel station that doubled as a courier's client's pickup point. The box contained very simple instructions and three ziplog bags full of pieces: the track links and both A and B pins to connect the links together.

 

The track assembly operation

Those A and B pins were just about the thickness of a cat's whisker, and using those with these (comparably) sausage fingers of mine was interesting to say the least. I assembled my track one link at a time by holding the two attachable links tightly between my fingers, then inserting the pins one by one and immediately pressing them in with my flat-tip tweezers until they made their tiny "prip" sound.

 

You all knew I had to try the track out as soon as I had a short lenght completed to see how it wrapped around the drive sprocket. It fit like it was made for this.

Supposedly I had an excess of track links so in addition to the driving tracks I could maybe make some track armour from these.

 

Getting the right side track built took three evening sessions from me. Some of the time went to fiddling around, pondering, and finding out the way to work on this thing. And let's be honest, playing dry-fitting and testing took some time too. After the slow start I found a good method and the throughput got noticeably improved with time.

Thanks to that the left track progressed and completed much more rapidly, as I now knew how this worked. And I also had the feeling for the pieces.

While working on this I also made a short bit to be hanged in the front. Of course I didn't dry-fit enough at this point so I accidentally built it a link too long. I still had a bunch of links and pins so no panic, but I still paranoidly hoarded two pairs of A/B pairs to connect the actual tracks in the end.

Panzer IV turret and the long cannon

The last assemblies

In this happy stage of the build process I just had the turret and the tracks left, of these the turret was more interesting a subject. Anyone who's ever built tanks might agree with me and if they didn't, then they disagreed. For each their own.

Turret f2

Working on the turret's f2 version started with the front edges getting the hatch-holed armour plates. In the ausf G these would've been solid instead.

The raised edges were also to be sanded or filed away as well. I took off the bulk of them with the xacto blade and then sanded the remains down. My result was most likely imperfect but better than if left untouched.

When my other gluings had cured I attached the hatches (closed) onto the turret, I didn't think it made much sense to leave them open if you could only see vast emptiness and a part of the cannon's loading end. There was a silly amount of additional details, in the end I managed to break off only the little photoetch arrowhead, which I presumed to be the "this way forward" sign for the commander to get a bit more of a sense of the tank's alignment when peering out from their periscopes.

While working on the surprisingly flimsy side hatches, I also built the basket that was destined to be installed behind the turret.

75mm KampfwagenKanone 40  L/43

This was where the lottery in the world of choices did: the nice metal barrel was meant for the even larger G-model's L/48 cannon and I couldn't use that in the f2 in good conscience. I'd keep it for later, so the loss was measurable in time only.

Assembling the cannon was pretty straightforward business, even if a bit flimsy in a couple of stages. The tiny bars of the rear part were about to give me (more) grey hairs but in the end it worked out and nothing was going to be seen anyway, so why was I worried in the first place?

All this was to be attached together and sturdily.

Fun detail: the tiny corner hatches could've also been made openable if the assembler hadn't broken one of the two hinges while detaching it from the sprue. The assembler might have been pretty excited about these opportunities, had the tank had something inside to show.

Amazingly the construct was still movable, the cannon's elevation was still changeable. That was great, even if there was no real need to play with it in the end.

Cannon into the turret

The cannon fit into its slot in the turret pretty nicely. The most challenging moment came when all the three connecting surfaces were to get aligned in place at the same time: the turret's shell, the cannon with its shield, and the relatively small-footprinted turret's inner floor / ring part.

Commander's cupola

The final subassembly was the commander's cupola with a cool collection of periscopes. According to the instructions there were two types of periscopes to choose from: open and closed ones. Were these another all or none -options or could they be played with individually? I dangerously assumed that the commander could do what they felt like in the real thing, but for my empty tank I chose to be totally buttoned up with closed 'scopes. Still, I really appreciated the option I had never encountered before.

This cupola didn't have a rail for the MG, nor the MG itself, but I wasn't missing one either.

Being a worrier, I was gently worried about the turret fitting into the hull, and if the turret survived the pressing-turning operation. As usual, I was worried for no reason.

Dry fitting, cont.

As I did so often, the tank's bits had to be dry-fitted and admired from different angles. For the fun of it I piled on the tank some of the extra stuff, like the jerry cans, just to see how it looked.

It looked fine, to me at least. The tracks and a handful of paint layers were left anymore. So almost done, right?

Panzer IV upper hull

A slightly quicker building post

Like you may have noticed the bottom hull was a large assembly and came with a long post, so I thought I'd compensate by writing a tiny bit simpler post of the rest of the hull, and leave the turret as its own episode.

Previously missing armour plates

To keep the driver and the radio operator safe, I glued on the hatches with their little subhatches on. I could almost see how the rain water or slush gathered into these crevices. Brrrr.

Oddly enough the deck didnt' get absolutely anything else on it at this point, so I got to glue it onto the hull. Learning from the past I did this in stages to avoid gaps.

 

Then I glued on the upper front glacis plate that hopefully kept the incoming shells from the lap (or face) of the driver. A couple of hatches for break maintenance got glued on, and these little cupolas were protecting the air vents of the brakes. Funny things you learned while playing with plastic.

Into this gaping hole I needed a vertical armour plate with driver's periscope and the radio operator's scythe. This ball-joint MG was cool and to my great surprise I managed to build it so that it was still movable.

The armour plate went in place nicely and without arguments. Thanks for the cooperation!

Bottom decoration

Even though no one was going to look – apart from some photos – what happened underneath the tank, I did add the bogies' bolts. This was an interesting approach: in the upper edge of a double sprue there were some bolts that were to be sliced off and then glued in place. Had I been smart, I'd taken a fresh blade in use.

These from here...

...onto these attachment points

One at a time

10% complete

50% complete

It was some accurate stuff. A couple of these bolts got lost or broke due to miscutting, but luckily there were a few spares. I think I was left with two unused.

Side pieces

Maybe these were safer to install after the deck was glued on, on the other hand I didn't see a reason to hoard some of the tools over a couple of steps. On the right side of the tank I installed a shovel, a thingy for the antenna to rest on, and the antenna itself. That one could've been installed standing proudly but I felt like pulling it down this time.

On the left side I added some more sticks that also blocked the installation of some of the optional tools like the shelf for spare roadwheels. This was exactly what I would've liked marked much more clearly: what prevented which bit and what could you freely choose while building?

The hull got assembled pretty nicely so my hopes for the turret were pretty high.