Easy

Tamiya’s Panzer III Ausf L kit benefits

from a few easy-to-install aftermarket
parts. Jim Forbes photo.

armor detailing
Aftermarket parts make a great Panzer III kit even better
By Matthew Usher

T
imes are changing for armor modelers. The latest kits are bells and whistles. But with a little extra work at the workbench
fantastically detailed and include everything you might need and a small investment in aftermarket parts, Tamiya’s Panzer III
right in the box. It’s not uncommon for us to open up a new can easily do battle with brand-new high-tech kits.
kit release here at FSM and find big frets of photoetched parts To add a little detail, I picked up Eduard’s turned-aluminum
and turned-metal gun barrels in the box along with piles and gun barrel (No. 34024) and its Zoom photoetched set (No.
piles of parts trees. TP047), 1. I love adding detail, but I don’t always add every little
I’m a slow builder, which means it takes me forever to finish a piece that’s included in bigger photoetched sets. Eduard’s Zoom
kit with hundreds and hundreds of parts. It also means I have a sets are smaller and less expensive, but still include a good variety
lot of older kits in my unbuilt collection, like Tamiya’s of parts. The Panzer set includes intake grilles, lift hooks, latches,
Panzerkampfwagen III Ausf L (kit No. 35215). OK, the Panzer and a few smaller pieces, 2. The turned-aluminum barrel doesn’t
is only ten years old, so it’s not exactly in Kit Classics territory add a lot of detail over the kit parts, but it does save you from
along with Aurora and Strombecker kits. It does mean, though, assembling the two-piece plastic gun that comes with the kit, 3.
that it’s a nicely molded plastic kit, but one without all the extra

16  FineScale
© 2012 March 2007
Kalmbach Publishing
Modeler Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
 1/35 Scale | Armor | How-to

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Eduard makes a turned-aluminum gun barrel and a small photoetched-metal The smaller Eduard photoetched set has basic details: engine grille, lift rings,
detail set for Tamiya’s Panzer III. and brackets.

3 4

I can never get two-piece gun barrels to go together without some warp or Be prepared to spend some time installing the kit’s individual suspension
a noticeable seam. The turned-aluminum replacement saves a lot of building arms and assembling its running gear. The parts fit perfectly, but there are a
time. lot of them!

5 6

Inserted into the slotted opening, a jeweler’s screwdriver makes the head- A quick pass with some flat-black paint adds depth to the engine intake
light lens easy to install and adjust before the glue dries. ducts before the grilles are installed.

Road wheels and hull hull. I used slow-setting super glue to attach them so I could
I started work on the model’s hull. Each of the Panzer’s suspen- make sure they were level, 4. Next, I moved on to one of my
sion arms is a separate piece, and they’re not all the same, so take least-favorite parts of armor modeling, assembling all the road
your time and check the part numbers as you add them to the wheels. Counting the hull-mounted spares, the Panzer has 14

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A chisel-type hobby-knife blade makes it easy to remove the delicate pho- After sanding the flat-black paint away from the duct’s edge, Matthew
toetched parts cleanly. glued the grilles in place using super glue. Regular model cements won’t
work with metal parts, but super glue and epoxy do.

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The biggest grille in Eduard’s set tucks under the rear end, just above the The turned-aluminum barrel plugs into the kit breech after the original plas-
exhausts. tic barrel is removed. Matthew used a jeweler’s saw to cut the plastic parts.

road wheels, six return rollers, plus the usual drive sprokets and 8, applied with a toothpick. The largest grille probably won’t get
idlers. That’s 24 wheels, with two parts each. noticed unless I drop the model on its roof; it’s tucked under the
While the road-wheel glue was drying, I added the upper hull rear deck, just above the exhausts, 9.
plate. Tamiya provides a lot of parts for the outer hull, including
the spaced armor for the front of the superstructure. I added the Turret
headlight housings (A40) to the hull and when the glue was dry I Adding the turned-aluminum gun barrel meant a little surgery
installed the blackout lenses (A39). I slide the lenses over a jewel- was in order. Using a razor saw, I cut the barrel halves away from
er’s screwdriver, and use it to place them on the housings. The the kit breech. The turned barrel is neatly designed, and fits per-
screwdriver makes it easy to adjust the headlight slits parallel to fectly into the face of the kit breech, 10. Gap-filling super glue
the ground before the glue cures, 5. attached it securely.
With most of the hull completed, I decided to install the pho- The Ausf L has the easy-to-spot “Rommel-kiste” stowage bin
toetched intake grilles. The intakes the grilles fit over are deep, so on the rear of its turret. Using a sanding stick and my motor tool,
I airbrushed the openings flat black, 6, and made sure the paint 11, I added a few dents and dings to the kit bin. It only took a
made it all the way to the bottom. It’s better to err on the side of few minutes to round off the corners and add some scrapes and
black than end up with a spot of bare plastic under the pho- ripples, 12.
toetched grille. As the turret turned, the metal bin could touch the tank’s
The attachment points on the photoetched fret are thin and fender-mounted antenna and short out the radio. The solution
easy to cut through. I placed the parts over a thin sheet of card- was simple – crews installed thin strips of wood to the edges of
board and chopped them off the fret with a chisel-tip hobby- the bin to insulate the antenna. Using reference photos as a guide,
knife blade, 7. A medium-grit sanding stick cleaned up any I added insulating strips made from .015" x .040" styrene strip,
excess. 13. Where the strips crossed a dent, I used the tip of my hobby
While I had the sanding stick out, I sanded the black paint knife blade to chip away the strip and create the appearance of
from the face of the grille opening on the hull to provide a clean split-and-splintered wood.
spot for the glue. I installed the parts with gap-filling super glue, Finally I added the extra armor to the gun mantlet, and the

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A medium-grit sanding stick helped dent the turret storage bin. Matthew used a grinding bit chucked in a motor tool to add the bigger dents.

13 14

Sheet-styrene strips simulate the wooden strips added to insulate the radio The finished turret, ready for paint.
antenna from the metal storage bin.

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Matthew applied an overall coat of dark yellow paint to the hull and turret Matthew painted the road wheels off the model, after attaching them to a
using an airbrush. The airbrush made it easier to reach tight places, like piece of scrap foam-core board with masking tape.
inside the space armor and around the suspension parts.

finished turret was ready for paint, 14. yellow paint. I decided to add a little color to my collection and
model a dark yellow Panzer with dark red field-applied camou-
Paint shop flage, like a vehicle fighting in Russia in 1943.
Panzers of this period left the factory in either dark gray or dark Step one is easy, just do what the factory did. I thinned some

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Tamiya’s red brown paint and a smaller airbrush pattern added the field- The taped-down road wheels were much easier to airbrush.
applied camouflage pattern.

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Matthew painted the roadwheel rims flat black before installing them on the It’s done, but it looks like its commander just had it washed and detailed. It
model. needs a little grime!

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A soft brush helps apply the artist’s-oil wash to the finished hull. The wash deepens the upper hull’s molded-in details…

Tamiya dark yellow (XF-60) and sprayed the hull and turret, 15. and sprayed on. I thinned some Tamiya red brown (XF-64) and
To paint the road wheels, I attached them to scrap piece of foam- put on a random pattern of stripes, 17. To make things easier, I
core board with strips of sticky-side-out tape, 16. painted a section at a time, and sprayed the turret and hull sepa-
After the yellow paint dried for a couple of days, it was time rately. I camouflaged the road wheels while they were still
to add the red brown camouflage. There’s no set pattern for attached to the cardboard, 18. When I was done, I let the paint
German camouflage of this period. The camouflage colors were cure overnight.
supplied as paste that was about the consistency of Kiwi shoe To soften the contrast between the colors and give the red
polish. The paste could be applied to the vehicles in a random brown stripes a worn and faded look, I filled my airbrush with
pattern of stripes by hand, or it could be thinned with gasoline highly thinned dark yellow paint. Working from a distance with

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…And the delicate welds and recesses in the road wheels show up much Finally, a steel-colored artist’s pencil adds a little wear and tear to the edges
more easily. of the hull and turret.

a medium spray pattern, I shot the mixture over the vehicle vary-
ing the amount I applied in any given area to give the finish an The Ausf L SdKfz 141/1
unevenly worn appearance. After cleaning my airbrush, I filled it
with straight Tamiya thinner and misted a coat over the whole Germany’s Panzer III medium tank had a long life and
model. This final coat of thinner softens the finish even more and evolved through a number of types, from A to N. Ausf L
helps eliminate the camouflage pattern’s “freshly airbrushed” production started in 1942. Although its general layout was
appearance. essentially the same as earlier versions, it mounted a long-
I let the model’s paint rest and cure for a couple of days, then I barrel KwK50 L/60 main gun to help combat Russia’s
brush-painted the road wheel rims flat black. Sticking each wheel heavily armed T-34s and KVs. Extra armor was added to
on a toothpick and turning it against the paintbrush makes the front superstructure and gun mantlet, and the suspen-
things go much faster. When the paint was dry, I glued the road- sion system was beefed up to handle the resulting extra
wheels onto the suspension arms, 19. weight.
Power was provided by Maybach’s HL120TRM V-12;
Wash the water-cooled V-12 produced 300 horsepower and was
I spent the next evening combining all the finished subassem- mated to a six-speed gearbox. Normally outfitted with a
blies. I added the soft-plastic tracks, then installed the pioneer crew of five, the tank served in North Africa and on the
tools, extra tracks, and spare roadwheels, 20. The model was fin- Eastern Front, until it was relieved by the larger Tiger I
ished, but certainly didn’t look like a veteran of the Russian Front. and Panther. 653 Ausf Ls were produced from June to
A little dirt and grime was in order. December 1942.
I mixed black and raw umber artist’s oil paints with mineral
spirits until the mixture was the density of strong black coffee.
Using a wide, soft brush I let the mixture flow all over the model,
21. The pigment not only darkens the overall finish, but it also
deepens the recessed details. The wash really
makes a difference on the turret roof, 22,
and the running gear, 23.
Finally, I used a steel-colored art pencil to
simulate wear along the edges of the vehicle, 24, and
anywhere else where the paint might get knocked off, like
around the hatches and grab handles. The effect is easy to control
with the pencil, and it can be blended in with a clean cotton swab
for a more subtle effect.
The finished Panzer III makes a colorful addition to
my German armor collection. I spent a couple of
weeks honing my detailing, airbrushing, and
weathering skills, and didn’t have to break the
bank in the process. FSM

REFERENCES
Achtung Panzer No. 2: Panzerkampfwagen III Dai
Nippon Kaiga, 1991

Matthew’s model represents a Panzer III of the 11th Panzer Division,

15th Panzer Regiment, Russia, 1943. Jim Forbes Photo.

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