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Old 10-30-2022, 06:53 PM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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Early GPM SdKfz 251

After attending the International Paper Modelers Convention, naturally I was fired up to start a new project. I had already decided that I wanted a relatively simple project without tiny parts, so an early hand-drawn GPM seemed like a good choice. The cover art is pleasant and I like halftracks, but the feature that really sold me was the color scheme. The intention seems to have been a three-color German camoflage of red-brown, olive green, and dark yellow. GPM did fine with the green and brown, but the yellow is literally the color of an American school bus. It is bright. I’ve already notified Greg Perry that I hope to contend for the Silk Purse award.

I started off easily enough with scoring and cutting out part 1, the lower chassis (the largest part shown in the second photo). I’ve already encountered a confusing detail, in that a small cutout along the upper edge is not shown the same on the left as on the right. I would expect it to be symmetrical, so I’m suspending judgement on which version is correct.

Then I started dry-fitting. Oh, dear. Only one part cut out and I’m already having fit problems. One of the rectangles forming the forward belly near the cutout for the oil pan is too long, by about a millimeter, and will have to be cut apart and trimmed. I stopped workbench activites for the night and switched to familiarizing myself with the instructions and parts sheets. It’s obvious that I will need to translate the instructions, as the diagrams leave some details to the imagination. So that’s next. Many of the black parts have outlines best described as “uncertain.” And to add to my problems, whoever slit the plastic baggie open (before I became the owner) managed to slice a tiny bit off one long edge of all the sheets, taking a sliver off some of the parts. I don’t think that will be a complete show-stopper, but it’s annoying.

More to follow, as I dig deeper into the assembly.
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Early GPM SdKfz 251-8f2e9aa6-e586-4dae-8cfe-4f1c59a21e98.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-e9cb9de9-7a75-40ae-b88f-628d158f5213.jpg  
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  #2  
Old 10-31-2022, 06:04 AM
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Old model/ poor color/ dubious fit/ poor diagrams = absolute contender for silk purse award.

I have faith you will get a good result from your efforts.

And if you hit an insurmountable obstacle, you have plenty of other potential candidates in your stash now....😉

Greg
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Old 10-31-2022, 09:07 AM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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I just finished translating the instructions, using an online Polish keyboard by Typeit plus Google Translate. I have tried using a translator that simply photographs and translates text, but it doesn’t deal well with hyphenated words, so I went with the more tedious method. I present the translation here as a public service to anyone else who may want to build this kit. There’s an unnecessary period after each occurrence of the word “part” because the original Polish was “cz.” I like the way the instructions say “we” do each step, as though the writer is sitting beside the builder in spirit, encouraging them.

Sdkfz 251 instructions

Construction description:
Parts marked with the letter P - right side
Parts marked with the letter L - left side
Parts marked with an asterisk - stick with bristol board
Parts marked with two asterisks - stick with 1 mm cardboard.

Hull:
We start the construction of the hull from cutting out and shaping the part. 1, 2, 2a, 3, 3a, S1, S2. Then we glue the inner sides together. 10L, 10P and a frame with a dashboard part. 7, 7a, 7a1, 7b, 7c, 7d, 7e, 7f, 7g. In part. 8P, 8L, 8a, 8b, cut out the holes. The whole thing is glued according to the drawing and glued on the inside of part 8c, to which we stick our own pads, as per Fig. The side prepared in this way is glued to the inner parts of the hull, part 10L, 10P. Then paste part. 11, 11a, 11b, 11c, 11c1, 12, 12 a, 12b, 12c, 12e, 31. Glue the fenders with part. 13P, 13L, 42, 42a, 42b, 42c, and stick the light 50, a, b, c, d, e, f, 13c, 13c1 and the mirror 13b placed on the wire Z2 wrapped with part 13a.

Chassis:
We stick to the hull part. 4, 4a, 5, 5a, b, and thread the wires as shown in the figure. Glue the wheels made as shown in the figure on the rocker arms prepared in this way, glue the front suspension with part 44, 44a, 44b, 44c, 44d, 44e, 44f. 43, 45, 46 and the Z4 wire on which we glue the circles made according to Fig.

Hull, inner part:

Glue the parts 17, 18, 18a, 18b, 18c, 19, 19a, 20, 20a, 21, 22, 28, 48, Z, 5, Z6 from the parts, glue the glued floor into the hull and mount the cannon part. 30, 30a, 30b, 30c, 30d, 30e, 30f, 30g, 30h, 30i, 30j, 32, 33, 33a, 33b, 34, 35, 36, 36a, 37, 38, 39, 39a, 41. Glue part of the inside to the inner sides. 24, 24a, 25, 25a, 25b, 23, 26 and a fire extinguisher part. 27, 27a, 27b, 27c which we paint in red. On the Z7 wire we hang the rifle with part 53, 53a, 53b. The load wheels are wrapped with a caterpillar. One track consists of 1.5 lanes. Glue the remaining parts as shown in Fig.
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Old 10-31-2022, 04:35 PM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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I have spent much of the day progressing on this kit. I’ve scored and cut out the engine’s oil pan, which protrudes into the space between the front wheels, and an assembly which supports the oil pan. I’ve also made the structural reinforcements, which are fairly minimal on this model, consisting of only two parts.

Fit is terrible. So far I’ve only found one piece that did not have to be adjusted, and that was a small circle that appears to represent the drain plug on the oil pan.

I had to go on an errand in midafternoon to pick up a Caran D’Ache Neocolor II water-soluble “crayon” for edge coloring. I found a pretty good match. The color is named in three languages, and the German name is “Hellorange.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.

No pictures yet, since I haven’t started assembling. I’m suspending model work for the evening, since it is Halloween. I’d rather not be startled by the doorbell ringing when I have an Xacto knife in my hand.
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Old 11-01-2022, 04:56 AM
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Erik Zwaan Erik Zwaan is offline
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Good luck with this one, it is an interesting vehicle to build as a model and I hope you will see it through given the fitting problems you describe...

The German word "Hell" means "light" by the way, it's funny how words similarly spelled in another language can have such a different meaning from your own....

Typing Polish words is something to really take it slow, with all those unfamiliar non-vowel combinations, but indeed it could be of help to understand the build .

Cheers,
Erik
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Old 11-01-2022, 03:57 PM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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Today I worked on the first assemblies, the lower body or “hull,” and the lower engine that shows between the front wheels. The first photo shows all the parts to date, with the belly of the hull turned upward. The second photo is a detail of the engine.

Part 1, the lower body, fits pretty well after adjustments. Parts 3 and 3a are the lower engine, and they also needed trimming (and 3a still doesn’t fit the printed outline on the bottom of 3, but I can live with that). Part 2 and 2a form a kind of engine well and close the bottom opening. 2, the part that wraps around, is a hot mess; I had to rescribe and re-crease in several places. The second photo shows the large gap that I will need to fabricate a filler for. That shouldn’t be too hard. It does look like the engine and well assembly will fit onto the hull well.

There’s something terribly wrong with the structural reinforcements, which are the two white pieces at the top of the first photo. The smaller one gives shape to the hood and engine area, and the long one makes a kind of floor for the open aft compartment. I can put in either one, but not both. My current theory is that the “floor” is about half an inch (!!!) too long. But I’m not going to trim it until I make some more assemblies and see how everything goes together (or doesn’t).

Today’s main lesson was that I should not score any creases until I cut out the parts and dry-fit. But I intend to soldier on and see what other surprises this kit has in store.
Attached Thumbnails
Early GPM SdKfz 251-f1da3106-2abc-481c-b207-363848456032.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-000ab3be-75b8-44da-9cb5-18f965ffc5ac.jpg  
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Old 11-03-2022, 12:11 PM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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I repaired the gap in the engine well and glued the well and engine to the hull. It looks pretty good unless you look closely, but at least the mismatches are tidy. The engine helps hide the flaws (photos 1 and 2).

The next step reads “Then we glue the inner sides together. 10L, 10P and a frame with a dashboard part. 7, 7a, 7a1, 7b, 7c, 7d, 7e, 7f, 7g.” I’ve cut out the inner sides, but I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to glue them to the inside of the hull yet. So I built the dashboard assembly, which includes the steering wheel and footwell. For the most part it was a pleasant little puzzle figuring out how all the pieces were supposed to fit together, but there were more fit issues. One part was printed mirror image, I think. It doesn’t look too bad from the front (photo 3), but views from the sides (photos 4 and 5j reveal the gaps. This was about the best I could do.
Attached Thumbnails
Early GPM SdKfz 251-047080a8-73cd-4a51-bb02-69e5ea913048.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-e56fc75e-c20d-4b6c-9fe0-491cfbb57f9f.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-97b3635c-bc64-492b-9d9a-af73e53226d9.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-7877eaf9-5a54-4129-91b0-0eb72ac45af3.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-b9c2db4f-317f-426f-b5cb-54def644ed53.jpg  

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Old 11-03-2022, 02:18 PM
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Don Boose Don Boose is offline
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Anne - When you were describing the kit at Sterling, and in your initial posts (especially when you mentioned that a previous owner had cut a slice off the edge of all the sheets), I was anticipating that watching the build would be something like listening to Joan Morris sing "Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise," but this looks good. Your experience and skill are making up for shortcomings in the kit.

Ad astra!

Don
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Old 11-04-2022, 01:44 PM
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Amccombs3 Amccombs3 is offline
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Well, of course I had to go listen to “Lime Jello Marshmallow Cottage Cheese Surprise.” I got a good laugh out of it. Reminiscent of the meme below, which I only recently learned of (just before a potluck at work — very timely).

I don’t think I can avoid the problem with the structural reinforcements any longer. As previously mentioned, S1 reinforces the area under the hood as shown in the second photo. It’s shown more or less in position and cannot go any farther forward. Note its position relative to the small square cutout on the upper edge of the hull. I think S1 is OK as is. S2 is shown in the third and fourth photo. The forward half-inch or so of it will interfere with S1 as well as the engine well. Note how far it protrudes beyond the small square cutout, and also that it rests on top of the engine assembly so that S2 is lifted out of position at the front.

I don’t see any alternative to cutting off the forward part of S2. I checked it against the floorboard, and S2 and the floorboard are the same length, so it looks like the floorboard may need to be trimmed also. One of the diagrams, however, hints that the floorboard might have some creases which will shorten it.

As soon as I gather my courage, S2 is going under the knife!
Attached Thumbnails
Early GPM SdKfz 251-1b9ff495-a33a-40ba-a733-78bfe6b19222.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-61b6f1a7-d894-4283-a061-08f5594aa96c.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-df6f59e9-517c-4097-81ca-cb0031f34fdf.jpg   Early GPM SdKfz 251-dd218ec4-555b-43a5-afe7-713a7cc7a4b8.jpg  
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  #10  
Old 11-04-2022, 03:46 PM
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rockpaperscissor rockpaperscissor is offline
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That gelatin ring looks absolutely disgusting. My wife and I had a good laugh over it. Are those sardines I see mixed in with the kiwi fruit and olives? A very funny meme for sure.

I like that the instructions use "we" at every step. At least you won't feel so alone in your building struggles.
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