Wednesday, September 18

Build Guide Pt. I: MiniArt's 35th scale Sd.Kfz 234/2 "Puma" (no interior kit)

Andy King gives us the first part of this build review of MiniArt's Sd.Kfz. 234/2 "Puma" Schwerer Panzerspähwagen in 1/35th scale. See how he builds up the no-interior version in part I today...

Build Guide Pt. I: MiniArt's 35th scale Sd.Kfz 234/2 "Puma" (no interior kit)

Sd.Kfz. 234/2 "Puma"
From MiniArt
1/35th scale
Kit No#35419
The Subject: Sd.Kfz. 234/2 "Puma" Schwerer Panzerspähwagen
The successor to the earlier Sd.Kfz.231/232/233 'acht rad' (eight wheel) armoured cars, the Sd.Kfz. (Sonderkraftfahrzeug) 234 series was based on the new 'ARK' chassis and powered by a Tatra V12 diesel engine. It was lightly armoured and the different 234s had a variety of armament, with the 234/1 featuring a 20m auto cannon, the 234/2 Puma had a 50mm cannon, the 234/3 a 75mm L/24 cannon and finally the 234/4 was armed with a 75mm L/46 PaK40 which packed quite a punch.
The 234 series was first developed in 1940 with the prototype due to start trials in 1942 however due to the excessive noise of the first engine, a second engine was developed (the Tatra 103) instead.
The first version of the 234 was the better known Puma variant and this was fitted with a turret originally developed for the VK1602 Leopard and armed with a 50mm cannon. It was produced from late 1943 to mid 1944 until it was replaced by the 234/1 with the open topped turret and armed with a 20mm cannon. The Puma saw service on both the western and eastern fronts until the wars end in 1945.

A trio of German reconnaissance armoured cars. In the foreground is this subject, the Sd. Kfz. 234/2 8-Rad "Puma", midground is an Sd. Kfz. 234/3 8-Rad and an unrecognized armoured car in the background.
Although the 234 series has been kitted before by Dragon and Italeri, these are over thirty years old (the Italeri kit is probably nearer forty), and now MiniArt has brought us a brand new tooled family of the 234 variants. The Puma has been tooled with either a full or limited interior and the latter is the one I received from MiniArt for a full build review.

The Kit:
Looking at the kit contents and you get twenty sprues moulded in grey plastic, a clear sprue, a sheet of etched metal parts and a very nicely printed decal sheet. Moulding quality is good with only a small amount of flash here and there on parts although if you were building the version with a full interior there are some prominent mould-pin marks on the hull interior, the detail is also nicely done too.
As soon as this kit turned up I dove straight into the build so starting with the lower hull, this is a multi part assembly that went together pretty well. 

The box contents...
Before we get any deeper into the build however, I have to mention that it is 'possible' to turn the wheels for the steering but if you want to go down that rabbit hole then the process would start here as you would need to remove the locating pegs on parts Ca34 so that you could move them to match the positions of the wheels front and back. I had thought about adjusting the steering, but decided against it as the work involved would have been too much and took too long for the purposes of this review.

With the lower chassis built, the hull floor and sides were next and this wasn't an easy process. MiniArt have moulded very small locating lugs onto the floor to which the hull sides match up, however I found them to be more of a hindrance as they prevented a good fit so removed them. 
The next thing was to fit the hull sides so I glued the front of the hull (part B15 into place first then fixing one side at a time from the front to the back...
...,finally gluing the rear hull plate (part A3) into place before gluing the hull side to it, repeating the process for the opposite side. For strength I ended up using superglue and accelerator.
With the hull together, the rest of the interior parts were added. I did glue B32 into place but this can't really be seen and got in the way so I ended up cutting off the top half of it. The actual fit of the lower hull wasn't brilliant and needed some gaps filling.
Moving onto the upper hull, MiniArt provide clear parts for the three visors and I was toying with the idea of having them open but in the end I closed them as the actual fit wasn't the best. It's at this point you need to decide which colour version you are doing as the upper hull requires holes drilling in the top of the fenders depending on what you choose.
The front hatch was also closed after some sanding to get it to fit. The louvres for the rear engine deck can be displayed open or closed and the fit was OK but there was some flash present on the open louvres that needed trimming before being fixed in place.
Without the engine you can see inside but black paint hides a lot.
Next we come to the suspension, and looking at the instructions it does appear quite daunting and complicated - more so if you are attempting to turn the wheels as the track rods (parts Da13), the pillars they attach to (parts Ca4, Ca5, Ca25 and Ca26) all require their positions altering to suit. You will also need to remove the large locating lugs on the ends of the drive shafts (parts Da19) so that you can turn the wheel hubs (parts Da2 and Da3). The suspension assemblies were not the easiest to put together as yet again I found the locating lugs a hindrance more than help so I actually cut these off. I also found it best to glue the top wishbones first before adding the lower wishbones.
Note the direction of the front wheel hub (Da2) as the rear ones (Da3) face the opposite way. The front and rear suspension was glued into place first then a ruler was put across them to make sure they were square.
Although I used Tamiya liquid cement to glue them in place, once I was happy with the positions of all four suspension units, superglue and accelerator was then used to speed up the drying time and to give the suspension some strength. The rest of the suspension units were then added and again before they had set, a ruler was placed along all four hubs either side to make sure they were all aligned.
Not as bad an assembly as I first thought but it does need some care.
The suspension springs were added next.
I had glued the assemblies for the springs (Ca 16 and Ca17) earlier but in hindsight it would have been better to fit them at this stage as I had a couple of alignment issues. The track rods (parts Da13) and the suspension supports (parts Ca8, Ca9, Ca10 and Ca11) were glued and that was that for the lower hull.
When set I sprayed the interior an ivory colour as I was planning on leaving the turret hatches open but more on this later, the engine compartment was sprayed black. When done I glued the upper hull to the lower hull and to be honest the fit around the front was pretty awful as for some reason the upper hull has a 'slope' on the mating edges. If I had spotted this sooner I would have sanded it down but it was only after the hull pieces had been glued that I noticed it, so be warned.
This left a pretty big gap that required filling, made all the more awkward by the interlocking joints as per the real vehicle. Also I fitted the the fenders and again these featured a fair few gaps so be prepared for some filling and sanding.
The wheels
Once the hull had been cleaned up I assembled the wheels and these are made up of five parts each. The Puma (along with other members of the family) were fitted with various tyre types although MiniArt provide just the one for the main wheels (DEKA) and a Continental for the spare.
Anyway, if you follow the build sequence they go together fairly well but I would recommend drilling out the locating holes first. The way I did it was to dry fit the wheels together THEN glue them, holding them together with clothes pegs or clamps until set, I also found it useful to mark the part numbers on the insides.

Gluing those wheels together - A mini guide:
1/ Firstly you glue the wheel hub (part Da1) into D5 then follow the assembly sequence, noting that parts D4 and D2 have a slight camber. 
2/ Parts D5 and D4 with the wheel hub (Da1). The wheel hub was glued into place first. 
3/ Part D3. This is the central part of the tyre. 
4/ Part D2 is added, this is all it takes to make these tyres successfully.
Finally part D1 (the rear of the tyre). When assembled the tyre was glued and clamped until set. That gap at the front was filled with plastic rod and the weld bead added using a pyro gravure.
With the gaps all filled, the various pioneer tools and boxes were added along with the spare wheel holder on the rear of the vehicle. The pioneer tools are not bad and quite useable plus MiniArt provide etched handles for the moulded on tool clamps, purists will no doubt add separate tool clamps but for me the kit supplied ones were good enough.
The width indicators were very difficult to remove from the sprue and clean up and I actually broke one of them so before painting I'll replace them all with brass wire. The same can be said for the aerials as these were impossible to remove and clean up as well. The 'star' antenna is supplied as an etched item and is flat whereas on the real vehicles these are made of tube but trying to replicate that is tricky in 1/35th scale.

The location points for the rear width indicators were destroyed during clean up and were replaced with discs punched out from plastic sheet.
The steering guides and rear-view mirror that attach tot he hull are left off until painting for their own safety. I will probably replace these with wire replacements...
A look at the hull from both sides after construction.
Lastly, we come to the turret and my original plan was to have the two hatches open, however there was not enough detail included (it is a no interior kit after all), especially around the breech - plus the fact that the hinges are far too small meant that I glued the hatches shut.

I did attempt to make new hinges from brass strip but gave up as they were not working out. You can see the replacement hinge made from brass strip.
You can see the replacement hinge made from brass strip.
The rest of the turret details were glued on plus I made cast line around the mantlet from heat stretched sprue. The smoke dischargers ideally need replacing as they sort of get wider at the bottom and therefore impacts the fit of them all. The barrel is pretty good for an injection moulded item, even down to the muzzle brake so I kept it. Although not mentioned on the instructions, part L24 should be added to the right side of the turret. Also when fitting the turret to the hull, the turret ring needs a bit of sanding so that the turret will fit in place nicely.

What do I think?
That was the build finished and it only took a few days, although I should think with a full interior it would have took a lot longer. Not a bad kit but some areas needed attention that I didn't expect on a newly tooled model plus those three part fenders ideally needed to be done in one piece. The fit of the front hull was the worst part but my recommended fix should sort it out.

Although this was a no interior kit I felt that the parts for the inside of the turret could have been included considering you can have both hatches open as there is quite a bit missing, however you can always hide this with crew figures.

Images of the completed kit, ready for paint & weathering...
Now that the 'beauty' shots are out of the way I may inflict some battle damage on the fenders as most photos show them in various states of dis-repair if not missing entirely but if I do, I'll cover that in part two.

Andy King.

Thanks to MiniArt for sending this kit to Andy to make and review for you. See more about all of MiniArt's kits on their website...

You can see more of Andy's modelling on his modelling page "Andy King's Model Blog"