1:35 Sd.Kfz. 251 - Corrected Road Wheels (Late Type Cap 2) (for Tamiya Kits)

A vehicle of which over fifteen thousand were built

To produce such a quantity of a complicated half-track chassis the German economy managed only at the cost of constant simplification. Flat surfaces replaced curved ones, riveted assemblies gave way to welded ones and everything that could be got around disappeared from production. The last stage of development therefore looks more angular than the original prewar version, although technically it is still the same machine. It is from this period that the vehicles come which appear in the overwhelming majority of surviving photographs from the fighting in the east and in the west.

The detail that gives the period away

The cap of the road wheel hub went through several alterations and its later shape became one of the clues by which a machine can be placed in time. The castings here carry this younger form, so they suit building a vehicle from the last years of the war.

Working with the castings

The wheels come from measurements of the real part, not from a redrawing of the plastic, and that is apparent in the depth of the recesses and in how sharply the circumferential edge ends. The kit intended is from Tamiya. The procedure is simple: cut the gate off, level the surface with emery laid on glass, try it dry. The surface holds paint best after thorough washing and after a thin base applied with an airbrush. Only on a base prepared like this does it make sense to set about shading and work with dust.

When the exchange pays off the most

It saves the most work where the builder plans a vehicle with an exposed running gear, that is without side fenders or with the machine tilted in the terrain. It is then that the viewer's eyes get to the disks and the difference from a molded part is apparent at first glance. On a model built on the level and with complete fenders, by contrast, a large part of the work stays hidden.