Revell 1:76 Pz. Kpw Ausf F

And the diorama base came packaged with ... (up drumroll sfx) ... the Revell 1:76 Pz. Kpw Ausf F!

To be more precise, it's the Revell release of the original Matchbox Pz. Kpw Ausf F. As as kid, I had built and lost a few of these babies way back in the 70's and 80's.

The model shows its age in terms of engineering, beginning with the very thick sprues that held the pieces. To avoid damage to the small parts, I had to cut away from the pieces and more into the thick plugs of plastic. I tried sanding some of the roadwheels while they were still unattached but my pudgy fingers couldn't get a good grip on these. So I just glued them on as is and will sand them properly after. The chassis assembly was a bit crude and dated with little in the way of alignment pegs or guides. I used a very nice and quick acting cement so the body went up nicely although I did have to go over some other pictures to check the alignment angles.

The hull and turret details look crisp but seem to have been engineered mainly for simplicity over accuracy. Plus, some of the parts look oversized. The main gun barrel is a let down being too simplistic and without the proper shape. It was just a sliver of plastic with very little in the way of actually trying to represent the 20mm KwK 30 L/55. I decided to glue it all the same and will just probably replace it with a scratchbuilt one soon. I also refrained from attaching the rear turret bustle since most of the pics I have of the DAK Pz Kpw II ausf F don't have those. I'll have to scratchbuild a new pistol port though for the now exposed turret rear.

Overall, a scale model that's more toy-like overall. It was still a fun, fast build though and fit an episode of CW's "Arrow." I set it aside together witht the Matchbox Firefly with painting to come soon. Since my airbrush has been acting up, I plan to batch paint at least 5 small-scale tanks to save on prep time maybe early next week rather than working on this one alone. Until then, model on!

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