Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part II - Preperation

In case you missed Part I:
Schwere PanzerJagerKompanie Part I - Intro

OK here we go,  starting a new army from scratch.

Let me start off by saying, I really really hate some of you people in the Flames of War world.  Not because you are jerks, or ass wipes...can I say that on TV?  But because a lot of you say "This is what i did this afternoon".  I have no idea how you do that, because it takes me just an afternoon to get everything set up and ready to paint.  And the worst part is their stuff still looks great.

Vehicles

Anyway, first thing I do is get everything out of the box and make sure all the pieces are there.  If there are any resin pieces I clean them up by removing and extra sticky outy stuff,  especially around where tracks might go.  Then I wash all the resin.  I no longer use soap as some people suggest because it leaves a white film no matter how much you clean it.  You end up having to do it twice.  So, I just use a toothbrush and warm water.  I usually then let them dry upside down so all the water runs out of the little crevasses.  With this project I had to give all the artillery crew guys and quick rinse.  As I mentioned in Part I, because they were sitting so long they had dust on them and I needed to clean them up.

While the resin is drying, I will clean up all the metal pieces by removing flashing, or streighting and fixing anything that needs to be fixed.  Then once everything is ready I put the vehicle together.  The tracks are the most tricky part.  I like to put them together so that the tank doesn't wobble,  and doesn't look to crooked on the table.  99% of the time tracks don't ever fit perfectly.  Once the tracks are in place, I'll glue the bottom between the risn and tracks...again 99% of the time there is space between the tracks because they don't fit flush to the resin.  Usually takes over night to dry.

Once the tank is all put together its time to add rare earth magnets to the turrets.  I first use a small drill bit, the ones people use for hollowing out gun barrels.  This gives a starting point for the drill bit.  I find if you don't do this, your drill slides when you first start drilling and the hole never ends up center.  With the magnets I always color each end with a permanent red marker.  When placing the magnets this helps you keep the polarity right.  The colored red end will go into the hole.

Then I put a dab of glue in the hole, followed with a little bit of green stuff, followed by a bit more glue.  Then place the magnet, red marker in.  Then ever so gently push the magnet down until it is flush with the surface.  If you push it to deep, it may not work with the other magnet.  This is why I use the green stuff.  Just in case you drilled your hole to deep.













Infantry

As with any infantry, I don't normally wash them, but I do go through every guy and remove any flash lines.  Especially with these 10.5cm guys. They were an older mold by BF and these usually have a lot of flaws in them.  The newer molds are much much better and take less work to prepare.  I also remove the edge of the base on most of my infantry.  This makes basing a little bit easier, when you are using foam putty.

Once they are cleaned up I glue them to golf tee's and stick them in some styrofoam.  This allows me to handle each guy with out touching them. But only use PVA glue,  You want to be able to remove them easily when you are done.  I do the same with the guns.  For tank stuff like schurzen, I'll glue them to toothpicks.  For this I use super glue.

Once everything is ready, I take some old prescription bottles, double sided carpet tape, and stick the vehicles to them.  This will allow me to airbrush them with out touching them.  The tape is strong enough to hold them, even if they are heavy.

Now everything is ready to be airbrushed.