Sd.Kfz. 233

Manufacturer: Fine ScaleFactory (Kit No. TL 007)

Well, I finally finishedthis awesome kit from Fine Scale Factory. When I first receivedit, there were no instructions included in the box, so I couldn'tbuild it right away, but once I got my hands on some, plus someadditional reference photos, it didn't take long. This was myfirst model from Fine Scale Factory, and I must say, I am veryimpressed. Even though I had some difficulties duringconstruction, I am very happy with the final result, and I lookforward to building my other FSF kits very soon.

Before I get to specificsabout the construction, first some general observations: thenumber of parts is incredible for a resin kit; only surpassed bycompanies such as ARMO and MarS, and they are all very finelymolded. The interior fighting compartment is completely detailed;the side hull hatches can be posed open, as can all of the visionports. The gun is elevationally positionable; in fact, I didn'teven glue mine in, so it can be moved up and down. All pioneertools are separately molded, and in fact, along with the AA MG-34which is included, they appear to be copies of ESCI parts. Thesmaller parts, such as the shovel and axes, need some carefulcleaning and trimming.

The above thumbnail is alink to a larger photo of the parts.

The quality of the resinis very high; there are very small attachment points to the resinpour blocks, most flash is very thin and easily removed, andthere were no air bubbles needing to be filled. Take care whenremoving the flash from the fenders, because in some areas, therounded-bead edges of the fenders can be mistaken for flash.

The main weakness of thiskit is the instructions. The detail and number of parts are soabundant that it is impossible to construct this kit without someform of reference material. FSF forwarded the instruction sheetsto me when I requested (they were inadvertently left out of thebox), but additional reference material is a must. The kitinstructions are composed of two sheets of hand drawn figureswith German notations. Most of the parts placement diagrams showa drawing of the vehicle's hull, with detail parts being notedonly by the letter of the part, with an arrow pointing in thegeneral direction of the hull where the part is to be attached.For most of the kit, this was completely adequate, but some ofthe parts still could not be placed without additional plans. Itdidn't help any by having extra copies of some of the moreconfusing parts. The drive train is a good example; the kitincluded four of them, when as best as I can tell, you only usetwo. If only two had been included, I would be more comfortablethinking that I found the right placement for them.

The best reference forthis kit would be to purchase a 1/35th scale version of thisvehicle, but I'm not certain that one is available in that scale.I was able to glean a couple of photos off the web, but interiorviews would have been very helpful. A friend of mine forwarded tome some scans of scale drawings of the 233, which I believe hegot out of an old Fine Scale Modeler magazine. They wereinvaluable. I found a Museum Ordnance Special (No. 11) for theSd.Kfz. 231 8 Rad by Tom Jentz, which although is a turretedversion of this vehicle, the book still had very useful close-upphotos of the exterior of the hull. I also found several helpfulphotographs and color profiles of the 233 in various ConcordPanzer books by Michulec.

On to the construction ...

As was seen in the partsscan above, the kit has a full interior, with the upper portionof the hull molded as a separate part from the lower hull. I seethis serving two purposes: first, it was necessary in order toget all the detail inside the vehicle; second, it should allowfor FSF to market other versions of the 8 Rad armored car, ifthey should so choose. I hope they do.

Construction logically began with theinterior. As I mentioned above, interior photos of this thingwould have been most welcome. Based on the meager instructions,some photos of the 231 interior, and photos of the gun mount on aSd.Kfz. 251/9 Stummel, I finally figured out the proper partsplacement. The gun is beautiful, with a postionable breachmechanism, and a superbly-detailed gunsight. I think that theframework around the breach is a bit too large, as it seems totake up much more of the vehicle's interior than I think itshould. An AA MG-34 is included, with a pedestal mount, whichbased on photographs, should have been mounted on the right sideof the fighting compartment, to the right of the main gun. But asone can see, there is no room for it in that position. I got outof the dilemma by leaving the gun off entirely. I chose to modela 233 with the 4th Panzer Division which I have seen in photos,and it had no MG mounted.

The hull side doors can bepositioned open if the modeler desires, but the doors wouldrequire some thinning to make that happen. As it was, theyrequired careful trimming and shaping to fit in the hatchopenings. The locking mechanism on the right door had to betrimmed at the bottom to make room for the gun platform. The gunwas built, but not yet installed onto its mount. This must waituntil the upper and lower hulls are attached. In fact, I left thegun off until the entire vehicle was completed. It made it mucheasier to paint this way. Once all the interior detail wasassembled, I painted it an off-white color (very light grey,actually), and completely weathered the inside of the vehicle(including the inside of the upper hull piece). I then attachedthe two hull parts.

The fit of the two hull halvescould have been better. I found it easiest to line up the frontof the hull, and add glue working my way from the front to therear. This results in a substantial gap at the rear of the upperhull piece, which I filled with some sheet styrene and putty. Ifelt it would be easiest to clean up any filling here, ratherthan up front where there are a lot of angular plates. This waspretty much the only fit problem I had with the kit, but inreality, this was almost the only place where 'fit' would even bean issue.

After the interior wascomplete, it was a simple matter to add the exterior details,such as vision port visors, storage boxes, the add-on frontalarmor plate, headlights, and the spare wheel mount. The noteklight mounted above the armor plate is a copy of the ESCI lightfrom their Sd.Kfz. 251, and the slanted mounting plate on thebottom of the light needs to be removed.

When all the major hullparts were attached, it was time for painting. I painted thewheels while they were still separate from the axles. I paintedthe base color of Panzer Yellow, and weathered it as normal, withwashes and drybrushing. But I thought it was rather boring, sothis is when I chose to paint a vehicle from the 4th P.D. in awinter whitewash scheme. This was a risk, because I have neverdone a whitewash before. I had in mind a method which I thoughthad potential, and after a test run on an old Leopard model, Idecided to give it a shot. Although I feel that the final resultis not great, I think that with further practice, it has manypossibilities.

The whitewash I used isnot actually paint, but Tamiya Flat Base (X-21). I"accidentally" came across this idea several years agowhen I was looking for a good clear flat for my airplane kits.Imagine my surprise and dismay when I started spraying this stuffon one of my airplanes, and when it dried, it turned snow white!For those of you who are unfamiliar with this stuff, it is not aclear flat coat, but rather an additive for other paints to makethem flat. When it is thinned some with alcohol, it sprays fairlysmoothly, and gives this nice layer of flat chalk, which caneasily be rubbed off with a towel. I used a combination of apaper towel, and a Q-Tip soaked in alcohol. As I said, although Iwasn't quite able to pull off the result I hoped for, I amconfident that with further practice, this will be an outstandingmethod.

After painting the kit, Iturned to the wheels. Here, it was made very clear to me whydry-fitting is very important. I fit a couple of wheels to anaxle, and checked the fit with the hull. While they fit justfine, it appeared to me that the wheel track (the distancebetween the left and right wheels on the same axle) was toonarrow. Sure enough, when I looked at the scale plans, it wasobvious that the axles were too short, with the result that thewheels would sit too far back into the wheel wells. So I had tofind a way to lengthen the axles, which was not as easy as it maysound. I could have sliced them down the center, which would haverequired extensive re-working of the differential housings (orwhatever those bulbuous things are in the middle of the axles).If I had some plastic rod of the same diameter as the hubs, Icould have simply lengthend the ends of the axles where theyprotrude through the centers of the wheels, but I didn't. All myplastic rod was either too fat, or too narrow. My solution, whichwas also very time-consuming, was to cut off the wheel backingplates with a photoetched saw blade, and insert a plasticextension at the ends of the flanges, and then re-attach thebacking plates:

These extensions were eachabout 1.5 mm thick, and are not noticeable on the final model.

After this necessary task,I painted and weathered the axles, attached the wheels, and gluedthe four completed wheel assemblies to the hull. I was expectingall sorts of hassles with getting all eight wheels to touch theground at the same time. I've had enough troubles with getting4-wheel drive vehicles to sit straight, so I mentally steeledmyself to come up with a way to deal with recalcitrant wheels. Istarted with the front and rear axles, and then did the interioraxles. Imagine my joy and wonder when all eight wheels touchedthe ground perfectly with absolutely no tweaking or manipulationon my part. Amazing!

Final touches includedadding the spare wheel to the rear of the hull. It's unfortunatethat there is no tread detail molded onto the road surfaces ofthe wheels. There is detail only along the edges which arevisible from the outside. All of the boxes and bottles seen onthe finished model were included with the kit, but I felt I hadto add some gas cans, because every single photograph I have seenof this vehicle shows numerous gas cans on the fenders andstrapped all over the hull. I would recommend to FSF that futurekits could include these gas cans, as well as additional stowageitems, such as rolled tarps and such. The only additional detailI added were the "curb feelers" on the corners of thefenders. There were four unidentified parts in the kit, whichlooked like very small lights at the ends of long rods; I thinkthat the instructions indicated that they should be attached atthe corners of the fenders, but I have never seen any photos ordrawings of these vehicles having lights in this position. So Isimply used brass wire with the ends dipped in white glue.

Nodecals were included with the kit, which worked out well with thevehicle I built. This 233 carried no crosses or other visiblemarkings outside the whitewash. I assume it had serial numbers,so I added some from my spare decal box, but they are mostlycovered with whitewash. One other kit detail I omitted was thethe guard rails on the hull sides. These rails were included withthe kit, but removing the rails from the flash (not the other wayaround, if you take my meaning) was an impossible task. It wouldhave been easier to scratchbuild them out of brass wire, which Istarted to do, but thankfully I realized that this was anotherfeature lacking from the vehicle I was modeling.

And finally, we get toscale. Based upon the measurements in the Sd.Kfz. 231 book, whichshould be identical to this vehicle, the width is spot-on for1/72nd, but the length is about 2mm too short, which I think isabout 1/74th. That's plenty good for me. One thought, however,I'm fairly sure that the fighting compartment is too narrow.Based on what I can see in photos, I think that the hull sides,right in front of the side hatches, should extend outward alittle more, and hang over the fenders a little more than theydo. Maybe by a millimeter or two. This is possibly why the insideof the hull seems to be lacking a little in space.

This is an outstandingkit, although I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. I wouldsuggest to FSF for future improvements, to include more stowage,perhaps some photoetched parts (such as the front armor shieldand brackets), and above all, better instructions.

I would like to thank Fine Scale Factory very much for providing thisreview sample, and I look forward to building their other kits aswell.