Tamiya 1/35 Pz.Kpfw.II Ausf.F

It was time to get back to a Tamiya kit again.. I picked up this classic 1971 tooled kit last year. I wish I had built this kit when I started modelling as a kid. It's a great starter kit OOTB. Inexpensive & easy to build. If you're more experienced it makes for a quick test bed for painting & weathering. But now I craved more detail than the 1971 tooling could give me. So, I added the Eduard PE set, Aber barrels and Bronco Panzer II link tracks. The Eduard PE set made this build my most challenging & time consuming build to date. It was the most photo etch I've worked with for a particular model and it required a significant amount of cutting & shaving to the original kit.
I didn't build the link tracks until almost the last step.. after I had already painted the tank. I did not test fit the links to the drive sprocket and discovered that the links didn't fully line up with the all the teeth. Lesson learned.. always test fit aftermarket stuff. My solution was to cut & adjust three teeth on each sprocket to get the tracks to sit right. Although the build required more work than I anticipated, in the end all the upgrades really took this kit to another level and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.

Finished in AK RealColours - RAL8000 Gelbraun (yellow brown) & RAL7008 Graugrun (gray green). This is the North Afrika 1941-1943 camouflage, 2/3 Gelbraun, 1/3 Graugrun. Enamel pin wash & weathering. Build started in March but not finished until August 2022.

Panzer II Ausf.F 21st Panzer Division, Libya 1942

6 additional images. Click to enlarge.