Airfix 1/76 88mm Restoration

[Pretty Mediocre Modeller]

I was getting a bit jaded with my usual 1/72 aircraft building, andmy 1/24 Spitfire IX has stalled at the painting stage for a bit, so I decided to do something different to get back into the swing of things.

I have a box of broken 1/72 and 1/76 armour kits leftover from my wargaming days in the 80s. Most of these were built by friends, to not a very good standard, but I thought I would give one a go at a restoration. To choose from are an Esci 25pdr gun and limber in 1/72, which was my first choice, but after sorting out the bits, I only had 2 of the 4 wheels needed, next was a Matchbox 1/76 LRDG truck, but again a wheel was missing, and finally 2 airfix 88mm guns, unfortunately no tractor.

On checking the parts, I thought I have enough to build one whole gun, with a bit of scratch building for the tow hook and travel support for the barrel, as these were missing from both. I took the best gun barrel, gun carriage, chassis and arms, cleaned up the parts as best I could, including sanding down the weird camouflage pattern that had been put on, drilled out the location holes for the wheel bogies, that had been broken off, stole a missing circular mounting plate from the unused chassis, and made up two missing adjustment screws for the leveling foot plates.

all these were painted in Panzer Grey, as it was the only German tank colour I had, and I wasn't going to buy any just for this, and reassembled. the moveable arms were glued in the down position, the gun carriage at a 45 degree angle from the travel position, but the barrel was left movable.

The wheel bogies were then taken apart, most of the wheels being still moveable, and the two best bogies and 8 best wheels reassembled and again lightly sanded and painted in the grey, tyres being rubber black. these were then mounted to the chassis with new pins made from 1mm plastic rod.

The new travel mount was again made from lengths of the 1mm rod, and the tow bar from plastic card, and other bits. For weathering there was a light dry brush in light grey around the edges, some steal dry brushing for moving parts, and dark earth weather powder around the wheels and bogies.

Below are before and after pictures;