Trumpeter 00368 Panzerjägerwagen - Unboxing

Sometimes, I don't feel like painting or continuing a certain model. Sometimes I just want to open up a box and start a new project. Today, we open up Trumpeter's 1/35 Panzerjägerwagen (kit 00368). The kit appealed to me because it was not just another tank. It's a tank on rails. A section of rail is included, eliminating the need to worry about how I will display it.

The box contains 5 sprues, 2 hull halves and a few pieces of rail section. These sections are meant to be used for one model or can be build continuous in one 2-meter long (6 foot) section when combined with other kits. Several Trumpeter kits (5 if I recall correctly) can be used to build the German BP-44 armoured train.

It's meant to be symmetrical, so you'd really need all kits (except the middle command section) twice, but I have neither the display space, nor funds at the moment, to go and hunt down some of these more expensive kits. Maybe one day? (I doubt it)

Some photo-etch is provided as a replacement for the protective skirt around the cannon. You can opt to build the plastic version, but where's the challenge in that?
The last IPMS meeting just so happened to be a workshop on photo-etch soldering, so there's no excuse to not give it a try. I ordered the necessary tool(s) and material online and hope to start soldering really soon. You can look forward to an in-depth report about that.

The colour callout is in colour, which is a hell of a lot better than what some kits provide. Revell has the habit of making black-and-white dots-or-stripes paint instructions, which are often near-indecipherable. I'm looking forward to airbrushing these patterns free-hand for the first time. Or at least trying to.

I immediately started with the rail-section, to get that build and weathered, so I can display nicer WIP-pictures of the train.

The 4 wheel wells look alike, but are unique, and consist of 2 pieces each and several parts on the inside. I want to paint and weather them as much as possible pre-assembly, as they are nigh unreachable once built into the chassis of the train. After removing them from the sprue, it will be hard to identify which is which, so I painted their numbers on the back with the same pen I used to paint the windows on the USS Enterprise.