Paneuropean Mk.III & -B, Pt.1

I wanted to give my Paneuropean forces some actual OGREs to go along with my PE-produced Fencer and Doppelsoldner models. As Warehouse 23 only had Mk.III and Mk.III-Bs available, I decided to start there, and ordered a couple.  (Even before receiving this order, I felt I needed to get some more. I went back to the W23 site just 3 days after the first order, and all they had left was the Mk.III-Bs. If you need to flesh-out your armies, you'd better hurry.)

According to the 'history', the Paneuropean Federation gained access to OGRE templates when Great Britain fell and they captured the Sheffield manufacturing  plant. Even so, I wanted my PE OGREs to have some differences that would make them easily identifiable as Federation units, as opposed to the Combine OGREs.


 I started by gluing  .015" x .125" styrene strips  flush with the outsides of this Mk.III's treads. Now I have a confession to make here. Originally, I didn't do this to make a distinctively-Paneuropean OGRE. I did it because the tops of the treads  had a lot of sink-hole defects, and the gap between the treads and superstructure was enormous.

The strips covered the defects and hid the gaps. But their 1/8" width made the treads sit wider on the model. "Ah-ha," I thought, "that's the Paneuro Distinction." 

I also added these shims to the inside bottom of the  treads so the model sits more level.

The tops of the treads are actually longer than the rear section, requiring some small styrene strips at the front.

The magnet assembly to hold the sections together.  See how the front one sits in a recess that will 'capture' the one glued to the upper-inside of the rear. The blue in the holes for the secondary batteries is Magic Mask. It is a rubbery liquid you brush on where you don't want paint to stick. It dries quickly, and you peel it off when you are finished  painting. I'm doing this here so I'll have bare metal-to-metal surfaces when it's time to glue in the secondaries.

(EDIT: This picture added.)

(EDIT: This picture added.)

Now we move on to the Mk.III-B. Kind of looks like a frog. The space under the 'eyes' is begging for a Flying Tiger-like painted mouth. I'll have to see what I can work up. This set comes with double guns and towers. Here was a chance to do something I've wanted for a while. I started by covering the tower base with a piece of styrene. Next I carefully cut both towers apart at the seam with a  razor saw.

I glued the two lower pieces to the sides of the original base.

I connected the two with a semi-circular wedge of styrene, then added one of the uppers on top.

The arrangement of the magnetic pivots.

(EDIT: This picture added.)

Here I've moved the upper tower back on the wedge. Not sure how I like this arrangement. When I originally considered doing this on one of the larger OGREs, I felt the two towers should be farther apart, and definitely both pointed straight ahead. That would require some fancy cutting and filing of the towers, or hacking into the superstructure, something I'm reluctant to do. However, the more I look at this, the more I think that is what I need to do. What do you think?. Let me know.

Another conclusion I've come to is I didn't take enough photos of this project. I'll see if I can't take care of that as quickly as possible. (EDIT: Added three pictures.) Thanks for looking, and as always, comments and questions welcome.  Don