Road wheels for Sd.Kfz.6
Uncommon off road tread pattern + QW mask
Quickwheel 1:35 Scale Set No.QWX-024 & QWX-025
Review by Terry Ashley
At present there are only two mainstream kits of the Sd.Kfz.6 available being the Bronco Models Sd.Kfz.6/3 ‘Diana’ (kit #CB-35038) and recent Sd.Kfz.6/2 3.7cm FlaK36 (kit #CB-35043) with the similar Trumpeter Sd.Kfz.6/2 kit to appear shortly.
All of these kits are based on the later production Sd.Kfz.6 BN 9 chassis but the only generally available images of the Sd.Kfz.6 with this style of wheel are on the earlier BN 1 7/8 chassis, the set instructions also include the most common image available with the BN 1 8 chassis. This means at this time there isn’t a kit available to accurately use these wheels as they certainly were not fitted the Sd.Kfz.6/3 “Diana” or the Sd.Kfz.6/2 3.7cm FlaK 36 but well have a look at the set in any case.
There are two wheel sets released, set #QWX-024 with the two front wheels and a QuickWheel Mask set to aid with the painting and set #QWX-025 with three wheels, the two front wheels and a spare wheel plus a set of QuickWheel Masks.The wheels are designed with the central hub separate plus an additional separate hub cap or towing bracket with set # QWX-024 having eight parts in light grey resin plus the double QuickWheel Mask set and set #QWX-25 with nine parts in light grey resin and triple QuickWheel Masks.
The standard of resin casting is very good with clean crisp detail free of any air holes or other blemishes other than some fine film within the tread. There are small casting plugs to cut off the hub caps and small towing brackets with the wheels themselves having a virtually non existent casting plug evident, any present is easily removed with a #11 blade.
The wheels are dimensionally accurate in diameter and width when compared to the 1:35 plans in the Panzer Tracts book listed below with the rim contours well done and include a deep indent around the outer rim for a very good appearance. The rim bolts are also well defined as is the fine valve stem along with the inside detail with riveted inner strip around the rim and equally well defined hub bolts.
The only drawback is they appear to only have ‘one shot in the locker’ as it is quite difficult to extradite the wheel out of the mask to paint the other side of the rim without distorting the mask itself due to the stickiness of the mask material. You will need to take extreme care removing the wheels after painting one side of the wheel to be able to reuse for the other side.
Despite this the masks work very well allowing you to airbrush the rims with clean even edges, you have to of course paint the tyres before the rims due to the design of the masks but this shouldn’t pose any great problems.
The only problem being we don’t have a plastic kit that these wheels can accurately be used on at this time as the current kits are all based on the later BN 9 chassis, but if that fact is of no concern they will give a distinctive appearance to the available kits.
Rating 8/10
mittlerer Zugkraftwagen 5t (Sd.Kfz.6) and Schwerer Wehrmachtsschlepper Panzer Tracks No.22-3 ` |
mZgkw 5t Sd.Hfz.6 Tank Power Vol.LVIII Wydawnictwo Militaria No.287 ISBN: 9788372192875 |
Halftrack Vehicles of the German Army 1395-1945 Schiffer Military History ISBN: 0-88740-758-7 |