World War II Project - Rubicon Models PzKfw III H - The build complete

Since I'm apparently stalled on painting anything...again, I thought I would try and finish up the Rubicon PzKfw IIIH (with the 50mm KwK 38/L42). As you may recall from the last posting on this I had discovered quite a gap at the rear of the vehicle and I finally diagnosed the issue. I was pretty sure that someone at Rubicon or the hundreds of others that have built this kit would have noticed such a gap. When I glued on the back plate (part C25) I wasn't paying enough attention and instead of slipping neatly into place I managed to hang the top edge over the tab on the lower hull so it wasn't sitting flat. In addition this covered up the two slots for the tabs on part C26. Since I didn't attach C25 correctly in the first place it was easy to "break" off and glue in correctly. Of course I figured that out after I had cut the two tabs off of C26 and modified the back plate to get the right fit. Since the kit is so well engineered you can't even tell that I screwed it up even after I cut off the tabs and snipped away some detail on the back plate (C25).

The final part of the build was finishing off the turret. This went together quite easily and really was a pleasure to put together, the fit on all the parts was perfect (well I admit that I was not happy with the way the cannon barrel [A03] seated into the first portion of the mantlet [A07] it just kind of sticks in there and I really had to pay attention as the glue set to make sure it wasn't crooked) .  In the enlarged view of the turret I see a couple of little gaps but a little putty will take care of that, heck just priming the vehicles would probably take care of it. Let there be no mistake I'm a big fan of Rubicon Models, but this kit is probably the best one I have put together so far. 

Current progress on my collection German Rubicon kits (from most complete to unbuilt):

1) STuG IIIG (x3) weathering in progress

2) STuH IIIG (x1) weathering in progress

3) Jagdpanther (x3) ready for decals

4) PzKfw IIIH (x1) ready for priming

5) PzKfw III (H-N box) (x2) unbuilt

6) PzKfw III Befehlswagen (x1) unbuilt

7) PzKfw IV (x6) unbuilt [This are from the first production run with the missing gun so I also have  bunch of the replacement sprues to compensate for the incorrect one in the kit)

8) PzKfw VIB Tiger II (x2) unbuilt

I have obviously have developed a bit of back log!

Let's take a look at the pictures:

This was my first clue that I had messed up something. I was test fitting the fit of the upper chassis to the lower hull and found quite a gap at the rear and piece 26 (part of the muffler system)

From the side you can just make out piece C25 in the middle of the gap. That's the piece that I didn't quite get into the right position

A couple shots of the large locator tabs on C26, which I subsequently (and erroneously) cut off.

The turret assembled with the short 50mm cannon

A good overall look. As per my usual method the wheels and tracks have not been glued into place.

Lot's of opportunity to detail the rear hull with racks and stowage. I won't start the painting till I have built and installed the racks. Its probably the one extra that would have been nice to include.