In case you missed my earlier thread (or avoided it), I thought I would give another shot at building a Lego brick style tank from the Polish manufacturer COBI.

 

As recounted in my previous thread, I had unfinished model building business with the Monogram Panzer IV which I never completed as a kid.

 

http://www.worldmilitariaforum.com/forums/index.php?/topic/314754-brick-tanks-from-cobi-sorta-like-lego/

 

While not quite the same thing, this avoided the paint, glue and spray hazards of standard model building. Of course, it also avoided a lot of the detail and creativity that goes with normal model building, but this was just for fun anyway.

 

You will note the box says 500 pieces... that makes it a project in anybody's book. This took me a good 8 to 10 hours of painstakingly focused assembly (and several missteps along the way).

And this is what 500 pieces looks like coming out of the box.

 

You start with three large bags. Inside of each are several smaller bags with not a label among them to tell you which one comes first. So basically you open up 160 or so random parts and gently dump on the table.

One nice thing about this kit is you can build it in the Ausf. F1, G or H versions. This doesn't make a lot of difference in the early base chassis build, but it comes in at the end of the build when you add the armament and side armor panels.

 

Note the color coded profiles to guide you through the process.

 

You also get a card for an online wargame for those inclined. The backside has points for movement, offensive fire, and damage.

Out of chaos, comes order....

 

As with the Renault FT-17, my preferred method is to sort by color, and then by shape.

Just a couple of tips...

 

Looking at the two beige blocks, you can see how something looks like a simple smooth surfaced block actually is different when flipped over. I bring this up because you may be surveying a pile of bricks trying to find that one odd specialized shape when it is really right in front of you the whole time.

 

As mentioned in the previous article, always double check your bags by holding them up to the light. I actually got burned this time around... I managed to almost lose the radio antenna because it blended in with the lines of the printed portions on the bag. Fortunately I had not thrown that batch of bags out just yet.

 

I generally pull the bricks out of they pile and lay them out to match the instructions before clicking them together. I am sure there is some adventurous soul out there who would just to pull them out as you go along. But I'd suggest doing this pre-inventory helps you not to skip a key brick here or there. If you miss one or two you may not notice it at the time, but six stages later in the instructions you may find things do not line up!

And when they don't line up, you have to start pulling bricks. What is surprising is how two bricks that clicked together so easily will just refuse to come apart.

 

That is when you need one of these funky orange things.

 

LEGO officially refers to this as a "brick separator". If you don't have one from building LEGOs for your kids, you can order one from the LEGO.com website, part number 630 for a whopping $2.49, plus shipping. If you are going to seriously pursue building these kits, you need one of these.

 

https://search2.lego.com/en-US/tool

 

And yes, I was actually using one of these when I took this photo to remove about three layers of bricks so I could insert one that I had missed earlier.

Construction about a third of the way through.

 

As with the Renault FT-17, this is a very solidly built model. It's like using a lot of little bricks to build a full sized one.

 

There are almost no words in the instruction booklet, which is natural as COBI exports to about half the planet.

 

But one nice feature is a 1 to 1 drawing that is useful when you are dealing with flat surfaced pieces. Since these come in several lengths, you want to make sure you have the right one.

Road wheels... a necessary evil that is the bane of both model builders and real life tankers. This is probably the second most repetitive portion of the entire build.

Actually, the most repetitive task in this build is linking the treads together. There were 31 pieces that had to be snapped together for each side.

 

As I cautioned with the Renault FT-17, make sure you count out how many you need. COBI included 32 with each pack, and that extra piece will make your treads too long to fit tightly over the wheels.

 

For the amount of work this entailed, the treads move very nicely across the road wheels.

Final assembly of the turret, armament and wrap around armor of the Ausf. H variant.

 

The added armor was a bit tricky as it was linking together essentially flat pieces that would form the semi-circle.

And finally...

And more...

For those of you who prefer not to have the side armor...

 

I posted this earlier, but for a detailed review of this kit, see:

 

https://www.reddit.c...cobi_panzer_iv/

 

As with the Renault FT-17, one could easily criticize this model for lacking in full authenticity. But for me, it meets the five foot rule, and will look close enough sitting on the book shelf.

 

I hope you enjoyed this review.

That's not LEGO building any more, it's modeling without glue. Gil, this Pz IV looks fantastic! I like the detailing and the camo scheme. You have definitely caught my interest. Thanks for your awesome step by step reprt!

 

Lars

With 6./Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130 decals no less! That is pretty darn neat! Thanks for sharing Gil!

Mike

With 6./Panzer-Lehr-Regiment 130 decals no less! That is pretty darn neat! Thanks for sharing Gil!

Mike

 

One of the downsides is the decals come pre-applied. I am not sure how you could remove them if you wanted to change or customize them. But that is a minor issue.