Sdkfz 234/2 Puma #2

Suspension takes some doing, especially rolling lots and lots of small tubes out of long strips of paper. Painting will also wait until all subparts are ready to put together. I have just done wheel drums and working on traction pins. When pins are ready, basic suspension will be mounted on the lower hull. Next step will be upper suspension mounted on the bottom hull and reaching mid section. It makes a unit of leaf springs,  one for two wheels.

Wheels are also finished, it was not easy to bend paper round in several directions. Outcome wasn't disappointing though, at least not for standard build. How one wheel is made see on the pictures.  One tire requires 5 different parts, some of them really time consuming, others challenging to roll and curve without marking paper.  Wheel was easier to make, but not exactly easy to fit in. Inner strip seen on the picture was rolled onto cardboard reinforcement (above left). As it is rather difficult part to manage, I did not avoid small difference in diameter, and had to "build up" wheel to inner tire. I have left a slim strip just above the main cutting line and sanded outer  line  down to fit.  

The Ladder strip seen on the top of the tire is very time consuming. It is the simplest example of traction available. Usually whole tire is being painted, traction completely changed. As a fan of standard model making, just take model out of the covers and make it, I wanted it to be in original colors. It meant all edges where paper was cut will be visible. I got some brushpens from HobbyCraft and used it to cover all white edges with chosen color, flexible head of the pen made it easy to get in very small grooves and complete cosmetic surgery without any spillage in case of paints.