I love what you are doing with your Panther!  Great work!

I would like to weigh in on the degrading of Dragon's quality, though.  I noticed the same trend in other Chinese companies, notably Trumpeter.  It seems that they have learned the worst practices of Capitalism; buyer beware!

Bill Morrison 

Thanks guys!

Bish

I usally paint the boddy of perscopes silver before adding the outer colour.

You can't really tell by looking at the photo, but the green paint is only applied to the rear surfaces of the periscopes. So applying the BMF on top of it gives me the same effect as painting the rear surfaces silver and the lenses in clear green. I just have to worry less about brush marks.

warshipguy

I would like to weigh in on the degrading of Dragon's quality, though.  I noticed the same trend in other Chinese companies, notably Trumpeter.

I haven't bought any new Trumpeter releases lately, but I haven't noticed a drop in quality with the kits I own. I gues it only affects their most recent kits?

I started noticing it this year.  Just as in Dragon's tanks with the track issue,for example, Trumpeter has started omitting lower hulls in their 1/700 ship kits, marketing only waterline kits. I have read similar issues in Chinese manufacturing generally. I do not know why.

Bill

SchattenSpartan

Thanks guys!

 

Bish

I usally paint the boddy of perscopes silver before adding the outer colour.

 

 

You can't really tell by looking at the photo, but the green paint is only applied to the rear surfaces of the periscopes. So applying the BMF on top of it gives me the same effect as painting the rear surfaces silver and the lenses in clear green. I just have to worry less about brush marks.

 

That makes sense, cheers for the tip.

Tojo72

Nice start so far,Dragon makes a great Panther kit.I do remember that Magic tracks won’t fit in the the track hangers on the hull,not sure if it’s a problem with all of their Panthers,but I do remember a review on this one.

 

I have 3 completed Panther kits all with spare tracks on hangers and i don't recall any major issues. Might have had to thin the hanger a bit, but i have had to do that on otehr brands. I'd certainly prefer Magic Tracks over the DS, but given the rise in prices of their kits lately, i think they are risking priceing themselves out.

Ill be starting my Panther A soon, itll be fun to see what you do with yours!  also mines an older Tamiya Kit that came with rubber band tracks, Ive done some google searching and browsed around some of the different hobby sites but have yet to find workable tracks aside from the really expensive ones.  Does anyone know where i could source a set of workable Panther A tracks?

Tanker, i am a huge fan on metal tracks. But honestly, for that old Tamiya kit, i would not bother with AM.

yeah I didnt want to go that route with the metal tracks, I've seen the plastic workable track kits that run around $15 to $25 bucks which id like to use, but i cant seem to find anything for a Panther.  I just really hate the look of the Rubber tracks because you dont get sag

Hey TankerEasy, as Bish said you'd probably be better off just buying a Dragon or other newer Panther kit with included link tracks and just using the Tamiya Panther A as a practice kit.