ARMOR - Panther (PzKpfw V) Group Build (any scale)

Hiya folks,
nice to see you are all doing so well.
I been looking at my Tamiya Panther with Eduard photo etch "zimmerit"
and once again I see Eduard have not come up with the goods.
What do these guys do measure photos or real tanks.The zim don,t conform to the shapes, why Isn,t the zim on the back plate complete! and the kugelblende zim looks like Valium time.
I,ve not spent 37 quid on it not to build it though so I will persevere and bite the bullet.
The Aber stuff looks beutifuly thought out but I dought I,ll use it all, I,ll probably make my own details as much as possible so I can use the parts on more than one project (this will cut down costs and I like scratch building anyway).
Not decided on painting yet but will probably be SS Normandy-Falaise era.
Keep u posted,
Gotter.

I am basically still at the same place with the mantlet, I think I am just going to go ahead and shave the ridges inside the mantlet and see if that gets it to sit down on the piece how it is supposed to. It's about to drive me crazy . If it don't work I'll just add something to make it work.

Well nothing major to report this end. Added interior detail to the Cupola on my D - vision block retaining plates, etc and will be adding smaller details to finish it off tomorrow.

Built the drum Brake housings, axles and part of the transmission section for the drivers area and made up the wire frames for the seats - just waiting for glue to dry before going on.

Hi Panther Gang.

Not to much to report on my end, finished the rear deck and topside. I'm going to start on the turret next. Perhaps get wrist deep in putty on Monday.

Thanks Bill, I thought milliput or Tamiya putty were good zim bases? One link Kenneth showed me they used milliput. I think slower curring putty would give me more leeway.

Good for you Kenneth, hope you like your figs.

Welcome back Muzzleflash.

muzzzleflash88,

Welcome back... I used MK links on my Dragon G. It called for 87 on each side. Turns out it was right on. I recon you are using the kit links? they couldn't be that much different in size than the mk. So I would start at about there.maybe do 85/86 then fill the gap if necessary. Set the tension correctly though...not to tight. Track should just set down on the second set of double wheels.

Good luck.

God Bless
Kenneth

WOW, so much to read!!!
I was busy for about a week and now an overwhelming catchup read

I'm going to try to get my Jagdpanther (DML) started today. After glancing at the instructions I already have one question .......How many track links per side on the DML Jagdpanther model with the bolt on mantlet?

Second question... (I cant find the answer and I know it is earlier in this thread) Which eduard part number do I use to replace my barrel?

I will be taking progress pics as I go along to share on the build site also.

Eric:

QUOTE: Bill, thanks for the tip about Moses secret, saves much time hunting it down in the forum. I thought that stuff sets really fast though?

It sets up pretty fast, that's for sure. It doesn't give you an hours working time like Apoxie Sculpt does! It sets up a little too fast for my liking, but that can be adjusted somewhat by how much catalyst you add. I keep using less and less each time. I may also be trying to do too much at one time. I usually try to get one surface done. Maybe that's too much. But I really like the results.

Bill

Yippeee.... I finally got someting from Greatmodels....my crew is here. I am using DMLs Assault gun crew and some other Ardennes figures as riders.

I'll be honest with ya'll I almost changed horses in mid stream...and still might(Tamiya JP or G late). I was working on the engine deck last night trying to fill all the gaps around the lifting lugs................................I didn't know one could get so mad at an inanimate object... I think i may have worked it out but it is gonna take a lot of tedious clean-up.....oh well!

Hopefully we'll all get plenty done this weekend.

God Bless
Kenneth

QUOTE: Originally posted by djmodels1999 Frosty, I scanned them at work. Send me your e-mail address there dominique.jadoul@kent.gov.uk

Domi:
U RULE !!!
e-mail 4 me c/o my friends at: film_shipping @moma.org when u get a chance...
thanx ever so much, and have a great weekend !

frosty

All,
well, aside from providing Chris w/ useless advice and clogging the build thread w/ posts last night,
i managed to work a bit more on the Panther.

i was going to put the details here, but it was running long,
so i will try to get it neatened up, some more pictures done,
and send it off to Claymore.

so you will be able to see it in a day or two there.

ed.

Chris,
sorry, i went back to the bench and then to bed.
i think you need to either fill around the railes w/ styrene, or
shave them off and replace them w/ wide strip.

just shaving them off might work, but you could run the risk of the cover
sitting too low (or too far in).

i suppose if you shave them off and it does not work out,
you could put some wide strip in to act as a bearing surface.

ed.

So do you think shaving off the rails since the sides of D 10 won't fit in them and glueing cover directly to the breech would work. Once the barrel is inserted it should give the extra support between the two pieces to pivot right?

is that what i said ?!?[:0]

i think it should only be glued on the face of the breach so it can pivot,
BUT you may have to fill a bit on the back of the C56 piece to provide a wider bearing surface.
(to keep D10 out of the narrow gap).

ed.

ok i got it right here and from what i can see in order for the barrel to be elevated up and down it would have to slide on down and be only glued to the loading breech section. I am thinking though that I could just try and glue riding like you suggested in what ever position I want the barrel and save any modification I might be looking at otherwise.

Chris
like two ships passing in the night.
i am starting to wonder if the rails on the inside are supposed to ride on TOP of the edge on D10.
so yo want to keep D10 from getting in the space between the rail and the edge.
can you wedge a bit of styrene in that gap to keep the edge of D10 from sneaking in there?

EDIT
of course, i have not zimmed these pieces, so i have a lot of lateral play
between the two!!
ed.

Chris,
the other thing that i see (now!)
from fiddling w/ the pieces is:
the key seems to be the fit between D10 and C56
(Chris screams DUH! that's what i said!)
the back of my C56 has two rails just in side the left & right edges.
my D10 piece is too narrow for the front edge of it to fit between the rail and the inside
of C56's outside edge on both sides at once.
i think that could make you go crooked.

ed.

It would be the step 17. I have checked to make sure that all the pieces were aligned right and they are. It seems that the slots inside of part C 56 are not alighning right with the disc shaped sides of D 10. The side with the small hole will snap in fine but the other side will not. That is the one that I moved the pe snugger to the turret and still would not go.

Chris,
i am not sure exactly which pieces you are talking abt.
since we are on the same kit, do you mean Step 16 where D10
goes on to the sub assembly from Step 14?

i don't have these parts ready to go yet, but
i have dry fitted up to there now, but now i think you are talking abt Step 17 where C 56 goes on the sub assmbly ?
is that right?

mine seems to fit ok.
of course it is not zimmed, and i am holding 5 parts together w/ my fingers!
but it looks straight.

i hate to ask this, but are all of your pieces in 'right side up' ?
i know that they are 'keyed', but i have done it myself.
it took me a few minutes to get the pieces together here as
they keep rotating & flipping the pieces in the diagrams!

anothe possibility i noticed is that even after i put the screw in,
i did not tighten it much (for this test run) and the breach was able
to pivot in the mount because the end w/ the nut had some play.
could your breach be in slightly cock-eyed ?
can you move it at all forward from inside the turret?
ed.

Well looks like I have run into my first problem . Anybody familiar with a fit problem with the mantlet cover with the zim on it and where it goes on the piece that goes outside of the loading breach? I was dry fitting it and it will not go on straight for nothing. I thought it was a piece of zim on the side of the under oiece so I took it off and moved it back some but that was't it. Anybody have an answer to this before I sand alot of plastic off the inside of the mantlet cover?
I guess it help to say I have the early g kit.

Good day ladies and gentlemen.

Thanks Kenneth for the links, it will come in handy.

Ed, thanks for your sympathy. Hope your pe goes better.

Chris, zims looking good.

Bill, thanks for the tip about Moses secret, saves much time hunting it down in the forum. I thought that stuff sets really fast though?

Thanks again for any tips or advice. Actually I'm more upbeat today. Kind of excited to be doing my own, Yes, It's going to be time consuming, but I was going to have to do it eventually on my Dragon Late A anyway.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kennethc Chris Feel blessed that you HAVE a LHS!

I would'nt exactly call it local. The closest one to get aftermarket stuff is almost a 2 hr drive.


I am assuming that the yellow would be the appropriate base color to start out with right? I got the turret complete except barrel and most things painted the same as the body are on too so I am ready to give the beast some color. That way I can work on the road wheels while it dries.

Bill- I did not think about that, I have now dug through the trash and retrieved them. Good thing I don't get in a hurry to cahnge it!

Chris;

Don't throw away your pe frets, man! The can come in very handy for little straps, shims, all kinds of stuff. At least keep a few of them around. You don't have to keep all of it. Just think of it the way you do sprue!

I think you'd be okay painting the base color on the tank before your grilles come in, but I wouldn't put the camo on it.

Great models is a source of joy for all of us, I guess. They used to have a retail store open from 10am to 8pm M-S, but Lorik (the owner) decided to close it (with very little notice to anyone, including the employees) because so much of his business came over the internet. Now they are open from 9-5 M-F. But you have to call and order your stuff first, then pick it up at "will call". I work 8-5 M-F and it's a 40 mile drive each way, so I don't get there much. All I save is the shipping and the mailing time anyway. I don't know how much business he's lost in closing his retail store, but I can tell you, there's been quite a bit from me. And there was something wonderful about walking into a store and seeing two or three thousand (yes, thousand) models all lining the shelves. All the AM stuff was in the back and you couldn't see that, but all those models...my oh my! (I am, almost, over my withdrawal symptoms!)
btw, when he says something is "in stock", it really means that he might have it on the shelves, or one of his over night distributors has it on their shelves. However, there have been times when I've bought the only copy of an item and noticed it took close to a day for it to come off the in stock status. You can call the 800 number and have them verify the availability of an item, though.
A funny thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I called about a couple of items that were listed in stock. I was going to have a LHS pick up the stuff from them and pick it up on Saturday. They said they didn't have the items on the shelf and that they were at a distributor that was "down the street". Turns out that the LHS I was going to is the distriburor they were talking about and I would have had them moved from the distributor to great models and back to the same distributor!! (Of course that would have missed the Saturday pickup, also.) Needless to say, I just went to the LHS and picked them up.

Sorry about the longwindedness.

Bill

QUOTE: Originally posted by claymore68 petbat: check out Archer Transfers for the solution for your decal problem. I think Hometown Hobbies has them. (www.hometown-hobbies.com)

This time delay really sux, so many conversations happen while I'm asleep .

Thanks Derek. I have been e-mailing a couple of guys from my club, and they both reckon that the Dragon decals for their "D's" disintergrated when they tried to use them anyway. They both went Archer and they recommended them to me too. We have a couple of Traders that come to our monthly club meeting, and one of them is an agent for Archer here in OZ. I'll be hitting him up for the Archer replacements on Saturday (as well as the ARMO barrel I've been waiting on) - He's also the one with the pricey Cupola's too Kenneth.

For you poor Zim guys.
"To Zim, or not to Zim, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in mind to suffer
the stuck fingers of outragous cyano
or by taking up putty against these troubles
or by backdating, end them
To cry, to weep"

Apologies to Mr William Shakespeare

Gotter,
welcome aboard.

Finished putting the turret together last night (except the barrel of course). I wanted to use the spent cartridge and pistol ports with the rain guards but the cartridge port had a bad sink hole, and using the pistol ports that didn't match seemed odd to me. Tip for anyone else building this kit - the pistol ports without rain guards are not big enough to cover the hole in the turret where they go. Good ol' Zap-A-Gap is needed here.

Have kept the vision block part of the cupola separate for some internal detailing.

Finished the radiator and cooling sections last night and started the forward interior compartment by adding walls and floor. Not too many clear pics of the inside of the D model around, so I'm basing it on what I have for an A -which is not much. One of my reference freak club friends (Mr Library apparently has one whole bedroom stocked with just about any book on German vehicles you can think of) from my club is bringing me a few books to read on Saturday, so I hope to find something there before I go further.

Chris
Good luck with your paint job. Those German camo jobs can be a little intemidating no doubt. About the only things I'll paint off the model are the pe grills, road wheels and tracks. Even then thats only for the base coat. All camo is done after final construction. I am trying to move through construction quickly so that I have plenty of time to paint and build a small diorama.

Feel blessed that you HAVE a LHS!

I will be doing it straight from the bottle. Thought I would keep it simple with the dark yellow, dark green, red brown 3 color scheme. This is my first go at german camo. I tried to the build the whole thing and then paint but found that was not for me. Thats why I was wnating to go ahead with ost of the paint so I can keep adding stuff to it.

Kenneth- I agree about greatmodels. I was under the impression that when they had something it meant they had something. Did'nt know I would have to wait till they could get ahold of it. Went with them cause I did'nt know when I would be able to get back to a LHS. Looks like I would have done better with that route after all.

Chris,
sorry 'bout that! [:0]
that's what i thought, but the color in the pic on that area makes it look like bare plastic.

i am not sure if i would recommend that.
(painting some now & some later)
but it might work if you save some paint aside so the color will be right on.
of course, if you are going straight from jar or can, i guess it would work.
i am just having a flashback to a 1/12 or so '63 Stingray kit i built as a boy.
i painted it midnight blue w/ a rattle can.
hood and body were not together at the time,
and the hood ended up noticeably darker than the body.
i was never happy w/ it.
of course, w/ flat dark yellow & a wash, you might be ok.
what color scheme are you doing?

time to go home and work on my kit!

ed.

Chris,
I hear you..
My barrel was expected yesterday at Greatmodels. It hasn't gotten there yet. My chains are in stock and waiting, there is also some other PE stuff they are searching for. GreatModels while very convenient is i believe the devil itself
Today I ordered a DML M1A1 w/mine plow and I have no idea why....

Kenneth

Ed- It's there , just can't see it cause of the angle. You had me a little worried though cause the pe sprue is empty and in the trash.

Would it be ok to go ahead and paint the body and then just paint the pe grills and barrel when I get them? So far great models say they expect to get the grills in on the 11th and the rest is still unknown. I really don't want those to hold me up.

Chris,
is there PE zim on the inside side of the right storage box?
i can't see it in the picture of the rear of the hull.
it's looking good. i have a lot of catching up to do!

Bill,
i know what you are saying about the backs, because i had the same feeling about the 'hidden parts' of the outside of the wheels.
i just figured i might do a few for practice as it would be nearly impossible to see.
of course, Murphy's Law states the practice shots will be the best of the bunch!

ed.

QUOTE: Originally posted by Kennethc Chris, Wow... Neat and clean build. I love it. The Zim looks great. How was the fit around the ball mount? It is PE right? Looking forward to seeing more.... God Bless Kenneth

Thanks. It is pe. There are some very small gaps that need to be fixed, but they are to small to even get the knife tip in between so I'm not sure how to go about fixing those yet. Other than that it all went on pretty good with no fit problems at all that I noticed anyway.