If it has come with Dragon Styrene tracks I am sure there is someone on the site who would swap them for magiTracks.

OK here we go: Panther G already started but was after Nov 1st. Jagdpanther will be late version built at the same time to facilitate painting etc. Little PE and light weathering. I'm brand new back to modeling after several years and a lot has changed so I'm building these 1/25 kits to get my feet wet and dust off the cobwebs.
















Panther Late stuff.


German Late Tool holders etc. Probably use some of these too...

Oh nice! Good choice too! I wish I had my head on straight when I chose my kit. I have a 1/25 Panther A I'd love to have an excuse to build.




~ Jeff

Flyboy,your "G" looks good,and looking forward to your big Jagdpanther

Hi guys
Some great work going on with the Panthers here. I have been very busy with real life but have made some steady progress. I went with a hard edged 3 color camo pattern but I tried something new I airbrushed the dunkelgelb and used thinned acrylic paint brushed on for the other 2 colors

As you can tell im gonna use the speck/dot camo, only 1 color used and only 1 side of the tracks built so far. Comments/suggestions are more then welcome.
Hopefully I will make some more progress this week

Hey Sal. Looks great so far. Which brand of acrylic paints are you using?? The brush painting looks good.

Thanks Randy, The brown is Model Masters Red Earth, thinned a bit with some rubbing alcohol, the green is cheap craft store Olive Green thined the same way

Sal I would like to reserve my comments on your current build at the moment until you have done some weathering to show your model at its best. I will say that the build looks very clean and the painting is thus far looks good.

I will toss my hat in the ring with this:







off beat subject, let's see how it turns out.

Rick
Armorer of the Potomac

good progress Sal,lets see some weathering next

It was time to get started with painting.First prep for the 32 roadwheel pieces:



Then the Black-Dark Gray edges:



Next my handy circle template :



Here is the paint scheme I plan to use:



And here are the Roadwheels,and the bascoat of XF-60

Is it too late to get in on this build? What is the end date for this build?
Thanks
Mike

Plenty of time,it doesn't finish until 12-31-2012. Welcome

See the rules,Darren,wants step by step build log for your project.

@ Randy those 1/24 scale kits look real cool I'll have to look into those
@ Tony your build is looking real good looking forward to seeing more
I got the other side of the tracks build and installed

Dragon says to use 81 links I only used 79 and 80 on the 2 sides

I need to add the 3rd color spots but I'm out of Tamiya XF-60 again They really need to sell this stuff in pint jars
Hopefully I can get to LHS on Monday

Panthoholics,

This update involves how I went about lowering the Panther and installing the swing arms. With the exception of not yet assembling the drive, idler, road wheels, towing hooks and storage bin support brackets I’m basically done with both steps 1 & 2 of the kit instructions. On an earlier posting here (page 13) I placed a few links that better explains why I’ve chosen to lower this Panther, so before I get started with this update I’d like to cover a few things here in case anyone is also interested in doing some of this to their model?

The rubber cushioned steel road wheels (SW) and the rubber tire road wheels (RW) sets, are both included in the kit providing four road wheel options to chose from but the kit instructions only point out the one option of using the SW and the RW are shaded as not for use. Well, lets look at all four road wheel options.

The kit instructions provide you with the part numbers for fitting a full set of SW and on which swing arm stations they should be placed, but not for the RW. Using a full set of RW would be the second option and coupling them together with a pair of SW on the last road wheel stations would be the third option. The fourth option would be to use SW and RW together in staggered pairs. And yes, anyone of these options could be applied to your Panther F build.

Full sets of SW were installed on a small series of production Panther Ausf G’s completed by M.A.N in September 1944. It’s not clear as to why these wheels were installed on only a few vehicles, and then not used again, but a problem identified in using them was breakage of the guide horns on the single link six-chevron tracks. Plans had been set for designing a new set of track links for the SW, similar to the single link six-chevron tracks, but designed with a single solid guide horn in place of the two perforated guide horns per link but the war ended before these tracks were ever produced. Using a complete set of RW, until the new single solid guide horn track links became available, may have been the more viable production option perhaps even coupled together with a pair of SW on the last road wheel stations as was done on a few late series produced Panther Ausf. G’s completed by M.A.N in March/April 1945. To date there has not been found any supportive documentation as to why these SW where installed on only the last road wheel stations. The quantity and date is unknown but apparently Daimler-Benz had completed and delivered Panther Ausf. F chassis, mounted with the Ausf. G turret, and fitted with SW mounted in staggered pairs. I’m just guessing here but this may have been done to reduce the likelihood of breaking the track guide horns, as the RW pairs would have been situated between the guide horns with the SW straddling outside the guide horns.

All four of the road wheel options:

For using the full set or SW simply follow the kit instructions in step 1 and 3 and use swing arms E2 (Right Side) and E7 (Left Side) at the eighth swing arm housing stations in step 2. Follow the swing arm placement sub-assembly diagram in step 2, as this is correct for both sides of the lower chassis. The larger assembly diagram in step 2 is incorrect in that it will have you place E2 and E5 swing arms into the first stations and they both should be E2.

For using the full set of RW simply substitute E9 for W1 and E11 for W2 in step 1 of the kit instructions. Then in step 3 E10 substitutes for W3 and E12 for W4 at stations 2, 4 and 6. At station 8 E10 substitutes for G20 and E12 for G21. Follow the swing arm placement as above. Use swing arms E2 (Right Side) and E7 (Left Side) at the eighth swing arm housing stations in step 2.

For using the RW with one pair of SW at the last road wheel stations use as above for the full set of RW but G20 substitutes for E10 and G21 for E12 at station 8 in step 3. Use swing arms E5 (Right Side) and E4 (Left Side) at the eighth swing arm housing stations in step 2. Incidentally these are labeled ‘Steel Wheel’ on the sprue tree and are intended for use at the eighth swing arm station when using the SW at that location and RW at all other locations. This is better explained here.

For using the staggered pairs of SW with RW E9 substitutes for W1 and E11 for W2 in step 1 of the kit instructions and these should be placed at road wheel stations 1, 3, 5 and 7. Then simply follow the kit instructions for placement of the SW at all other locations. Follow the swing arm placement as above. Use swing arms E5 (Right Side) and E4 (Left Side) at the eighth swing arm housing stations in step 2.

If you’re interested Mike aka ‘SdAufKla’ Roof, posted a very handy seven-page pdf. file entitled ‘DML Panther Smart Kit Build Notes No. 1’ that covers the Panther Ausf. G Smart kits #6370 and #6268 but in my opinion is just as useful for the Panther Ausf. F #6403 kit. You can find that pdf. file and many other useful down-loads at there AMPS Central SC Group-Builds & Demos Page they are free and as Mike kindly put it, ‘feel free to use the information if you find it useful’.

I won’t be installing any of the road wheels at this point in the assembly but I have installed all of the swing arms as outlined above for using the staggered pair of road wheels. Since this is my first Panther build I’m not 100% sure if what I’ve done to lower it is going to work until the running gear is actually fitted on the chassis and its sitting level on the workbench. So if I haven’t lost you already, here’s what I’ve done and where I’m at on this build.


In this photograph I’ve installed all of the E1 and E8 torsion bars to the lower hull. Next I set about drilling a hole, using a No. 63 .039” (0.990 mm) drill bit, over each of the first and last swing arm torsion bar housing stations on either side of the inside lower hull (red circled areas – you can only see three of the four holes in the photograph). These holes were drilled to allow a small amount of super glue to be passed through them, during the Ground Height Clearance Adjustment, to lock the swing arms in place.

After cleaning up the four road wheel swing arms (E2 X 2 – Right and Left forward stations), (E4 – Left and E5 Right rear stations) they were placed in their respective positions and only the torsion bar ends where cemented into their slots on the inside of the lower hull. I did this in order to keep the swing arms from moving away from their housings yet keep them free to rotate during the GHCA.


I took the 35th scale height clearance calculations offered by David Briden of 14.6 mm (.574”) into account and decided that lowering my Panther no more than 2 mm from its factory ground height clearance would be a good compromise for a vehicle that may have been lucky enough to have already spent only a few months in the field. I needed to fabricate a set of blocks to set under the lower hull that would give me the height setting I was after. Here is how I arrived at the desired height settings for the pair of blocks.

First I subtracted the overall thickness of the six chevron Panther tracks (3 mm - .0118”) from the factory height clearance (14.6 mm - .574”) and arrived at 11.6 mm (.456”). Then I subtracted this figure by the 2 mm’s (.0079”) that I needed to lower the Panther and I arrived at 9.6 mm (.377”). I then added 1 mm (.0039”) to the front block so that the height at the front of the Panther would be slightly higher than that at the rear giving it that low squat look that I often see in photographs of these vehicles in my reference books, forums and Internet. ‘Well then, lets get this heavy slow rider lowered!’

I fabricated both of the GHCA blocks from .3125” (7.938 mm) styrene I-beam and .060” (1.524 mm) thick sheet styrene to about the width of the lower hull. An extra .020” (0.508 mm) thick styrene sheet was added to the forward GHCA block. I had to notch the top ends of both blocks in order to have them clear the bottom hulls plugs. Scotch Magic brand clear tape was used to temporarily fasten the blocks to the lower hull.


I then placed an E11 RW on both forward swing arm stations and G21 SW on both rear swing arm stations and placed the lower hull together with the GHCA blocks on a flat piece of ceramic floor tile and added a 2.5 (75 ml) oz bottle into the center of the lower hull for weight. I then checked to make sure that the wheels were in alignment with the chassis before proceeding with the next step.


With a sewing needle I carefully placed drops of super glue into the previously drilled holes on all four of the swing arm torsion bar housing stations. Super glue accelerator was then applied to each of the four holes to set the super glue and fix the swing arms in place.


The Right and Left side forward and rearmost swing arms are now fixed in place.


I then cut all of the remaining swing arm torsion bars to .375” (9.525 mm) long (not including the swing arm shaft – see inset photograph). Donuts to fix the torsion bar shafts against the swing arm torsion bar housing stations were fabricated out of .040” (1.016 mm) sheet styrene. With a set of calibers I matched a drill to the torsion bar and drilled a series of holes on the sheet styrene and then using a punch and die set I carefully centered the holes to one of the dies openings and punched out the donut. The swing arms were then placed into their appropriate housings and the donuts were press fitted to the torsion bars. Liquid cemented was placed only were the donut and torsion bar meet and away from the housing to keep them free to rotate.

A stand was also fabricated to support a 10-32 nut so that I could screw a handle, fitted with a set screw, to it for handling the model for painting and weathering (circled in red). The handle is not shown here but you’ll soon see it later in the build. The stand was made from .080” (2.032 mm) sheet styrene and .060” (1.524 mm) styrene angle. The nut was then fixed to the stand using two-part 5-minute epoxy.


Here you can see where I fixed the nut stand. I placed the upper chassis over the lower chassis to center the nut stand using the turret ring opening as a guide. Next came the assembly and installation of the radiators and cooling fans. And here’s where I encountered the first fit issues in the kit.

There is an option for two exhaust cooling fan blades, an early version D21 and a late version D5. I chose the D5 cooling fans, as these were the later designed fans for more efficient cooling and with strengthened blades, installed to Panthers from September 1944. There is no mention of early or late for these cooling fans in the kit instructions. After fixing the fans to the radiators I attached these parts to the radiator supports with Tamiya masking tape and test fitted the assemblies to the lower chassis and found that the stands for the radiators could only be installed to the lower hull one way. This is not called out in the kit instructions. Radiator stand D3 should be installed on the Left side of the lower hull and D24 on the Right side. The radiators (D2 and D23) could be installed to either radiator stand, as they are identical. When I test fitted the upper chassis over the lower chassis with the radiator assemblies in place I found that the radiators interfered with the upper chassis. After fiddling with the parts to get them to fit and to keep the cooling fans centered below the armored radiator deck plate openings of the upper hull I then set about trimming away about .040” (1.016 mm) from the radiators (indicated on the inset photograph) to get the assemblies to fit without any interference and keep the cooling fans centered under the openings.


As she sits with the fixed and free rotating swing arms in place. Next comes the upper hull.

~ Eddy

OK I need some help here guys. I added the MIG panther D grill set to my Dragon smart kit. The kit supplied mesh screens are a slight bit too big for the MIG grills, they fit the Dragon grills perfectly, naturally. Can I go without adding them to the MIG grills or should I attempt to trim them down? Also should the gap be there on the cupola or should I fill/sand the seam? Lastly the Rt front side headlight hole is predrilled in the hull, did the "D" have 2 headlights or 1? Sorry for so many questions my attempts to find good pics on the net seldom yield good results. Thx in advance.

I would bend the edge of the grills around the filter housing.
I will need a picture of the copula issue to see what you mean.
I will check ref tomorrow and post up an answer for you on the lights.

Hi guys, made it to MLHS for some more Tamiya XF-60 and added the 3rd spot colors and some markings

Not building any particular vehicle here just thought the numbers looked good

now it needs a coat of futures and some weathering

I'm in with a Tamiya 1/35th Panther G (Late):


It will be more or less be built out of the box.

made some progress on the chassis, but nothing worth taking a picture of yet.

Eddy,I sent you a PM.Thanks,Jeff Tucker

@imitanker - Jeff,

Received your PM, reply inbound!

For others reading this, If you must know? This concerns the sprues with the rubber wheels (RW) and steel wheels (SW) in the Panther F, CH Smart Kit #6403. There now!

~ Eddy

Geez,now everybody knows I can't tell a steel wheel from a rubber one,

Hooray for Christmas eve mail! Just got the last thing I had ordered for my Panther today. So it's all here now and ready to start, probably right after new year.



Merry Christmas too me!