I am looking forward to watching all of these Panther builds take shape, Have a good Christmas.

Okay, I just enlisted in the campaign today and tomorrow might be getting the Black Knights Panther G from the local hobby store (Yay for the only useful boxing day sale I've seen so far )

So,the dust has settled,and it's time to get started on the second half of My campaign build.It will be OOB as I have no money left(gotta love Christmas )Here it is Got some Magictracks and some other stuff haven't opened the tracks yet but they look "flashy" A couple of upped hulls..... Have a roadwheel, all 6 sprues of them It also came with a nice metal barrel that seems to have vanished into cyber-space.As you can see this kit came with ALOT of extra parts,but with the help of others on this site (thanks Eddy)I am sorting it out.Hope everybody had a good Christmas,Jeff

Sorry guys,I posted the above in the wrong thread. It was early it's for the what if campaign,at least it's a Panther.I WILL be ordering a 1/76th jagdpanther for this campaign,and will post pics when I do.Once again sorry,Jeff T.

@ Jeff you will have a bunch of spare wheels and parts with that kit this is what my Panther is looking like

a black wash after some Futures, and some muck on the treads

a little more weathering up top, some dull coat and pictures in natural light still to come. Feel free to add suggestions or comments

Sal: That looks really good,what did you use for colors on the tracks before you weathered them?I'm still trying to figure out how to do them.J.T.

Jeff the tracks were primed with Rattle Can Gray primer, then I used cheap craft store acrylic Metallic Silver with a drop of Black added, Then a light coat of more cheap craft store acrylic Metallic Bronze with a few drops of Brown Oxide added. Not the best formula but it appears to work for me

G'day team

OK, trying to get started on the vehicle shown below:



Rob

OK, I give up - what am I doing wrong with the photo ?

Rob

Panthoholics,

I’m back with another Panther F update. This one will encompass how I go about replicating the texture on the Panthers’ hull armor plates with the method, tools, and mediums that I currently use.


Because I’m going to be replacing the molded on front fenders with photo-etch items I went ahead and removed them from the upper hull. The molded on front fenders are actually very well detail pieces and don’t need replacement but one of the photo-etch sets I will be using in this build comes with these pieces so I thought why not use them, it’s also a good way for me to get a little more practice with using photo-etch parts as they are becoming more commonplace with today’s kits. I filled all of the parts guide holes along both pannier side armor plates with super glue for the same reason of using photo-etched replacement parts.


I may be wrong but I had not heard anyone mention before, on any posts or kit reviews, that the rear edges of both pannier side armor plates are molded to thin and out of scale? These plates on the real vehicle are 50 mm thick, yet the kit plates match the lower hulls 40 mm vertical side armor plates in thickness. I have a few other DML Panther kits in the stash and I found this to be true of these kits as well. I know, not much, but you can clearly see a thickness difference on the above photograph and I wanted to show this on my model. Here is what I did to get that feature on my kit:


Using the Jenz & Dole Panzer Tracks No. 5-4 reference book drawings as a guide I laminated .010” (0.254 mm) thick sheet styrene to the inside of each of the pannier side armor plates using super glue as this would aid in filling any gaps between the sheet styrene and kit plastic and avoid any possible sink holes to the thin sheet styrene from using plastic cement. After the super glue had set up I trimmed away the excess sheet styrene with an X-Acto blade and added the flame cut detail to the edges with a micro file (inset photographs).

In order to get the upper hull to fit over the lower hull, as before the thickness modification, I had to file and sand the rear armor plate where they met. I lost the molded on weld beads on the rear armor plate during the sanding process but something had to give way.


I used the smallest ball cutter available on the Dremel rotary tool to create tiny shallow creators and voids on the surfaces of both 50 mm pannier side armor plates, front lower hull armor plate and the front 80 mm glacis armor plate. This process is reserved only for armor plates ranging from 50 mm and above.


The areas surrounding the forward upper hulls 40 mm armor plate are masked with Tamiya tape to keep them from coming in contact with the Mr. Surfacer 500 that I’ll be using for replicating the texture on this plate. This plate will receive only a light amount of texturing.

What I do to apply the texturing is very simple, so I’ll take you through that here before proceeding with the rest of this update. With a Woodcrafters brand Mini Craft Stick I mix the Mr. Surfacer in the jar and with the same stick I remove an ear swaps cotton tip worth of texture medium and place that on a small tin. I then dip a worn out paint brush into a bottle of Mr. Color Thinner and remove as much of the thinner on a paper napkin before dipping it into the Mr. Surfacer in the small tin. With a stippling motion I apply a small amount of Mr. Surfacer to the surface of the plastic and keep the paintbrush in motion until the texturing medium begins to set and become sticky. I then reapply more of the texturing medium to random areas. One other trick I do is to dampen a clean paintbrush and remove random areas of the texture medium to create a scaling effect often seen on thick rolled armor plates. When the texture medium is dry (sets within a few minutes) I go over the entire surface with a medium grit sanding stick to knock down all of the high spots and peaks. That’s it!

Mr. Surfacer and Mr. Color Thinner both have a very strong odor and should be used in a well-ventilated area.


Here you see the effects, the front 80 mm glacis armor plate, of the stippled on Mr. Surfacer 500 application against the recessed shallow creators and voids, created earlier with the ball cutter in the Dremel rotary tool.


And with the texture medium applied to the left pannier side armor plate.


Here you can see the radio operators periscope (L4), this being one of the five parts that needed fitting before joining together the upper hull to the lower hull, the other four parts are the slides (B5 x2 and B6 x2) for the driver and radio operators hatches. I will cover how I painted the periscope during the construction of the commander’s cupola where there are seven of these periscopes to be painted.


Here is where I tried something new. I usually stipple on Testors liquid cement straight from the bottle with an old worn paintbrush to replicate the texture on the thinner armor plates but have a difficult time of seeing the results until after the first coat of paint has been applied. Well after seeing how Joseph aka ‘Headhunter’ used Model Masters Buffing Metalizer to simulate the texturing on his posting in the WWII – Axis Forum ’My Tiger Ausf.B Final Production Build’ it dawned on me to try and use this medium on the plastic before applying the liquid cement as the lacquer embeds the colored metalizer into the plastic making it easy to see the results of the texturing with the liquid cement and affording me the time for corrections, if needed, before painting.

I went to my LHS and purchased a ½ Fl.Oz. (15 mL) bottle of Model Master’s ‘Burnt Metal’ Buffing Metalizer* and after applying masking around the surrounding surfaces to keep them from coming in contact with the Model Master’s Metalizer I proceeded to apply the Metalizer in a stippling motion directly from the bottle to the desired areas with an old worn out paintbrush. After allowing the Metalizer to set up (about 10 minutes) I used the same old worn out paintbrush and bushed on a small amount of liquid cement directly to the Metalized colored plastic and with a stippling motion I kept at the liquid cement until it had penetrated past the Metalizer and softened the plastic just enough to became slightly sticky. I let this dry overnight and then went over it with a medium grit sanding stick to knock down the high spots and peaks. I am happy with the results and have now added this to my texturing method for the 25 mm and thinner armor plates. The light reflecting off of the Metalizer tells the story best.

*The MM Metalizers' come in a range of different metal colors, I just happen to chose the 'Burnt Metal' as it is easier or me to see the texturing against a dark background.


I replaced the lost molded on weld beads on the rear armor plate with .015” (0.381 mm) diameter styrene rod. After softening the styrene rod with Tamiya’s extra thin liquid cement I burnished the softened rod with a semicircular edged metal tube. If you're interested in creating realistic weld seams here is a link to Lee Lloyd’s FEATURES article.


Here are the items that I used to create the texturing. The only item missing in the photograph is the Mr. Color Thinner bottle. I did read somewhere that you could also use Tamiya’s Acrylic Thinner in place of the Mr. Color Thinner but I haven’t given this a try so I don’t know how well that will work with the Mr. Surfacer?

More coming . . .

~ Eddy

Hi Guys some nice progress all around here, I think im ready to call mine finished, please let me know what you all think or if it needs anything else





constructive feedback helps me improve
This was a fun build, thanks for looking

Real nice work as usual Sal.I like your weathering on the tracks.here are a couple of thoughts,how about the inside of the gun barrel ,maybe paint it black,also the shackles on the end of the tow cables should be painted yellow with the cable running on the outside of the shackle,than you can chip the paint on them to show wear.Just some small details Sal

Quick update. Been experimenting with primers. The lighter gray primer on the Jagdpanther is Vallejo and the darker primer on the Panther G is some spare Tamiya flat black and gray mixed that needed to be used up. I have been using nothing but Tamiya in my airbrush up to this point and it sprays like a dream but I've been wanting to try other paint systems and Vallejo has some very good reviews. Tamiya like usual sprayed perfect. The Vallejo is supposed to be sprayed straight from the bottle but to me was a little too thick and sprayed kind of "grainy". I thinned it to my liking and it definitely sprayed better. Still a little grainy but it flows out very well and the end finish is excellent. I could have used distilled water to thin the Vallejo but I used their brand name thinner designed for the Model Air line. Also, I'm going to experiment with color modulation so it will be interesting to see if the different primer colors make a difference with the end results. More to follow.

OK. Been experimenting with some color modulation. Painted everything that would be in shadow with dark brown mostly under the fenders, under front and rear slopes etc. to cast a shadow. These pictures show two different base coats applied very light to allow the shadow to come through. Notice the different color primers: light gray on Jagdpanther vs dark gray on the Panther G makes a huge difference. Keep in mind I have a few more coats to add so this is not the final color but about half way there. Also, these photos do not really pick up the "modulation" very well and looks much better in "real life"... Will definitely need to get some better lighting for my pictures.





Guess what I forgot to bring to the paint booth??? Arrrgggghhhh...

Hey Anthony, thanks for the suggestions, I noticed the inside of the barrel while i was posting the photo and I'll get to work on those shackles

@imatanker – Jeff, hope this link will help you out? How to paint tank treads?

@Itb073 – Sal, of the 75 members currently enlisted in this campaign I think you’re the first one finished, congratulations! I think you did a really good job with the hand painted camouflage scheme. I like the turret tactical numbers you selected for your vehicle. Aside from what has already been pointed out you may want to think about removing the T.S.R.1 observation periscope (optional part B39) from the Pilzen (socket) just forward of the commander’s cupola. This item is seen on the first prototype Panther F vehicle in the extended position, if you must have it on your vehicle it should be placed on the commander’s cupola, on the post with the hole in it, just to the left of the forward periscope hood (the instructions are incorrect and have you place it where you now have it). You could also carefully add a drop of black paint to the openings of the two range finder sights (Parts B26 & B27).

@flyboy9994 – Randy, great progress on your builds. Glad you posted the color difference of the primers that you are using and the results after painting the base coat over them. I imagine that painting with different shades of gray primers before adding the base coat would provide you with some interesting modulation as well. You may just have stumbled onto something interesting to try here?

With the paint modulation that you are painting your vehicles with I wouldn’t worry too much about forgetting the gun barrel and mantle on your Jagdpanther when you go and have to mix up a fresh batch of paint to cover them with. So what brand of beer are you drinking and mixing it with?

Happy Holidays,
~ Eddy

This week I got the camo pattern on,the decals,all of the tools except for the tow cables and spare tracks.I also laid on the first Mig Fillter.Next will be an oil Burnt umber wash,then I will procede with the DS Tracks:

You might find this thread helpful.

TUTORIAL: Armorama Campaigns

Of course, it also depends on whether the Kitmaker Gallery is working. It keeps telling me the server is busy (all day yesterday and so far, today as well). You might look into using other popular photo sites like Flikr, Photobucket (very popular with people here), or Picassa.

Gary

Many thanks - we'll try that image again (this time from Photobucket):



Rob

@Tojo72 – Anthony,

Excellent job on the base coat and camouflage! I just noticed this one tiny issue, you’ve placed parts D8 180° off. The drawings in the instructions are wrong and will have you place them as you have (at least they are this way on my Panther F drawings). I don’t know if you may want to fix this tiny issue but I’ve found a photograph so you can see how these were fitted on the real vehicle.


They should be parallel with the horizon as seen in this photograph. You should be able to remove and set them both back in place correctly. When you go and add the Burnt Umber wash it should hide any lost paint in that area.

OMG! The photograph is so large that everyone will know about your tiny issue!!!

Happy Holidays,
~ Eddy

Eddy thanks for the complements and for the correction about the T.S.R.1 observation periscope placement, I just wish that you would have mentioned it before, primer, paint, washes and dull coat went on So I'm not going to move it now but I will hit the 2 range finders with a spot of black

@ Anthony looking real good as usual keep at it

OK, we'll try that again . . .