Knowing how hard it is to work with some PE parts I am impressed with how well you managed it James.

CMOT- Darren, thanks for the heads up on a fast moving time fuse. I'm whipping my little modeling elves every day!

Wulfen- James,looking good Bro! Keep up the good (and fast) work. Your panther is coming along great and I'm always humbled at the amount of PE you bigger guys end up having to do! I'm looking forward to seeing it done.

Ok, so I was able to mask off the Schwarzgrun and get the last color (schwarzgrau) on tonight. I let it dry for a few hours and c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y pulled all the masks off and viola,a funky urban camo scheme I call "Splinter/Bricks". The pics again suck but by now you should be getting used to it I am going to take some out in daylight to see if there is a good demarcation between the two splinter colors best seen with natural light. Now I need to get the road wheels painted and mounted.

Hi Everybody,
I resumed my Panther after much time cause my job.I have just joined upper and lower hull,cut off both mudguards to replace with PE ones,refine gun mantlet and inserted brass MG from RB.
Here my pics:






best
Antonio

Hey Antonio!
Nice looking zim-covered Panther! I'm rooting for you to get it finished in time!

@kerry - looking good! Can't wait to see it finished.

@antonio - Looks great! Hope you finish in time.


I'm still working on mine as well, no pics today but i have all the plastic bits on the hull.. now just need to assemble a bunch of pe tools and stuff.. yikes!

oh and im painting the fans and stuff.. pics soon.

James

James

The little panels with wing nuts were panels for mounting gas detector strips. Why the Germans decided to use them at the end of the war when they hadn't ever used them before is beyond me (and everybody else, I suspect).

Regards

Rob

Thank You James and Kerry,
I'm running and I also hope to finish it!:)
best
Antonio

Hey guys! I've missed about 60 pages of this campaign since I have a new 3 month old baby!

I have worked a little on my Infrared Panther G. I tried to mask an ambush scheme with sticky tack. I did something wrong, and when I took off the tack, it left little paint ridges all along the edges.

I also had trouble since I used a pencil to draw out the basic camo pattern, and it bled through the paint. So, pretty disasterous so far.

Hopefully I'll have pictures once I get a new paint job on it!

Here it is. Ugh. Any suggestions on how to clean this paint off, and better mask it for the second try?

Steve what type of paint is it? Depending on paint type there are quite a few domestic products that will remove acrylic paint, Enamel I am not so sure.

Antonio forgive me for not going back through the thread but which Panther model and zimmerit is this?

Leave the paint on and just smooth it over with some 1200 wet sandpaper.

Tanks are not like autos where it needs to be perfect, many tanks were painted over a few times. I've been around tanks all my life and just not 'building' them either.










~ Jeff

Hi Darren,
Sorry,maybe I deleted that pic in my album.
Here's:

Just one thing I am using Eduard PE,ET model are too poor and I have to change track cause I've chosen wrong track( good for 'D' model).I think to use one from Friul.I hope there are not problems if I do.
best
Antonio

Antonio there are no issues at all I asked as I am tackling the DML Panther A late (6358) with ATAK zimmerit and there are some very questionable instructions included with the kit, it is almost as if it says it goes here somewhere or why do I need to tell you about that part you can see it in the picture hiding behind the wheel.

Hi Darren,
Sorry for my misunderstanding.
Tell me what do you need to know about instructions?
Antonio

Sorry Antonio I was just interested in if you were building the same model as I. and if you were what a good job you have done of it so far.

Thans Darren,
I hope to complete it in time.You choose a good kit.
N°6358 is better than 6244.First of all it is a 'premiun edition' that means more accessory.6244 is the old kit re-boxed for Normandy anniversary.No magic track,no re-tooled components,transparent periscope,PE,ect.
best
Antonio

Looks like more great work going on in this campaign. I've been dropping in from time to time to check things out but real life issues and other projects have kept my Panther on the sidelines. I found some time to work on this beast and there are only about three parts left to attach to the body and then the completion of the running gear. I also finally managed to get the drivers vision port support made after about seven tries at scratch building it. After much research, thought and experimentation I decided to use the wire mesh I had to cover the radiator areas. I found more than enough references that show the circular fan area not covered by mesh so I will leave it that way.

I like to try to paint several items of the same colour at once when I pull out the airbrush. As there was a need for Dark Yellow, the Panther joined the queue and got a base coating. Here's where it stands at the moment (all the sparate major components are just dry fit for the images).







You'll also note that I tried spraying some camo green on the gun barrel and part of the mantlet. Oh, and the tracks have already been base coated.

Cheers,
Jan

Looking good Jan! Nice to see another brailler in the mix! Any particular tank to be portrayed?

Steve,

You can use wet-dry sandpaper like Jeff said and just sand the paint job down since tanks are painted and then painted and then painted again. They are rarely stripped down to bare metal and repainted since it's just so time consuming and un-necessary for an AFV.

One trick I've done twice in the past is to use spray on oven cleaner to remove old paint jobs. It works very well and won't damage the plastic. Just spray it on and let it sit for 10 min and then wash it off. It may take an application or two depending on the paint but with some water and a toothbrush, all the paint should come off. The only paint I couldn't get off with it was black, but I just painted over it and went about the task of repainting.

Good luck.

Kevin

my progress so far. hope finish it soon

Chris, Thats a beautiful Panther! Luv tha paint job man...Well done!

Gary

Chris that is a great paint job.

Hey everyone long time no talk, some of you may know that I am deployed right now to AFG and just got to a FOB with some internet so I thought i would check in. I thought I added some more progress pictures of my Tamiya Panther A I am building before I left in may but I guess I didnt, So to catch you up, I fixed the barrel warpage, I added my attempt at zimmerit I think I used some DAP wall spackle I cant remeber. Then I decied for my first Tank I would try and make a base so I got some scrap wood and some black beans so it would simulate cobblestones in Italy,and then bought some resin wall pieces. And that was where i was at before I left. I am still thinking about the tracks and what to do but, since this is my first armor kit ill probably just use them when I get back to the kit when I get back in awhile. I am open to tips and critiques that I can use when I get back. The good and bad about out here is I have so many Ideas for builds but cant do anything about it. Happy Holidays to you all. Beware picture heavy. I started this kit back in feb on page22 I think.

The Front Plate if I remeber was sanded down and not so rough.







The street was filled with White Glue and celluclay and then sanded down somwhat flat.