As I almost always present my models finished and many have commented I never show how I build, I decided to start a couple of build logs to keep the summer interesting

First up a combination of kits I bought thru Hobbylink Japan more than 4 years ago and started 2 nights ago...

The kits are:
TAMIYA's 1:35 Panther G Late 35176
Lion Roar's PE set LE35007 for Tamiya Panthers Early/Late
Clipper Models KWK42 aluminum barrel.
Friulmodel Panther Late type tracks ATL-08

My intention is to present a Feb-Apr '45 vehicle.
Feline specialists out there please be gentle.... this is my first Panther.... EVER!

I won't bother with simple plastic gluing steps so I'll photo sub-assemblies and "interesting" parts.

Here goes nothing.....

An overview pic of progress so far. Upper and lower hull not glued yet.

Turret is almost done.

2 side views of the turret. All plastic and all the LR PE is in place. Mantlet and barrel are not glued to the moving part of the gun for painting and turret handling.

Having folloed Fabian's thread about rolled armor I decided to detail my Panther in this fashion as well, so I used the Dremel/putty method described therein.





In the meantime I'm slowly cleaning up and putting together the Friul' tracks.
As it is my first time working with Friul's (even tho Ive got 5 or 6 stashed) let me say I'm simply BLOWN AWAY!!!!!!! If not for the cost, I wouldn't buid another kit without them.........



Finally I've started soldering some of the PE assemblies.



That's it for now. More to come!

Trifon.

After finishing the texturing of the turret sides I rescribed the flame cuts on the turret joints as I feel that they are too subdued as presented by the kit and then primed the turret.









I'm very happy with the result of the texturing so far. Of course the final finishing will tell.

Moving on first of all I added texturing to the hull front and side plates, also rescribing the flame cuts.



After that I built the rear plate and added all the PE parts. I've added the jack holders but the jack will be painted separately and placed at the end.

BTW, BIG QUESTION!!!! Jack color??? Any suggestions???







Finally I completed the left hand track (man, these Friuls are a dream) and here are a couple of overview shots of the progress so far. Neither the hull, nor the wheels are glued on yet of course.









This is it so far.

More coming soon!

Ola Trifon

Wicked work on the Panther. those details you added look really good. And fun to see other people giving the rolled steel technique a try. And you certainly did well. I can already tell by the red primer you sprayed that it is going to come out superb. Great job. Looking forward to see this thing finished.

With friendly greetz

Robert Blokker

Hi Trifon,

Great start mate! Those Friuls - they are fabulous aren't they. I find them quite theraputic to assemble and when complete they make the model feel like it's diecast and 'to scale' in weight.

Look forward to seeing your Panther progress - excellent work so far.

Gary

Hi Trifon

In my opinion you've depicted in an outstanding way, the armour rough surfaces

How did you reach this result? Did you use a mini drill or what ?

I can't understand what is that cyan stuff that you spread on the surfaces. It is Squadron green putty?

Anyway, great work so far

Looking good, i love Panthers, and i am looking forward to seeing more.

Tom

Thanks for your kind words guys!

Mauro,

First of all I scoured and pitted the surface I wanted to texture with my DREMEL minidrill using the 2,4 mm scribing tool:



I sanded away all plastic debris that was dug up by the scriber and coated the surface with a very thin layer of SQUADRON Green Putty:



After it was dry I sanded it down to almost nothing as you can see from the pics of the Panther, cleaned all the dust from sanding and primed... VOILA!

I'm not a big cat man, but I am a pe junkie. And, your's looks spot on. I'm tempted to invest in Fruils from all the good things I've heard about them.

You know, I think that rolled armor technique looks very nice. The problem I have is that I have seen a Panther in real life and in every photo i see the armor is smooth not pitted......just sayin

Hey Dustin,

Just wanted to address your comment:




Can't say I have seen a Panther up close and personal, don't think one ever stepped on Greece, but I've spend my fair share of time on, near, in and sometimes under M60s, M48s, M42s..... Also, I've gone thru quite a few pics of Panthers as well as any German armor I could get my hands (or mouse) on.

My PERSONAL conclusion is this:

1. Rolled armor is almost never 100% smooth. There are pits and smears and whathaveyounuts. Even on armor rolled leisurely in peace-time American plants in the 50s, 60s and 70s... never mind under extreme wartime conditions in bombed out plants in Germany at the end of the war....
2. Late German armor especially shows a lot of this. Many pics out there show this. But...
3. (And this is the main question) ....would this show up in 1:35 scale???

Well no. But I am a great fan of something that has often been discussed here and elsewhere "The Scale EFFECT".

I believe you know what I'm talking about, but just to summarize, all our shading and washing and griming and chipping and scuffing and - YES - texturizing, would not show up in 1:35 scale.

We do all that to FOOL the eye into recognizing effects that resemble those on the 1:1 subject in fact enhancing realism by effectively overdoing the effects.

It is a lot like actors, especially on TV. They have to be made up grotesquely in order to APPEAR NORMAL on the screen that you and I look at.

I fully agree with this. If you don't work with scale effect you will only end up with factory fresh panzers and it will look odd when you put it in a diorama.

That said... I checked a walkaround online of a Panther tank and found a nice nice pic of the glacis plate. Which shows the texture quite well. Allthough in defense of the earlier comment the sides and turret sides do look quite smooth. Checking better it also shows the pitting allthough to a much lesser extent as the glacisplate



Pretty much most if the German tanks i have seen up close show a similar texture on the sheetmetal

Thanks a million for the explanation Trifon, really well done, congrats

I reference to pitting, how sure are we that the cause of the pitting is the armor rolling process, and not just multiple layers of paint? Something that is 60+ years old, sitting in a museum, and subject perhaps to several restoration processes, layers of paint, pitting from rust, etc? I was looking at the website "Surviving Panzers" (http://the.shadock.free.fr/) and was struck by the number of tanks that saw only a few months of service before being knocked out or captured, so probably wouldn't even have a chance for a "freshening up" of the paintjob...

Damon.

So, time for an update.

I continued soldering and attaching the hull PE. Also the Friuls are done (except for some minor cleanup).

I added wiring to the Bosch headlight.

Overview of the hull so far.

I've finally settled on doing this as a Panzerbefehlswagen according to my refs so I've done the following:

Added the rear deack and turret antenna mounts.





And I'm preparing to add extra track links to the turret. I've used the kit styrene extra track links to visualize the positioning and also to mark the places for drilling and attaching the hooks.

At the same time I've been removing the molded on clamps and supports from the on board tools and dry-fitting them to the PE mounts during construction.

Finally I'd like to share my final decision on the look of this vehicle according to refs from 2 different books.





Accordingly these are the features that will appear on the finished model:

- Rear deck and turret extra antennas (for Fu8 and Fu5)
- No cleaning rod tube
- Tracks on turret (2x4 per side)
- No AA ring on commander's cupola
- Tarnanstricht as per color profiles above

All comments as always welcome.

It's been a while, but finally I got back to this old beast.

Finished the PE parts, swapped out the Friuls for Dragon DS tracks (I'll use the Friuls on the Dragon Panther G with zimm, without skirts), primed, painted the camo and sealed with acrylic gloss varnish for decals and weathering.

Still some way to go, just wanted to share the camo scheme.

coming very late to the thread, but I like the looks of your progress.

Over on Missing Links there used to be a tweeks list, but I can't seem to find it from the main page.

Googling it yields, http://missinglinks2.tripod.com/Panther.pdf

Not much help this late in the game, and old info for sure, but maybe something from there will help with the next build.

Mike