Now that I have completed my braille scale Kingtiger I can stop lurking in the main stream forums and start to work on the next project.

Speaking of the lurking. Still say some of the best armor is produced right here on Armorama.

The plan is this will be OOB except for the ATAK resin zim. I've had that plan before and funny how it seems to not work out

So far I taken a pic of the box. Actually the suspension is on the tub but no pic yet.

Good luck with the build Marc. Its a nice kit OOB, so should be no problem.

It's a nice kit. Welcome, Marc, back from purgatory.

Frank, Bill.... yeah it looks pretty nice. looking forward to the build. i just hope the zim dosen't take too long to get here from Poland.

Good to see ya Bill. been a while. Hope all is well with you.

Marc,

I will be watching this build with interest, I hope to do this kit with the ATAK zimmerit set as well someday. Hopefully it will arrive quickly, I ordered my ATAK set from Poland and it arrived in a week.

I also have a sneaking suspicion that the next Dragon Panther release in 1/35 scale will be a Zimm'd Panther A.

Nate

Yes, lets hope you're right about the zimmed ausf. A, and please let it be in a Premium edition with all the goodies + magictracks.
Jacob
PS: And that Dragon will start releasing the bergepanthers.

Hi Marc,nice project you will have there,looking forward to following along.

Marc I have the exact same Panther and ATAK zimmerit, fancy trying a side by side build?

Darren, sure let's do it. Now that I've said that... how does that work

When I was working on my braille KT I was bemoaning the quality and and use of DS tracks. Hate 'em. Really can't understand why reviewers will list magic tracks as a disadvantage. Love 'em. Being 1/72 scale I didn't gripe too much about the Dragon color picture instructions being just 3 or 4 panels. But with the Panther having 25 or so steps... and finding mistakes in step 1... I have to try to stay cool and calm.

But...

I would like to take DS tracks, wrap 'em in the picture instructions, and file them in the bin.

Feels good getting the 1st WIP pics going.

The tub has all it little goodies attached with the axles. Road wheels sanded and chunked up. Some track links keep the teeth on the drive sprocket aligned.






This Dremel bit is used for several of the wheel prep steps. When chucked in the Dremel the tire is spun against a sanding stick making quick work of the mold line. It also leaves a little bit of tooth in the holes that allow it to stay snug on the axle, for fitting the tracks, without glue or poster tack.









I use a piece of tape to check get the length of the track since my experience with the number of links the Dragon sheet says to use has a high probability of being wrong. Make 1 cut and that's the length needed. The wood block starts it all off nice and square and the blue line is the length of the masking tape. The sheet says 81 links and it was 85. Some blocks of wood and weight to keep everything flat and in contact with the road wheels.

Great work so far. I built it a couple years ago OOB and had a blast.

Cheers

Jeff

Damn Marc I didn't know you were going to go this fast I will play catch up Saturday - Tuesday.

@wing_nut – Marc,

Great start – subscribed!

~ Eddy

Thanks for the tip on the Dremel bit Marc, I never could figure out how to to use a rotary tool to make quick work of the clean-up. Will definitely try that out. Easy way to determine track length too! Man, first WIP post and I already learned a couple of things

Thansk guys.

Darren you should get some catch up time. Can't get to crazy before the zim set arrives.

James the Dremel makes quick work of the road wheels. That was one of the most disliked phases of the build for me. I use for painting too. Load the brush up with pin and getthe wheel spinning slowly so it doesn't through off the paint (learned that the hard way... i miss that short:( ) and touch the brush against the rim. Perfect paint job every time. For that i will use toothpick, with tape wrapped on the end for fit if need be, or the plastic tube from cotton swaps. That way the whole thing comes out to shove into a Styrofoam block for drying.

This is a Marder III M wheel from a while back.

Hi Marc
Just a tip. Assemble the whole hull, before you glue on the zimmerit sheets. This might help you avoid a gab between the zimmerit sheets where the angled armor plates meet. If there's some gabs where these sheets meet, it can be fixed with putty. Looking forward to see your progress.
Jacob

This is going to be really great! Thanks for the Dremel tip! I'll use it someday!
Keep up the good work!
Alex!
http://alexbenvenuti.blogspot.fr/

Mail comes in about an hour and hopefully there will be zim. In the mean time, since I can't do too much, I noticed the welds on the top of the turret looked a little to deep down in a trough so that was filled with Squadron green, wiped with an acetone dampened q-tip and "welded' with one of my little tools for that task.
Kit didn't come with cables for some reason. I had some extra tow loops in the sparse box. The loop itself was the exact same size as the one the came in the G that was my 1st ever armor kit from long ago in the before time. The sleeve was too thick and long. I chucked a piece of plastic tube in a Dremel and sanded from .095" to about .082", taped one end and glued the loop cut off the big one to the tube.

]




I've tried twisting all different kinds of wire in all different combinations and while some were OK... they were just OK. If the twist was in any way uneven it didn't look right. I've tried picture hanging wire before but it was of such poor quality... in the way it was twisted... it didn't look good either. I looked at the picture wire section again and found one I had not seen before made by "Ook". It’s covered with a clear plastic sheathing like an electric wire but the twist looked very even. After taking the plastic off, annealing the cable to soften I tightened the twist and I am very pleased with the way it turned out. The 1st pic below is a close up of some wires/cables. From left to right., what usually comes in a Dragon kit and looks more like a rope than a cable, Then the Ook wire with the plastic off before and after annealing and tightening. And an AM cable for armor. Except for the fact the twist is opposite... and I won't tell anyone of you don't... the last 2 look pretty darn close to me.
The AM cable... $6 each and ya need 2. The Ook cables... 9 feet for 3 clams. At that price the twist nearly looks like it goes the right way after all.

Marc

Yeah, any wire would be better than the cut up watch springs that DML supply As a victim of numerous DML Panther kits (and I still have at least three in the stash) I can sympathise.

On the subject of the wheels - must give tht a try, particularly your method of removing mould seams. I keep a box of various lengths of DML sprue with lightly shaved ends for mounting roadwheels for painting - you can see what I mean in the King Tiger campaign.

Darren - does that mean you're going to finish another Panther before 31 December ?

Regards

Rob

No Rob this one is for the Big Cats Mk II camapaign. I have concentrated on adding the resin Zimmerit to the model parts at the moment pictures will follow in its own thread as i do not want to high jack this one.

Nice find and fix with that Ook cable, Marc. At 34 cents a foot it looks perfect to me Now to go find some...

The ATAK zim arrived over the weekend. YIPPIE! This is my 1st experience with this brand. The quality of the product is excellent. The casting is very crisp and the fit is near perfect. But it is thick and leans toward being brittle. Cavalier brand zim, which is paper thin and very flexible while staying fairy strong, will be my 1st choice of future product when possible.



The minimal instructions tell you to sand the backing. The pieces are somewhat sunken into the sheet and the back needs to be flattened. Extra effort is needed to get it thin. This is a schurzen panel with the back flat but not yet thinned. If I go with the zimmed schurzen I will just use these as it won’t need the metal pieces from the kit.











He bolts around the fan covers are molded as nearly round and very thin so I added some resin bolts head as seen on the left. All the zim panels are installed with some chipping added.

Marc I will get pictures of mine up tonight in the Big Cats Mk II campaign. Question on the ATAK zimmerit; did you cut it out or use the sanding method as suggested by ATAK? I ask as I used the method suggested and had problems with some breakages.

Ref the picture hanging wire what poundage did you use?

The sheet that came with mine has your 1st sanding, then cutting with a sharp blade. I did sand it enough that the pieces separated, or nearly did, from the sheet. That section of schurzen was sanded just enough to get it flat then cut. I had breakage as well. some areas are jigsawed [puzzled back together.

That's the 30 lb weight. Product # 50173

May be a few little tidbits that can be added before prime/paint but after painting all that stuff already on the little KT, I am going back to my old MO and all that will be done off the machine.

Got some wheels adjustments to be made once the track install is permanent... bend a few axles, glue tracks to the tops f the tire... that sort of stuff.

Filled the chipped areas with Bondo, wiped most of is out then stipple it with a stiff brush. Some will show primer exposed and other will be as if they occurred before the white was was applied.