Want to try and make a stowage rack for a panzer III ausf N,
I have the Dragon kit and was looking for some reference pictures and found this photo of 116 abandoned in a ditch.


Close look at the rack it looks like its made of tubular steel.I going to try use some stretched sprues as I don't have any metal at hand.
Just done a sketch with paint of what I think it looks like.


Is the design about right?

Karl

Karl,
That looks about right to me based on the photo. Good luck.

Karl;

GOOD and interesting find, there, Pard! It does look like the rack was possibly assembled from either small-diam pipe or maybe large re-bar type stuff. (As versus those racks we've often seen and sometimes modelled built from metal strapping or strips). From the pic, it's hard to determine how exactly the elements were joined, though I would suspect they were welded?

The profile of your rack looks pretty good and appears to match your ref pic nicely - but the key elements of HOW it was attached to the tank obviously remain to be found or disclosed!

I would bet that there were either some welded-on plates (feet) on the rod-ends for bolting or welding to the tank, or maybe even an additional base member running the length of that rack to tie rod ends together? Leastwise, that might be the approach I'd consider!

This will look GOOD!

Bob

Yes this is where I come unstuck as there is no rear shot of it,so ill have to go with guess work.

Thinking it might look something like this:

Or it over hangs out more of the back edge with a steel plate at the bottom?
Ill get to work on it later and see what I can come up with

Thanks Kevin/Bob

Regards
Karl

Since those racks were added on, unless you're doing a particular vehicle like the one pictured, the sky's the limit as far as the design goes.

My only commnet would be that however it was attached it probably would have been done in such a way that it didn't create more work for the crew when doing maintenance tasks. My guess is that it attached only to the back deck, and in a way that it didn't interfer with them removing the back deck to get at the engine. So the side legs in your drawing would attach to the back deck rather than down onto the fenders. Just my $0.02

Good point will take note of that.
Thanks

Had a go of making the rack from a stretched sprue but it was not right,so I got some evergreen 1.2mm rods.
Not sure if the bars are a bit over scale?



Karl