Hi (:-)

Here are two pictures from my first piece of armor. The Tamiya model I bought didn't inlcude the sideskirts so I made the myself. Using templates found on the internet, I cut them from brass sheet, annealing them with a small pen-blowtorch. After that i used a piece of brass pipe to roll the plates back into a straight one (they were quite mangled after cutting them with scissors). They hang from the model like the real deal: with handles. While I was at it, I also scratchbuild the turret skirts, they came out rather nicely!

I think I may have put the skirts on the wrong side of the tank... don't sue me, it is my first tank...

you did a really nice job. makeing the side skirts.
that must have taken a lot of time,
as for puting the skirts on the wrong sides of the tank. thats hard to tell.
i dont think any body will notice it and i also like th barrel

looks nice but the skirts are backwards

I checked some websites and indeed, the skirts should be on the other side!

I ordered the barrel with the kit as I didn't want to spend time on cleaning up the kit part (two halves glued together) and besides, it was only $6 or something...

The skirts were actually simple to make! Using photoshop I printed the template I found in the correct scale (the rail on which the skirts hang is 14,1 cm) and used these to mark them on brass sheet. Cutting was done with nailcutters (the little sciccors), rolling them back straight after heating them (red hot) and letting them air-cool

both side took abut one afternoon only!

PS you can see the scissors and the (dark) template on the pics

Are the side skirts brass or plastic? If they are plastic, nice weathering job.

If the skirts are brass, what did you use for a templete?

can't wait to see the finished product!

the skirts are from brass sheet - I found the templates on www.panzer-modell.de, printed them, used a scoring pen (used in metal workshops) to trace around them, cut them with scissors, filed them, annealed them ,and finally straightened them (by rolling a round knife handle)