I started to envy Keith


Great works guys!

Regards from the south
Alvaro

...aaaand camo is done.

hello all.

Was able to get a ton of time in on the bench today thanks to nasty weather and no "honey-do" list. Was able to paint, decal and start weathering. I'll admit, I should have waited for the paint to dry before applying the decals but patience just wasn't in the cards today.

I'm a bit worried that the dunklegelb came out a bit on the dark side after my pin washes on the zimmerit.

We will see how it goes.

HERE IS MY FINISHED ENTRY FOR THE PANTHER CAMPAIGN

Completed building of the Jadgpanther out-of-the-box.


Next step is to prime and paint a base coat.

Very nice Gary!

Stayed up late last night and worked on the back plate for the Panther II.


BEFORE:



AFTER:



I'm about half way through... still have a few more items to add and massage over but it's a start. Probably need to get a few more sheets of PE too.





Jeff

Hey Joseph,
good job so far. But how will you glue the gun mount inside the tank, now that it's closed?

Hi there Nicolas,

Thanks very much! No problem, though the hull has been glued in place, the mantlet was only dry-fitted to be photographed. I can still insert the gun after painting.

Joseph

After checking the kit and my bank account, I have decided to withdraw from this campaign.

That's too bad Matt, but there will be many more Panther Campaigns in the future.

You'll put us all to shame if you keep adding more and more details like that

@Colin, Greg, Gary--nice builds, nice paint jobs, great work!!

For anyone building a Dragon kit: I ran into a potential issue with getting the upper and lower hulls together, and decided to try to improve on the design and make the kit more workable.

The issue:


My fix:


Keith

Matt... so sorry to hear you won't be joining us but the Campaign is still young so maybe things will change.

If I had an extra kit I'd send it to you but a few months ago I sold off 4 Panther kits and now wish I hadn't done so.


Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!




Jeff

Keith: I definitely had this issue! Since I had already glued the rear armor in place i had to cut of a large portion of the "lip" and then i just forced it in place (good ol elbow grease).

Your solution is very elegant

Panther progress!









Now what scheme to do it in?....

Cheers

Matthew

More fun with PE.
Spare track hangers and cleaning rod tube doo-dads:


And a very historically inaccurate addition. There is no way these lengthy and unsupported parts would survive my ham-handed handling of the kit during the duration of the build, so I fashioned some additional brackets out of spare PE (PE 'sprue' tree) and glued them in place. They will be barely visible once the kit is finished.


Also modified the idler armatures with a length of rod to make them movable. Being able to swing them out of the way, and press them against the track should make installing the track easier.


Keith

Hey all, been slacking, or rather building other beasts and tying flies. Heres a couple quick shots of my Ausf.G before the first trip to the paint booth.

Really impressed with everyones work so far, great looking stuff!
Eric.

Here are my start up photos for the campaign.

Pz Beob Wg Ausf D Dragon/Cyber Hobby 6419





Tom

@ Keith, I am definitely going to try that method when I do another Panther A. I swear, marrying up the upper and lower hulls is where I always seem to have the most heartache.

I am calling my Panther done. Not super happy with the results but this was my first build in a few months (skillz slipped up a bit). Still fun to do for my first campaign.

Results are below, constructive criticism is always welcome. A ton of great builds going on.

Hi all,

Thought I would provide an update before I go to the paint booth tomorrow. My plan is to lay down a thin layer of Vallejo Black Surface Primer, allow that to dry and then continue with the overall paint scheme.







The white stuff is Milliput Fine Grain putty is used to fill in zimmerit gaps and provide zimmerit for the main gun mantel.

Here are the twins together. I am thinking of acquiring another set of Fruil Model tracks for the other Panther. The Tamiya individual tracks are just not meeting my approval. Which is the pits since I spent so many hours drilling out the individual teeth on the tracks. I hate to have put in so much time and effort for it to go in the trash. Oh well.



Once these two are complete they will be put aside until I can acquire a couple Bedford QLB's and a 40mm Bofors. Then the scene depicting cutting Hell's Highway will begin.

@Greg, your Pnather looks great. Hope these two turn out as well as your did.

Hope everyone's build is going smoothly and as always comments are welcomed and desired.

thanks

Dave

Thanks David! Your kitties are lookin nice.

Well done Greg!

Cheers Rob.

Looks mighty nice to me Greg! Twins are are coming along nicely Rob. 40 cm of snow and -35 with the wind chill, so got the tracks done over the last couple days.

Got a little kink in the track to work out...

Gotta head down to Houston for a few days (warm!!!!) so I'll mate up the upper hull and weather when I get back.

I found two more areas of the Dragon kit that need modifying and fixing.
The headlamp mounting post was too small for my liking, so I replaced it with a bit of stiff wire:




For some reason the forward and aft armor skirt plates would not fit on the mounting brackets. The openings were too wide. I'm pretty certain I got them glued on correctly. Anyway, cutting the outside openings deaper did the trick:


With that the assembly is around 95% complete. Just have the tools, periscopes, the jack, and some minor PE to install. The Magic Track runs are glued together, but will need some fine-tuning after painting.




Keith