Well, here it is... my progress on Tamiya's Panzer KampfwagenV (sd.kfz171) 1/35th scale. I would say I've spent about 14 hours total on this, I just finished yesterday, glueing the upper and lower hulls, after a good deal of dismay of finding out that Tamiya's instructions conflict on two pages in the positioning of the handholds/handles for the front driver and radio operator's hatches, where one diagram shows the handholds to be placed to the rear of the hatches, and the next page showing it to the front. Upon questioning on armorama and doing some investigative research, it appears the handholds go to the front, my thanks to Stormbringer for helping me with this. Here are the pics!





The above is before I found out about the panels/handles.

hmmm I just love panthers! Can't wait to see it finished! Which version is it? (A,G?)

Greetings

I don't believe I forgot to put that info... its the Ausf A. hehehehehehe.... thanks!!! I just started working on Tamiya's King Tiger, the Henschel Production Turret., and I believe I am hooked on tanks!!! I just handed over my Messerschmidt to Selrach, and my Fokker to my youngest, who is only 8, and working on a plane. It was awesome, Sel, me, Erin and Shannon, sitting at the diningroom table working on models.... the whole family!! Very cool!

Jean
Looks great so far You gonna camo it,or just plain dark yellow?

Haven't decided.. most probably camo.. maybe a little whitewashed effect ... not sure. Will give it a base of dunkelgelb, and will go from there.

Good job so far!

looks great!!
Ron

Yep ,thats the ancient Tamiya Panther Ausf.A.
Pefect for practicing on.I have one I built,sans paint,just to play with. (++) (++)

Looks good so far. You might want to hollow out the ends of the exhaust pipes to make them look like pipes . A verie sade states of affairs. Then rust them up real nice with some carbon residue at the ends - (Thus sayith Lord too much Rust on da Marder )

As this is for the Ardennes, I think you could get away with 1,2 or 3 color scheme as well as ambush scheme.

and what about trucks? :-)

looks good Jean

Hi Jean

The Panther is shaping up nicely. Its good to hear about the four of you getting together to do some modeling at the table, (when the four of us get together, its usually so the other three can take turns emptying my wallet) :-)

Just kidding Jean. Seriously, I have seen your other work and know this will turn out nicely.

For those bottom hull holes, an easy fix is to apply masking tape across the holes on the outside exterior bottom of the hull. In other words, apply the tape across the bottom hull as you have it positioned in your first pic. Then flip the hull over, and apply modeling putty into the holes from the inside of the hull, gently pushing the putty against the tape. Once the putty has set up, remove the tape and you should have a pretty good lookings filled hole. Sand as needed.

Keep us posted.

Steve

Loking good so far Jean.

Hey she's just on the right track with armor! Don't get her off it :-)

Looking really good so far Jean. It was funny you mention the dinner table..thats where me and kevin(jackhammer81) have been modelling together. Makes it kinda hard to have dinner there though.
Can't wait to see how this one comes out.
Mary

LOL my parents would probably kill me if I'd model on the dinner table....and they're right, if you take a look at my desk here. I'd probably give the dinner table a german camouflage scheme or something like that :-)

@ Jean: What type of camouflage do you have in mind?

Greetings

Thanks for all your encouragement fellow modelers. Its been awesome, and I have the benefit of Sel's advise and guidance. My most thanks to him, I wouldn't be modeling today, nor my models wouldn't look as good, without his help and comments. Thanks Sel !!!

MrRoo: Ok, I will put a truck on my agenda, any suggestions?

WeWillHold: There are holes on the bottom? AACCCCCK! But... but.... no one will see the holes.. will they? Tell me they won't see the holes!! that's a lot of holes!!!!

Martinnnn: I am REALLY seriously into Armor!!! I gave Sel my Messerschmidt and Shannon my Fokker Triplane... I do have the Moskva Helicopter Carrier for the Seeing Red Campaign, looking forward to that, but I have been ogling Armor on the websites and sending Sel a lot of links. As far as camoflage goes, I'm thinking 2 color, maybe tri... get some green in there somewhere.. I like green, and browns...been looking at different camos. It'll be hard edge most probably, though Sel says softedge will be easier, so maybe soft edge. I need to think about it soon though, cause I pretty much got everything else done. I'll be posting new pics real soon.

tankysgal1: The diningroom table is really the only place we can model, there's no room anywhere else. Haven't camo'd the table yet, but I'm sure that's somewhere on the agenda... especially with four cats.

Thanks again for everyone's encouragement. I can either post the new pics of my progress here, or start a new thread... let me know where you all want me to put them.

Ciao!!

yo

Jean -

Really great start and anxious to see future updates. I've got a Tamiya Panther G planned for my "Part 2- German" of my "Ardennes" Campaign project (explained in my Campaign journal). Was very happy to get extension since I'm still working on "Part 1- US" and now have the opportunity to get to the Panther as well. I'm planning on doing a Panther from the Panzer Lehr Division just prior to Bastogne in "3 colour scheme", no zimmerit (most later Panther G didn't have any). What unit were you focusing on? Looking forward to seeing your progress so keep up the excellent work.

Blade48mrd