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I say my first armour build, because although I built quite a few Airfix kits in my early teens I don't recall building any armour they were, fighter planes, ships and railway rolling stock. My good lady and I attend a local arts and crafts group for 2 hours each Tuesday and needing a change from 7mm scale railway coaches, I had been looking at armour build videos on YouTube. Having modelled railways for the last 15 or so years, I found that I don't have any interest in building planes again so on a whim I decided to buy a tank kit to have a go. Sadly, it seems, I bought the rather old and not too accurate Panther A kit before reading any reviews etc. To be fair I have less than £16 in it including postage so it's no great loss if I stuff it up. It will also give me something to do whilst preparing the drawings etc. for my MKI Gun Carrier build (I did import the first drawing and resize it this evening). Because I will only spend a couple of hours a week on construction it will be a bit of a slow burn but I have made a start. The last couple of sessions have seen the the stowage boxes attached to the rear panel and that fixed in place. I have also drilled out the exhausts but will leave them off so that I can paint/weather them before I attach them. Because the original kit was designed to be motorised the instructions tell you to remove the teeth off the idler wheels with a hobby knife. I cheated and popped them in the lathe and it was the work of moments to remove the offending teeth. I have also spent quite a bit of time cleaning up the figures (no photos yet) and given the known inaccuracies of the kit don't plan to spend lots on aftermarket extras but I will scratch build what I can to improve it a little. With that in mind I turned up a couple of end caps and then along with some 5mm tube and some brass shim I made up a replacement gun cleaning rod stowage container (or at least that's what I think it is). Being primarily a 7mm brass kit builder soldering has no fears for me but I have to admit soldering the shim parts to the tube tested me. it was all done with 100 degree solder to keep the heat down. I am not sure how accurate it is as I took the basic measurements from the plastic it item and then worked to photos to give me the details - these are rather cruel enlargements but once the support bars are trimmed to fit and it has paint sloshed on it will be an improvement over the kit detail