Tamiya 1/35 Panther Ausf G (Early). First forray in to German armour.

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hi Folks.

It's been a while since I did a WIP post and a little while since I got stuck into a well detailed project, so, with the trigger finger itching so to speak I've delved into German armour in the form of Tamiya's excellent Panther G-early.

As is always the case when one suffers from that most terrible of afflictions, the dreaded AMS, I have plumped for several aftermarket items to help pop the kit out into something a touch more special.

Items can be seen in the photo below and they are:

• RB models turned aluminium main barrel.
• RB models aerial mast and base.
• Attak resin zimm.
• Eureka models tow cables.
• eduard exterior detailing and Schurzen.
• Bronco working tracks.

I've got the absolutely incredible Culver & Feists Panther in detail book as reference and I really cant stress how good this book is.

There are no plans on a dio for her at the mo I'm just going to see how the project rolls along, same goes for crew. I'm skeptical about the Bronco tracks too and may end up with Friuls, again we'll see how we go.

Any way I'm itching to get started so more progress to come.

As always, advice, comments and criticism welcome and thanks for following along.

Wagons roll!

Ben.

[Ozzy]

Looks like it's going to be an intresting build, I've always fancied building a panther.

[FrancisGL]

A good stuff for now, ever is cool watch a Kitten... ,cheers mate

[justaspitcrazy!]

Like I said, this is my first foray into German armour so will no doubt be a learning curve. the camo is going to be the biggest challenge I reckon!

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hi all,

I spent a good hour or 2 yesterday at the bench and whilst i wanted to make this build a bit more stage by stage i actually got carried away and did about 70% of the lower hull!

I haven't worked with ATAK zim before but i can tell you it's a pleasure to work with and has saved a lot of time that would have been taken up applying my own concoction.

Moving on anyway..

The bench as it stood ready for Zim to go on. The lower hull flew together, nothing unusual, usual Tamiya shake and bake really.

Also a few shots of the main hull, again nothing too special at the mo, just a nice kit to build really.

And so on to the Zim. The ATAK sheet includes all the required peices to cover all the commonly covered areas as well as a few resin parts for things like the gun mantlet, exhaust housings and the storage bins on the rear.

The sheet is very thin and surprisingly flexible as can be seen in the photos. In terms of prep, all i did was wet with water and gently sand the back of the sheet with a fine grade sanding stick in order to give the CA a bit more to key in to.

A close up of the pattern/texture on the sheet.

And an idea of the flexibility, don't push your luck too much though!

On this image you can see how smooth the surface is on the rear of the sheet, ATAK them selves reccomend a light sanding to the rear so this was the next step. Care is required though as it's easy to apply too much pressure and snag the sheet causing it to crack (i norrowly avoided this disaster myself!).

Ok. so, on to the application then. It's reccomended that you battle damage the Zim (if you wish) before applying. So i did this with a scalpel and the flat end of the handles of a pair of tweezers. I just went off reference from the book really and also what i thought looked pleasing.

To apply you simply cut or carefully pop the part off the sheet then lay it against the area it needs to be applied to check fit. Trim as required (i didnt need to) then apply your CA glue to the part or to the kit sparingly and gently press it into place. You should end up with the following result..

And from there work progressed quickly around the entire lower hull adding the various solid resin parts (bow machine gun and exhausts) along the way too...

At this point it was also a good time to start adding kit parts to the rear of the model. One of which is the jack which also required a few bits of photo etch.

Annoyingly you're left with 2 rather large locating holes to fill as the photoetch replacement for the jacks retaining bracket is much finer than the kit part so these will be filled at a later stage.

You can see them in the below photos at the top of the jack.

And there we are as things stand at this moment in time. Should hopefully get a bit more done this evening so the goal in that case is to move onto the hull sides with it's various tool racks etc.

Enjoying it very much at the mo so hopefully things continue along for the positive!

Cheers all for looking/following and as always comments and criticism welcome!

TTFN

Ben.

[Dads203]

That's looking good so far Ben ,

One to watch for later is the Bronco tracks, absolutely nothing wrong with them but do not use

Any mineral based spirit to weather them up as it makes the plastic really brittle.

Just use water based products as Bronco's plastic will give Bandai's a run for its money in brittleness

If you get any of the mineral based washes or weathering agents on them.

Dan

[justaspitcrazy!]

Right ok, good shout. I'll bear that one in mind when i get to it.

Cheers Dan!

[FrancisGL]

Absolutely cool zim!!!, very good quality and good job for now, cheers mate

[BigMouthStrikesAgain]

Looking great, zim't looks fab

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hi folks.

Thanks for the comments so far.

I haven't got any further since last post as I've been away all weekend with the Re-enactment group I'm part of.

Hoping to get back on track over the next couple of nights.

Any way here's a couple of shots from the weekend at Woodhall Spa. Our group represents the US 101st Airborne, US 10th Armored Division and 45th Field Hospital (no prizes for guessing which area I represent!).

It was a great show and our group won the prize for best living history display which just finished things off for us aswell as seeing the BBMF's Lancaster take to the skies for the first time since the fire and perform just for the show. Woodhall Spa is only 5 minutes from their base at Conningsby so the BBMF were out in force and at extremely low altitude, it was glorious!

Back to the Panther soon chaps!

TTFN, Ben.

NB, The Stuart isn't ours but the M3 Halftrack is.

[FrancisGL]

Nice "vinegtte",...lol, cheers mate

[Gremlin56]

Looking very good. I used Gator Grip acrylic glue to fit the Zimm on my IV. Works fine as well.

[BigMouthStrikesAgain]

Keep up the great work. Must try some ATAK Zim myself

[Blitz23]

I've got one in progress, except it's the A model Panther. I also used the bronco tracks which are so much nicer than the ones provided in the kit. Your use of zimmerit is a lovely addition, looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hello chaps.

Ok so as promised i've been back at the bench and been making headway on the engine deck and on the left side with the tool racks and gun cleaning rod case.

I didn't go overboard with the etch here for 2 reasons. 1, some of the kit parts were suitable and i think sometimes etch can look too thin or underscale and 2, the etch sheet includes a lot of bits that weren't often seen on Panther G's apart from a few specific vehicles. This is where the book comes in handy for research and it's wealth of photographs.

So here we have a top shot of the engine deck, problem free so far. I always use a small steel ball bearing when applying the mesh debris screens. Essentially glue them in place then roll the ball bearing around on them to press them into the detail underneath. I find it gives them the look of being walked on over time or of having had heavy stowage or even bricks land on them from urban fighting. Just my little thought process! You can also see the addition of the aerial base.

In this next couple of shots you can see the gun cleaning rod case. This required some skill to produce with the etch as the kit part had to be assembled and then sanded back to a blank cylinder for the addition of the etch enhancements. The plastic detail on this part was quite thick so the etch really improved it i reckon. You can also see the left tool rack in situ with very little etch other than a plate for securing the tow cable. Note also the bracket to the rear forming the base of the spare track hanger and also the gun travel lock is now in place.

The Bosch headlight is in place and i have drilled a small hole in the rear of the mudflap for the armoured cable to pass through. In reality the cable would pass through this hole then travel back to an armoured inlet on the underside of the left sponson. I haven't added the cable yet but when i do this will become much clearer.

And so that's that for now. I had to stop last night as the heat at the bench with the lamp etc was unbearable thanks to the Carribean weather we're having at the mo!

More to come tonight hopefully.

Many thanks for your comments so far, and as always keep them coming. The beauty of the forums is that we can all share experiences and learn from one another.

Cheers,

Ben.

[FrancisGL]

Very good job for now, nice resut, cheers Ben

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hello chaps,

As promised, a small update from last night.

The Bosch head lamp is now plumbed in. This was a simple task made difficult with poor tools, I really must invest in some good tweezers or needle nosed pliers.

Anyway, the result nicely replicates the real thing I think.

First shot. Bending the trunking to shape.

Second shot. Fitted. There was the beginnings of the cable molded on to the mudguard originally, but, I was concerned that the wire wouldnt match up to this so I cut it away and drilled a small hole in the light to insert the wire directly into. This not only allowed the application to look seemless but gave the cable a more solid anchor for the CA.

And the view of the cable entering the underside of the sponson (and the huge ejector pin marks on the underside of the mud guards. These will be filled with mud so not fussed about filling them at this stage).

Last bit for last night was to start on the tools etc on the right hand side of the hull. This is the hardwood block with the PE added once the molded on brackets had been removed. Had to be careful here as the kit part had some nice subtle cast wood grain that I didnt want to loose so couldnt get away with just sanding the thing down. I instead carefully cut all the brackets away and sanded these areas very carefully.

Once again that's all for now.

Cheers all.

Ben.

[FrancisGL]

Nice details,

[justaspitcrazy!]

Morning all.

Ok so after another evening at the bench i have got the hull to about 95% complete. All thats left are the wheels and the tow cables.

Wheels will be tackled seperately for obvious reasons when it comes to painting and weathering so I'll tackle the tow cable first. I'll do a seperate post on the tow cable because the kit has accuracy issues in this department. Essentially it lacks the rear anchors seen on Early panther G's and instead would have it just sort of "floating". The Eduard etch goes some way towards sorting this, however, but only in terms of a late model G as it would have you anchor the cables with a clamp behind the rear intake.

Anyway, I digress, I'll pick up on that in a future post.

Here are things so far. Right side tool racks complete.

Also I did the track hangers on the rear..

And that is that for now.

More to come soon

Ben.

[justaspitcrazy!]

Having just been looking at some of my photos i can see quite a few areas where the Zim doesn't meet or has mistakes in general.

Bit embarrassed! I'll go back over it I reckon!

[FrancisGL]

Very nice tools,

[justaspitcrazy!]

Cheers for comments so far chaps.

I've decided to bin off (Not literally! They'll be useful for spares) the Bronco tracks. I've put a few together and most of them have had to be glued as the small locking nipples snapped off far too easily and they also took a strange lateral curve off to the left.

So I opted in for a set of these instead and they really look the bees knees...

The set comes with 2 bags of miniscule track pins. One bag for the outside of the tracks with bolt head detail and one set for the inside with a domed head. Exceptional detail for such small parts.

To assemble, you either simply snap them together or you can drill out the pin holes and snap them together and push the pins into the holes for that extra level of detail.

The tracks themselves are lovely too, no flash that I could see and also hollow guide horns.

Time consuming and fiddly work with the pins but they should look really good on.

Cheers,

Ben.

[FrancisGL]

Did not know that brand, but it looks like first material (not Friuls, but ... ), and you're right the Bronco tracks IMHO, are garbage, bought some for Sherman, and after making a (suffered in hell get it), then he had to glue the lateral teeth well ...

As if that were not enough the result was mediocre as little ... so I DO NOT recommend anyone , unless it is a true model master and have the patience of Saint Job ... lol

[Oddball]

Ahh yet another kit that brings back memories, there seems to be loads on the forums at the moment. I built this one with the Tamiya Maybach engine installed about 8 or 9 years ago now. In fact it's one of the few kits from back then that has survived the passage of time, house moving, kids knocking off shelves etc, due to how sturdy it is. You're making a better job of yours though I must admit, I was still learning at the time (although in honesty, do we ever stop learning in this hobby?)

Those tracks look like a free ticket to the nuthouse, but the finished result will be sooo worth it. A couple of long evenings with a beer or two and the radio on. I wish I'd known about all this aftermarket stuff when I built mine.

[justaspitcrazy!]

Hi Oddball.

You're bang on the money when you say we never stop learning. Each new build is a learning curve. Each new project involves new products, tools and techniques.

These days I think it's really easy to produce top notch models. We really are spoiled for choice in terms of products and tools, compared to 10 or 15 years ago. "You're only as good as your tools" the saying goes I believe and I stand by that. I remember in my early teens brush painting a 1/72 Vulcan and how laborious the task was and how horrific it looked. When I'd finished I remember sitting and thinking dejectedly "that's the best I can do". If only I had the tools then that I have now I'm sure it would have been better, probably still terrible but better at least!

Innovative times my friend!