Another Trumpeter 1/16 Panther G Build - Steel Wheel - ONE MORE CORRECTION...DAMN TRACKS.

[Juggernut]

23 hours ago, LSP_K2 said:

Excellent! Just like looking at photos of the real stuff. My hat is off to you, sir.

Thank Kev, it’s been a long road to this point.  I think the rest will be a downhill run and this kit will be in the books in the near future.

[Juggernut]

11 hours ago, Uncarina said:

Stellar work! My hat is off as well.

 

Cheers,  Tom

Thank Tom,  It’s plainly obvious that I suffer from an acute case of AMS with this kit.  It will be a very long time before I attempt another such project.  

[Juggernut]

Hey guys, just a word of warning:  The upper hull on my kit doesn’t fit awfully well at the rear plate.  There’s a pretty large gap on one side (right) that despite all my efforts to date, will not go away.  I’ve got it down so that if I clamp the rear plate to the upper hull, I can close the gap.  I had to break the seams on the rear plate where it joins with the sponson and leave it free to move as part of the solution.

 
After reading a few builds online, it also appears that I’m not the only one who’s had this problem with this kit.  It may have been my error somehow but if it is, I’m not the only who’s made the same mistake.

[josebagasteiz]

I think know the cause of your problem that happens to me too. And it is that the rear side fuel tanks are poorly molded and that prevents the upper hull from fitting into the lower hull. I found out too late. 

[Juggernut]

15 minutes ago, josebagasteiz said:

I think know the cause of your problem that happens to me too. And it is that the rear side fuel tanks are poorly molded and that prevents the upper hull from fitting into the lower hull. I found out too late. 

 

I don't think that's the issue but I do know what you're talking about.  I had to sand the outside surfaces of mine so that the hull would fit.  I had to use 120 grit sandpaper wrapped around a sanding block to get the outside walls of the tanks within the bulkhead outer edges.  I had to remove a lot of plastic from those tanks.  They're not paper thin (even if they were, you'd wouldn't be able to see them (at least on my build because they're right next to the upper hull armor plate) but they are "flexibly thin".

 

My issue is that if you turn the model upside down and look at the forward end where the upper hull mates with the lower hull sponson, it's fine on the left side but the right side is off (gap) by about 0.50 inch (1.27 mm).  That translates to the same offset at the rear.  I cut, sanded, trimmed away at the upper hull in an attempt to reduce the gap but it wasn't successful.  I thought I had created the error when I cemented the upper and lower glacis together but they're fine so I' not sure what caused the gap.  I ended up, like I said, breaking the seam between the rear plate and the lower hull sponson and trimmed some of the engine compartment bulkhead (on the right side).

[Juggernut]

Jose!  YOU WERE RIGHT!

 

Well, when I was building the upper surface engine covers, radiator covers, and what not, I got so much agita over the rear plate not being aligned properly, I decided to fix it.  It just didn't sit right and clamping the rear plate to the upper hull would've probably resulted in popped seam at some point.... SO!  Biting my tongue, I took the X-acto knife with a number two blade and started chipping away at the weld beads and superglued joints that held the rear plate in place.  I'm actually thankful I used superglue now because it was easy to pop the seams and remove the rear plate.   LOL, don't look too closely or you might see that the ducting that I scratch built for the Panther G transmission and brake air ducts don't actually mate with the ducting heading to the radiator fans....this is the only way you can see it this obviously.... Looking down from above (when the back plate is on) you can't really tell.

 

 

 

 

Once removed, I found out that the rear end of the right fuel tank stuck out just a bit too far and so you see above that I "removed" a good chunk of the plastic and now the rear plate sits as it should.  I also leveled off the engine compartment wall that I "modified" last night in my first attempt at resolving the issue.  Below is a shot of the back plate with all the superglue removed (which was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be).  After doing that, I cleaned it off, loaded up some primer red-brown in the airbrush and reshot the entire rear plate.

 

 

Lastly, this is a shot of the warm-and-fuzzy I got when I dry-fit the plate in place after making the above modifications.  The hull is still offset by about fifty-thousands of an inch but without a measuring stick, you'll never be able to tell.

 

 

All is right again in the universe (at least in mine) and we continue on tomorrow

Edited April 11, 2022 by Juggernut

[Juggernut]

With the hull top cemented in place (and weld beads restored/added as needed), my attention turned to tying up the loose ends inside the hull.  I managed to successfully (almost) get all the radio power wires run from the dynamo's on the right side pannier to the radio rack.  The last one I cut too short and had to improvise a fix.  This involved cutting the solder (0.030 inch) back a ways into the antenna conduit (shown spanning the transmission opening) and running a new, longer wire to the last radio (naturally it was the furthest forward). I successfully hid the join so it's all but invisible.  My idea of mounting the radio rack to the forward hull and supporting it on the bottom with a piece of plastic rod to the transmission worked extremely well.  When the transmission cover is installed, it fits perfectly.  After that my attention turned to the various fittings on the hull.

 

The towing clevis hook mount securing pins needed a bit of help.  Trumpeter molded the top and bottoms of the pins but forgot the middle section that's very visible.  Fortunately this was an easy fix.  The spare track hangars on the rear of the hull were a little more difficult.  Trumpeter provides the track hangars as photo etch that really doesn't capture the look of the hangars very well.  So, I cut sections of square tubing of the correct size and snipped off the top and made them "U" shaped.  I sanded the edges to a rounded shape so they'd more resemble what these hangars actually looked like.  My chosen vehicle from the 2nd Kompanie, 1st SS Pz. Div. had the spare tracks moved to hooks on the turret that were added by the maintenance battalion (or whatever formation it is), leaving the other track hangars bare.  I added miniature chain to each pin on both the track hangars and the clevis hook hangars making rings from 0.008-inch wire wrapped around a file handle of the appropriate diameter.  I then slid the wire wrap off the handle and cut them into circles using an xacto knife. For the spare track hangars, I drilled holes in each of the pins, inserted one ring into the hole and then threaded one end of the chain into each ring.  I then closed each ring and added a dab of superglue to keep it shut.  I superglued the other end of the chain next to each bracket as it appears that they were welded next to each one on the real vehicle.  For the towing clevis pins, I did pretty much the same thing but joined the two chains together with another ring and installed that ring into a U-shaped piece of copper wire and then inserted that wire into the tool storage rack.  Very fiddly work to say the least.  I still need to add weld beads (very short ones) to the ends of the tool racks and fixtures.

 

 

 

 

 

Then came the main gun... These photos are of an incomplete assembly but since it looks really cool, I thought you may like to see what it looks like.  I used the plastic barrel as the metal one would've just made balancing it impossible and unless it was in the travel lock, it would've just been at maximum depression all the time.  The plastic barrel isn't bad at all.  It may not be 100% accurate in taper (but maybe it is, I don't know for sure...it does look the part) and even t hen, when I put the gun between the trunnions, it sank to full depression.  To fix that, I did to the pivots what we do to aircraft control surface bearings to keep them from falling out; I staked the pivot pins within the trunnions.  I used a needle in a pin vise and poked holes in both the pivots and trunnions around the circumference of the interface to create friction/interference so the gun will stay where I put it.  It worked just fine and now the main gun will stay in any position I put it in.

 

The breech and breech block were sprayed Alclad II steel, masked off and the rest of the gun was painted elfenbien (ivory).  There's still more detail parts to be installed but the majority of it is there.  I also sprayed the  recoil cylinder rods steel.  One of those goes in the hole in the cylinder on the right side of the gun in the picture.

 

 

 

The gunsight is pretty much out of the box with only a clamp and headrest added.  I sprayed it Tamiya Dunkelgelb (Armor yellow) as I thought it looked nice that color rather than elfenbien.  The scratch built clamp and headrest were painted panzer grey and matt black respectively.  The eye cup also got a coat of flat black with the lens getting a dollop of Microgloss.  I gave it a dark brown pin wash and dry brushed some highlights onto it and I'm calling this done.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for lookin in; comments always welcome.

Edited April 30, 2022 by Juggernut

[josebagasteiz]

Nice detail job. 

 

You have a very good pace of work, I see that you are approaching the end. Looking forward to seeing your Panther finished.!!! 

 

I'm stuck with radios and shells, paint problems slow me down. 

[LSP_K2]

On 4/10/2022 at 10:17 AM, Juggernut said:

Hey guys, just a word of warning:  The upper hull on my kit doesn’t fit awfully well at the rear plate.  There’s a pretty large gap on one side (right) that despite all my efforts to date, will not go away.  I’ve got it down so that if I clamp the rear plate to the upper hull, I can close the gap.  I had to break the seams on the rear plate where it joins with the sponson and leave it free to move as part of the solution.

 
After reading a few builds online, it also appears that I’m not the only one who’s had this problem with this kit.  It may have been my error somehow but if it is, I’m not the only who’s made the same mistake.

 

I have similar problems with my Jagdtiger. A little grinding might be in order, plus the generous use of bar clamps and cement.

[Juggernut]

On 4/30/2022 at 6:20 PM, josebagasteiz said:

Nice detail job. 

 

You have a very good pace of work, I see that you are approaching the end. Looking forward to seeing your Panther finished.!!! 

 

I'm stuck with radios and shells, paint problems slow me down. 

 

I am working rather quickly, thanks.  I'm getting sick of this model and want it done and off my bench...LOL.  There's a bunch of loose ends that'll need to be tied together at the end before I can call this done but I'm hoping it'll be sooner than later.  Happy belated birthday!

Edited May 2, 2022 by Juggernut

[josebagasteiz]

El 5/1/2022 a las 0:56, LSP_K2 dijo:

 

 

¡¡Muchísimas gracias!! 

 

como supiste que era mi cumpleaños?? 

 

Sorry, wanted to quote Juggernut. 

Edited May 2, 2022 by josebagasteiz

[Juggernut]

6 hours ago, josebagasteiz said:

 

¡¡Muchísimas gracias!! 

 

como supiste que era mi cumpleaños?? 

 

Sorry, wanted to quote Juggernut. 

 

 Alguien lo publico en el foroe de discusion general.  

 

If you've added your birthday to your profile, it will show up on the main page every year.

Edited May 2, 2022 by Juggernut

[Uncarina]

Excellent progress! Nice to start seeing the outside of this beast as well. 

 

Cheers,  Tom

[jeroen_R90S]

I just finished reading through all 15 pages -I know know very little about Panthers (other than that I have a picture of me and my brother sitting on one at the Overloon Museum when they still had most stuff outside, we were ~12 y/o at that time), but that's really impressive work and attention to detail!

[Juggernut]

4 hours ago, jeroen_R90S said:

I just finished reading through all 15 pages -I know know very little about Panthers (other than that I have a picture of me and my brother sitting on one at the Overloon Museum when they still had most stuff outside, we were ~12 y/o at that time), but that's really impressive work and attention to detail!

 

Thanks for the comment.  I will admit that it's getting harder and harder to add needed details as I get closer to the end.