ozzie's Panther or two

[Ozzie21]

Well this will be my first group build and it's off to a flying start, sort of. My first choice was a Dragon panther G model

But it turns out that I had already sort of done it

See when you get old the mind goes first

Then I thought well I have a Jagdpanther so enter another Dragon

It's not built but I have a resin interior for it so it would take a while to do as resin bits and I don't get along

So I'll leave this one for anther day.

Then I thought I have Bergepanther

But alas the mice have been busy again


So I'll scratch that off too

So that leaves this one

A Dragon Panther A and it's not built




I do have a couple of dress up bits for it, Fruilmodel tracks and a Royalmodel PE set. What I have to get is a PE Zimmerit set and a gun barrel mainly because the barrel is warped and my zimmerit skills are lacking, well okay non existant



So this will be my entry into the group build. I was planning on doing a tank from the 2nd Panzer division 1./Pz.Rgt3 from June of 1944 when they were in the area of the Somme awaiting the true invasion to begin in the Calais area but I'm having a hell of time trying to find a picture or two. Seems if you want an SS unit then it's no problem but a Heer unit is proving difficult. So I think I have found a picture of a Grossdeutschland tank in Lithuania in the summer of 1944. Just have to get conformation.

Thanks
Ozzie21

[DC87]

That brightened my day, very entertaining first post - sometimes the mice show considerable skill in building up kits although they do take their time as kits are often stored for years on end

You didn't chose it by the conventional means but the A is a good choice.

[Paul]

Great entry

[martin57]

ha, you got there in the end ,good luck with it

[NAMBiohazard]

I see your mice are building up there own Panther regiment

Nice entry, looking forward to seeing you build it

[Ozzie21]

Ahh yes.They have informed me they are getting a Panther D on Thursday. The mice are getting very tricky

Cya
Ozzie21

I see your mice are building up there own Panther regiment

Nice entry, looking forward to seeing you build it

[Russ72]

Nice one Ozzie, looking forward to the build.

[Ozzie21]

Okay I've made a start on the Dragon Panther A late kit. This model differs a lot from the "G" model kit in quality terms. The "A" does not the cooling fans or radiator assemblies found in the "G" kit. The 75mm gun also is different using the normal 2 piece barrel as opposed the slide molded barrel in the "G". Surface detail is also different with rolled steel effect not as prominent. It shows the age difference between the two kits as this kits has the colour printed instruction sheet on the nice shiny paper.



Okay I started with the turret:

This is a very simple affair to fit together and fits very well.

A couple of changes mainly with the cupola. I added the resin vision blocks that come with the Royal Model PE kit:


When these are installed part number F11 which locates the cupola in the hole in the turret roof has to be left out as the vision blocks are longer than the depth of the cupola. But no biggie
As some light sanding and the cupola will sit nice and flat on the turret roof.

I added the PE to the cupola for the cupola rail. A bit of a bugger to get perfectly round as this Royal Model PE set is in Nickel Silver and it's not as malleable as brass, and it's a bit thicker too.


After getting the cupola on and the rail fitted I added the hinge for the escape hatch and fitted the ventilator and the gunners vision port.



Turret front


Turret side

Next I tackled the mantlet which was not a god fitting part. One side would not sit down flat even after trimming off it's mounting relief. So some extra thin and Tamiya white putty did the trick.



The mount for the barrel is very different to that of the "G" model so I'm going to have to use the kit barrel, mainly because I can't get a metal barrel as there seems to have a buying frenzy and everyone I use is out of stock.



Okay this is where I am up to and I tackle the barrel next and then I wait till the zimmerit PE set turns up, the crew are in the same order.


Ozzie21

[chief5437]

Great start Ozzie! Can you send the mice my way? They might get more done than I have lately!

[EasyEight96]

Nice job Ozzie will be watching this

[martin57]

looking good

[Ozzie21]

Sorry Chief the mice inform me that due to imminent reconstruction in your area by the Boguns it won't be worth visiting sorry 42 and all that plus I had to subject a couple of them to the big pink water slide buggers will eat anything

ozzie21

Great start Ozzie! Can you send the mice my way? They might get more done than I have lately!

[Ozzie21]

Okay when your away the mice will play and they deliver too


PE zimmerit set. Will have to wait till next week for fitting as working this week


Bought these cause the picture description shows fully assembled wrong They are nice though.


[Tank crew. These will tax my painting skills so I hope I can do them justice


German AFV tow cable set. Must have clicked the wrong item cause I was sure they were wire and not cord wrong again

Have ordered a figure painting book for Heer and SS tank crews so I can practice on some old Tamiya figures that I was going to use before the Alpine guys showed up.

That's all folks I'm taking the foil hat off now

[Ozzie21]

thanks Hollywood . I will check it out.

ozzie21

Awesome Ozzie those alpine figures are the nuts... If you are interested I have a figure painting series on my yt channel that might help with the painting

[PaulAyrey]

What a nice bunch of goodies you have, look forward to seeing it all come together!

[MarkVerploeg]

This should make for a good build
I never used alpine figures as i.find most a bit expensive
But they look good
Cheers Mark

[NAMBiohazard]

Nice bunch of upgrades Ozzy
Like those figures

[Ozzie21]

Okay time for an update. Well I've been learning how to apply etched zimmerit and while it is fairly easy to anneal the stuff sticking it to a tank body is fraught with danger. When applying said zimmerit with CA glue ensure you have none on your fingers when you go for a leak its okay now you can laugh, nurse at the hospital did , and my eyes have stopped watering
Well with that bit of sharing over on with the build.


Applied etched zimmerit to body. I didn't anneal these parts as I thought it's a flat surface and should be okay. In hindsight I should have as the annealed etch seems to take on a different surface to the un-annealed etch.


I fitted the zimmerit to the rear plate. I also drilled out the exhaust pipes and fitted small pieces of plasticard in the throat of the pipe to act as grenade restrictors.


Engine deck with the etched fan mesh attached. This kit is an older Dragon kit as is not a s refined as the later smart kit "G" model so no representations of the radiators or cooling fans.


Turret loaders side with zimmerit etch attached.

Turret rear with the etch attached. You'll notice it's slightly uneven it was at this point I had my little accident


general shot of the turret. This kit had holes for the pistol ports. looking at various pictures of the "A" model it looks like only early ones had the ports.


Etched zimmerit applied to the gun mantlet. I'll fill the small gaps with putty as I tried to get it to match up but no joy.


This is the pain in the ass gun barrel. It was slightly warped so I doused it in hot water and teased it back into shape. This resulted in a noticeable seam which I treated with my new Flexi File, what a godsend, and some Mr Surfacer 500.


Rear stowage boxes with the etch applied. Just have to do the rest.


Front drive sprockets. I'm modifying these so they will turn. I've drilled out the hub, sprocket and the gear case to take a 10BA screw. In the hub I've fitted a piece of plastic tubing which will act as a spacer and allow the sprocket to turn making it easier to fit the intended Fruil tracks. I'm doing something similar to the rear idlers. As for the road wheels these will have to remain glued in place. This will mean a flat earth diorama as the suspension on this model is cast as part of the hull and does not move. This won't allow the wheels to move to suit the geography so flat earth it has to be.

Okay that's it till next time. I hope to have a new camera in the next couple of weeks I just haven't decided on what to get Nikon or Cannon. Either way I'll be retiring my tired old Fuji so my photography should improve.

Keep the CA off your fingers!!
Ozzie21

[PaulAyrey]

A great start, looks like it's going to be a good build.

[mick]

great start

[Rob]

Yup, indeed a great start (albeit with a sticky end, if you pardon the pun).

[Ozzie21]

Well got some more done though it doesn't seem like a lot. It has taken a while though as other stuff gets in the way mainly my job. Anyhoo on with the pictures.


This seemed like a good idea at the time. As this is an older kit it lacks some of the goodies of the later kits, like suspension and some interior bits. This kit also assembles differently to the Dragon "G" model panther so the space for engine fans is pretty limited so I made these flat things. The fans were spares from the "G" kit. After fartarssing around to get them in you can't seem them. Ahh well I know they are there.


I dry fitted the body to the hull as it needs a bit of trimming here and there to get the bits to fit.




The figures are just for show though the headless Alpine guy is one neat figure.


For some add reason the rearmost grills on this model stop about 2mm short . So there is a gap when when you fit the body and marry it up to the rear plate. I added some styrene strip, the white bits you can see, to fill the gaps.

Most of the rest is coming along nicely and I've only got a few more bits of the etched zimmerit to tease into shape and fit.
I'm away for two weeks so nothing will get done but the parcels will keep on coming.

Ozzie21

"Keep the CA off your fingers"

[Ozzie21]

Okay as it's been awhile and I'm up to the point where I've almost finished the build phase and I'm ready to prime the model. If I was doing it again I wouldn't choose the Royal Model PE again as it's made from a fairly thick nickel silver or stainless steel etch which is a pain to bend. Nearly every piece, not just the zimeritt etch, requires annealing before bending. This makes the whole build take longer and you start to lose interest so you stop and head off and do something else like buy new trains which is another story. One train is roughly 6 Tiger 1 kits at retail price.
So I've done about all the PE I want to do apart from a few chains and things which I'll add just after I paint. I'll do them this way as I've already knocked half of them off fitting other bits. I was going to use two crew figures but due to a lapse in concentration I glued both hull hatches then thought about it after . I had to do a fair bit of work on the hull as there were great gaps between the sponsons and the body plus there was some warpage in the body as well. This required lots of clamps, superglue, styrene rod and filler.

I have painted the wheels using Tamiya flat black and Life Colour Sandgrau. I primed and painted the tyres then after sufficient drying time I masked them with Humbrol Maskol which worked pretty well. The figure is an Alpine Miniatures guy and he's in winter gear so that'll be a different paint job which should be fun. Or I can just do him in SS camo
This where I am up to.


The wheels. Fruil model tracks are done as well. Just need to have sufficient weathering.

Left side. The side armour is a pain as it clings to everything due to static except the brackets.

Rear.

Right side.

Front

Top front.

Engine deck.

Okay I should get this primed tomorrow and have at least the base colour on as well. I have to go back on shift and I'll be working 60 hour weeks for the next month as we go into overhaul so I won't have much time to get things done. I hope to get her finished before the month is over but I can't guarantee that I'll get it done. Any way for a first GB it's been fun as it has involved not just building a model but amassing some new gear , new tools , a bench and a clean up and getting some research materials . But I still haven't cleaned up the modelling bench

[cib2265]

Looking great Charles - keep up the good work!

[PaulAyrey]

Coming along nicely, looking forward to seeing some more!

[NAMBiohazard]

Can't wait to see that zimmerit with some paint on
love that figure to

That looks awsome

[AchtungPanzer]

Zimmerit from Star Wars ..., but looks not bad Mr. Ozzie - model looks very good , keep it up

[felisbarcinonensis]

The panther is looking great! Love all that zimmerit!!!

[Ozzie21]

Well finally got some paint down on the Panther. Prime coated the model with Tamiya Primer, lacquer based one from the bottle. Then after a few days drying time applied a few coats of Life Colour Sandgrau. Had some fun with this paint as it wouldn't thin real well with Ultimate thinners, kept blocking up the nozzle of my H&S Evolution. This put splatters on the model so I had to wipe things off and start again. More primer, wait a couple of days then try the Life Colour again. This time I used Tamiya X20A and had a lot more success. it's all a bit odd as I've used the lifecolour paints and Ultimate thinners and had no problems so I can only assume it's an oddity with that batch of paint. So then I had to work a few days and then got back into few other things before I got around to the Panther again. I got some Mig Ammo colours so I thought I'd try those rather than have the Lifecolours bugger things up. The Mig ammo colours spray really well even out the cheap airbrush so I think I may have to get some more of those. So what's left to do before the deadline runs out, apply a gloss coat and decal then detail paint, more glass coat the chip and weather, fit and weather the tracks, apply a flat coat and finally pictures in appropriate setting re make a diorama of some sort. Ohh look there's only 10 days to go and I don't have enough time as I'll be at work for 8 of those days and they are 14hr days so I don't think I'll make the end bugger!













The camo pattern is off a Panther A at Stlo in Normandy, 1944. It's the best I can interpret of a B&W print. Unfortunately it doesn't give a unit so I can only assume that it's an Waffen SS unit. it was one of things I meant to research a bit more but I had a goldfish moment, it comes with age

[Coen]

aaaannnnd three more... and three more... and three more.... and three more...

Goldfish aerobics.




That looks fantastic Ozzie. That zimmerit is totally awesome!!!!!

[Ozzie21]

Thanks Coen. There's probably more goldfish moments on the way as well......... If orgot the crew

aaaannnnd three more... and three more... and three more.... and three more...

Goldfish aerobics.




That looks fantastic Ozzie. That zimmerit is totally awesome!!!!!

[Ozzie21]

Well due to work commitments I ran out of time on the Panther but I will still have to complete it as it's been fun and a learning curve, learn how to build, learn how to research, learn how to paint with a good airbrush and learn not to cry in your beer when it all goes wrong as nobody likes a sissy, maybe I shouldn't have done it at the bar

o this is where my panther is at, wheels and tracks are on but the tracks need detailing up. Decals are done and a light wash has been applied to bring up the zimerritt panels. Lots of weathering still to do and fitting of tow cables plus the figure still needs painting. The base for the vignette is here but nothing done to that as yet.














As you can see lots still to do. I might be lucky and get it finished in the next week or so if nothing else gets in the way.