Thanks for the compliments David.

92 individual track blocks later and the left side tracks are completed.

I used larger wooden dowels to put a little sag in the tracks as the glue dries.

Here's how it looks after the dowels were removed.

The Panzer III is getting closer to the finish line ... One set of tracks done, one set to go.

Calling it a night.

Thanks for looking.

Fantastic work Louis! Those tracks look realy great. The Panzer III is coming to life.

Well it has been a LONG time since I have done any work on this one. In fact I'm a little embarrassed because of it...

However, I managed to make a little more progress ... and have some pictures to prove it 🙂

I painted some OVM tools using gun metal gray... and cut out the spare road wheel set. The tools still need some more detail painting before they get installed.

The tow cables were painted and installed... as was the "tankers bar" and tow cable "S" hooks.

ON the other side of the hull, the cable cutters were painted and installed, as was the engine hand crank... No I don't think I would like to manually turn over the engine using this hand crank. But the Germans did this quite frequently using two crew members and a lot of effort...

I know it's not much, but forward progress is progress, and I'll take it...

As usual, comments are encouraged.

I love your take on 'slow progress' Louis - you've done great work! I have masked a couple of windows and I'm downing tools! The finish on those tow cables looks fantastic!

Well, you learn something new every day! Or, in the words of the late, great Robert A. Heinlein (speaking as Woodrow Wilson Smith, a.k.a. Lazarus Long;) "You live and learn or you don't live long."

I did not know some of the old Panzers could be crank started!

Great Mk.III, Louis! Good looking model AND a great narrative.

Thanks gentlemen for the kind words. I'm going to try and continue with work on this one until I get it finished. Hopefully I can follow through with this plan.

Jeff I simply used an exacto blade to chip the road wheels. It's a whole lot easier to do when the wheels have not yet been installed. Just watch your fingers ! You could probably even do this when the wheels are still attached to the plastic trees.

I found a few pictures of how they hand cranked engines on German tanks. Here's how two persons can turn the engine over in a King Tiger.

Here you can see the hand crank installed on this King Tiger. It's the same tank as in the photo above.

I believe this is a backup method for starting the tank and not the primary way they were started.

I'm also pretty sure that all of the German tanks had this capability. If you look closely at the rear slope, you will see a small armored plate that is held in place with a bolt on each end. They would loosen the bolts and raise (or lower) this plate to gain access for the hand crank.

Later today I will try to post up a picture of the plate I'm talking about.

Jeff, I'm not an armor modeler, but one of the solutions I recall reading somelace is to staple the rubber band tracks together, and hide the join somehow. I suspect that's after trying to glue them together. That's interesting about hand cranking your tank, I had no idea. Not much call for that on the ol' teletype. We used to try "percussive maintenance". If that didn't get it going, you'd need a replacement, anyhow. When I was in the maintenance shop at MACV, there was this printer with a bootprint in this Vee shaped dent in the casing. The tag on it said "combat damage".