1/35 Tamiya ”Kursk” Panther D Sd. kfz. 171

Started by Louis Gardner · 40 ≡ · ↻ 7 years ago · 1/35, Kursk, Panther, Tamiya
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    Jeff Bailey said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Lovely, Louis! I also appreciate the scuffed metal of the rubbing of the center guides on the roadwheels. Attention to detail, for sure! Be sure to chunk some of the rubber from the roadwheels, too! We both know how bad that can get! But except for one of mine & 1 or 2 other folks' builds, that isn't shown on anyone's models.

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Thanks for the compliments Ian. Yes I had planned on making this one dusty... I have a 1/32 Stug III (not quite done yet, very close though) also in Kursk markings, that I wanted to finish up once I get to the point of weathering this one. I was going to try and dust up both armor models, and possibly a Russian KV-1 at the same time.

    Thank you Michel. Here's another small update to follow.

    Good stuff David ! If it had a prop it may get mixed up with a Sherman DD tank, and we couldn't have that now could we ? 🙂 But I have an idea for you... 🙂 Thanks for the compliments my friend.

    Yes Jeff, you are absolutely correct about the rubber chips on the road wheels. I did this to a Panzer IV that I posted a while ago, and I think it looked very realistic. I didn't chip the road wheels on my M-60, because I was very particular with my tank. Once I had some chips starting, I almost always replaced the road wheel. Break out the "Dog Bone, Little Joe and Tankers Bar...". On occasion I chip the wheels, especially when I'm trying to make it look more "used". Spoken like a true Tanker... Thanks buddy. The wear marks on the outer ring of the road wheels was a very common sight on Panthers, and early Tigers without the resilient steel wheels.

    Today I managed to get the decals on...

    Here's the German Cross on the bow gunner's side of the hull...

    and the driver side

    followed by the rear where it was in between the exhaust pipes.

    Then I added the running "Panther" and number #445 on each side of the turret.


    Once they dry sufficiently, I'll give them a coat of Testor's "Dull Coat".

    Thanks for following along.

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Here's how the Panther looks after the Dull Coat dried.

    And these pictures are for David.



    Enjoy !

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    david leigh-smith said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Louis, you are a star! It takes something a bit special to get me laughing on a Monday morning.
    This is a beautiful cat, Louis. I'm so impressed how you crossover between air and armour with the same relentlessly high standard.
    Have a great day!

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    jim wasley said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Nice to see your build coming along so well Louis,and those track really look good,my tank tracks are a bit of a pain,I think any Tamiya kit sets a standard for all other kit manufactures.Cheers

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    Bernard E. Hackett, Jr. said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    I got to stop this drinking. Now I'm seeing propellers on a tank. Gevald!

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Thanks for the kind words David... I'm glad that I made your Monday a little better... I have been building armor models almost as long as I have aircraft. One thing that I believe helps me was actually serving as a tank crewman in the US Army. It gave me some insight as to how they get dirty and how they should look. The trick is trying to get them to look that way !

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Jim the tracks on this build are not the one piece tracks that were provided in the kit as standard. Instead these are the "optional" Tamiya individual link ones. They simply snap together and are a workable track. They are a really nice addition to the kit since they capture the look of track blocks much better than the one piece "rubber band" types. At least in my opinion they do.

    Your Sturm Tiger came out looking very cool !

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Too funny Bernard !

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Last night I did some more work on the Panther... I started building and painting all of the little bits that are mounted on the sides of the hull.

    First off I had to build the track blocks, and prepare the other parts for painting.


    Then a test fit of the tracks on the sides of the hull.


    Then I started painting these parts...

    Everything was left to dry overnight.

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    Jeff Bailey said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Beautiful, Lou! I already commented on the roadwheel steel, and now I see you've really gotten things in great shape.

    I wish we'd had enough roadwheels in supply for DX'ing any with chunked rubber. We had to have the rubber gone down to the bare aluminum (or steel - whatever was available) before they'd exchange one.

    I managed to keep a Tanker's Bar after I ETS'ed. I gave it to one of my buddies who used it to crack cement. I still have the 4 feet-long cheater pipe that we used, too. We actually had a Little Joe that had a permanently attached (by jamming them together) cheater pipe on it. It JUST fit in one of the hull tool boxes. It was nearly 5 ft. long! Great memories!

    PS - for anyone who doesn't know what a Little Joe, Dogbone, or a Tanker's Bars are (and are curious) they are tools issued with each American tank (& any other country's tanks, I'd wager) for working on the tracks. The Little Joe is a very large open-ended wrench (or spanner, for our British friends) used to put on or release track tension on tanks that adjust tension in a screw-like fashion - (they are about 80 cm long & weigh a couple kilos or 5 pounds, if memory serves); the Dogbone is a tool about 15 inches long (or about 35 cm long) that fit OVER a track's end-connector then under a roadwheel arm. After being placed in position, the Driver would creep forward enough so the Dogbone would raise the roadwheel(s) enough so when the bolts were removed, the roadwheel(s) would raise up and clear the center guides for roadwheel removal. Lastly, the Tanker's Bar is an often used tool about 5 feet long (or a bit less than 2 meters) that is simply a long, VERY tough rod of steel that had a flattened sort of chisel point on one end. It is used as a pry bar primarily, but is also used for a multitude of other tasks - that usually involve prying - LoL! A Cheater Bar is simply a piece of steel pipe that slips over various tools to add length & make the job of tightening or loosening parts (mostly bolts) easier, thanks to physics.

    Anyway - Louis, great job on what (in MY humble opinion) is the coolest tank of the WW2 timeframe. Yeah - it had it's issues, but it was a great tank in the history of tanks.

    (End with strains of "Year of the Cat" by Al Stewart - a great song from 1976) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_theCat(song)

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Thanks Jeff. I guess we were lucky in that we did get to replace our road wheels in a timely fashion. However there were times when we ran all of the rubber off the wheel.

    One other thing I did with the tanks I served on was to get rid of all of the aluminum road wheels and convert over to steel wheels. For those of you who don't know, we had two styles of road wheels that were used on the old M-60 series of tanks. The aluminum ones had a series of "ribbed" reinforcements on them that were highly visible from the outside of the wheel like this one on the right of this picture. The steel wheels were much better in my opinion... Plus they didn't have the troublesome wear plates that were bolted on the inside. The wear plates were made of steel, and were half of a circle. They were there to protect the aluminum portion of the road wheel from being eaten to bits by the steel center guides... You can see the small series of bolts along the outer edge of the wheel on the road wheel on the right side. These bolts held the wear plates tightly against the aluminum outer portion of the wheel... sometimes. The bolts would either break off, of wear away which allowed the wear plate to come loose. When the wear plate came loose, it was rapidly torn off by the center guides on the tracks... Now you had a bare aluminum road wheel rubbing against steel center guides.

    The aluminum wheels were rapidly ate up by the center guides once this happened. I hated those aluminum wheels for this reason... They were originally used to put the M-60 on a diet... and tried to shed a few pounds wherever they could.


    here's a "Tankers Bar" shown below. It's about 5 feet long...

    and a "Little Joe" wrench in this picture below.

    Ours always had a big piece of pipe wedged over the end of it for more leverage with adjusting the track tension...

    Bring back any good memories Jeff ? 🙂

    I have some updates for the Panther build later tonight. I made some great progress with it...Please stay tuned.

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    As promised, here's the updates on the Panther.

    I painted and installed the spare track blocks on the rear sides of the hull.



    Completed the road wheel arm jack and mounted it on the rear slope: (I still need to paint the exhaust pipes)

    Then started working on the "Pioneer Tools" that were mounted on the sides of the hull in various locations.


    Here's the wooden block (shown in this photo below) that was commonly carried on German Tanks. It was painted in various wood tones, and then wrapped with the kit supplied wire. On the real Panther's I'm pretty sure this smaller cable was used to lift / hoist the track onto the front sprocket. They simply took the cable, connected it to the last track link and then wrapped the cable around the sprocket... The driver then put the tank in gear. He would operate the steering mechanism in the direction that caused the sprocket to move. As the sprocket moved, the cable would pull the track assembly up and onto the sprocket. This allowed the crew to install the track pin and connect the track ends together.

    One other note: The small dark gray cylinder next to the wooden block shown in this picture:


    was actually a fire extinguisher. In the mid War the color was changed to Panzer Yellow. Dark Gray was used prior to this change.

    Getting closer ! I still need to install the tow cables in a realistic manner. Most often these cables were connected to the tank on the "standing end" prior to entering a combat zone. This would allow for a faster recovery in case the vehicle broke down (or got stuck) while under fire from the enemy forces. The other "running end" was usually draped over something where it was easily accessible.

    Many of these early Panthers broke down from various mechanical reasons. (Not a good thing when someone is shooting at you...).

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    David Mills said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Super work Louis... you've given me an idea...

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    Louis Gardner said 7 years, 4 months ago:

    Today I added the tow cables.

    The actual cable part is thin copper wire. I decided against using the kit provided thread to represent the actual wire rope portion of the cable.

    They were connected to the rear clevis pins first as seen in this photo below.


    I positioned them on the rear deck so they would be ready to use at a moments notice. You can see them in these photos below.


    Then the insides of the "S" mine dischargers were painted flat black to give them some depth.


    and the crew members were assembled. I'm going to attempt and paint these guys: I'm horrible at painting figures.

    This is how the Panther looks right now.



    The next step is to dust it up some with a lighter sand colored shade of chalks.
    Then as soon as the crew figures have been completed, this one will be done.

    Enjoy your weekend, and comments are encouraged.

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